RUMANIA TO-DAY

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 185, 1 May 1919, Page 5

RUMANIA TO-DAY

LITTLE FOOD AND NO TRANSPORT

SYSTEMATIC GERMAN PILLAGE

("Times" Special Correspondent.)

I iAI ' ' February 25. i With the exception of\Serbi:i Rumania I iias certainly suffered more than any of the Allies. Only the incomparable natural resources of the country have made it possible to ward off famine, but tho devastation and pillage were as complete as German iinserupuloiism?ss and scientific methods could make them. Everything has been taken, even Ihe essentials of life and of labour, and with even greater malice than in Belgium. i'Vir here the Germans had the (to them) allsufficient justification of punishing a country which had dared, although economically completely- dependent on Germany to take tip arms on the side of the Allies. 1 hey spent two years in systematically transporting (o Germany everything which they tineied-furniture, silverware, clothing, machinerv. food unci live stock. They sent 2,M0,000 tons of cereals in railway trucks, but they must have sent another million tons in paper packages. Every soldier was allowed to send, five kilos (111b.) of coreals home* every little while. Nineteen hundred' and emliteen was a bad crop year in Wallaclua, but the Germans were careful to export at.:once all the grain which was harvested.) > . But of all they took out. nflthe country nothing so seriously crippled Rumania as the means of transport.. There are in the whole of the Kiliirdoni 84 engines in fit condition. All of t!;e horses and most of the oxen were , token.

The telegrapli and telephone wires are mostly down, and there is no material available to repair them, which, together with the- lack of a train service, makes it very difficult to obtain comprehensive information about the food situation.

There is considerable difference of opinion as to the quantity of foodstuffs now. in the country. After consulting various peoples, including, the representatives of the Allies who have had the matter under examination, I believe it is safe to say that, there is sufficient food available, if there were anv means of transcortirjg.it from one point to another. The Government,Mioweyer, is not of this opinion, and the Minister of Industry and Commerce, M. Constautinesco, told me that the present supplies will' only hold out until the end.of April, and that iir.less.the Allies manage to get seed here during the next month there will be practically no harvest, as the Germans have carried off all of the seed grains. Four Allie'l ships have so far arrived, carrying 26,000 tons, of flour, which has already been distributed,' in spite of the overwhelming difficulties—broken bridges, luck of transport, etc.. In the wliole of Bessarabia, for instance, there are only five engines, and as the tracks there areconsiderably wider than those, in Rumania it ..is.'impossible'to send engines from here.

Until tho transport question'is settled nothing can be done. Two hundred engines would bring greater relief to Rumania at: the present moment than my amount of food,' badly as this is wanted.'