RUMANIA’S PROBLEMS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 December 1938, Page 8

RUMANIA’S PROBLEMS

REASONS FOR KING CAROL’S DICTATORSHIP MANY FOREIGNERS INCLUDED IN POPULATION. MAJORITY IN SOME PROVINCES. (By R. H. Markham in the “Christian Science Monitor.”) TIMISOARA, Rumania. A visit to the Rumanian city of Timisoara helps one to understand why there is a dictatorship in Rumania. It may not justify the dictatorship, but partially explains it. Timisoara has been within the bounds of Rumania for twenty years, but is still foreign. The parliamentary governments that have come to power since the World War — more than a dozen in number —have completely failed to Rumanianise Timisoara, or any other first-rate city in the “new provinces.” . Plainly, Rumania cannot subsist unless its cities.acknowledge and disseminate Rumanian influence, authority and prestige. So King Carol himself is trying to solve the problem. Timisoara is the finest city in the

land, with the single exception of Bucharest. It is clean, prosperous, filled with splendid buildings and abounding in superb parks. Its flowers i might in-

cite the admiration of many a European metropolis. It is a cultural centre of the very first rank. It has a theatre, museums, schools of many sorts, fine hotels, pleasant cafes, very good local newspapers. In banking and industry it holds a leading place. Rumania might well be very proud of Timisoara, but is not —because Timisoara is foreign. As all other “new province” centres.

Nowhere outside of Timisoara’s official buildings is the predominant language Rumanian. In the cafes, hotels taxis, restaurants, factories, bookstores, barber shops, newspaper offices, -one hears chiefly Hungarian and German. This is so striking that the Mayor has issued an order that chaffeurs who do not greet their passengers in Rumanian will, be deprived of their licenses. The chaffeur is Hungarian or Gerpian or Serbian and his clients are, too,,but he dare not say “Jo Reggelt” or “Giiteh Morgen,” or “Dobro Jutro”; he must say “Buna Dimineatsa.” He must tip his cap, too —and that means cap — such as a general wears. No slouchy chaffeurs here and no unshaved ones. Which is very fine, but how <■ can a German chaffeur and a German bank director chat in Rumanian when neither has ever gone to a Rumanian school? Twenty years ago 90 per cent of the population here was non-Rum-anian, and 73 per cent still is. This is first of all a German city, then Hungarian, and last of all Rumanian. Furthermore, most of the Rumanians here are new. This was a German, Hungarian, Jewish, Serbian city in 1918, with a few humble Rumanian workers in the outskirts. And this last fact is the most serious element in the situation. Not only do the Rumanians constitute a numerical minority in the new province cities, but in the matter of culture and prestige, they are an inferior element.

If one should go from Timisoara to another provincial capital, Craiova, in old Rumania, he would see a striking contrast. The purely Rumanian Craiova is far behind its foreign sister in every respect. A distinguished Rumanian author and arden patriot, I. Simionescu, in a recent book on Rumanian cities says of Craiova, “The public buildings are not devoted to art, science and religion. Nowhere is the darkness of illiteracy so dense .as in the country around it.”

Ihis is the opinion of a loyal Rumanian. He has somewhat overstated the case, but Craiova is certainly an uninspiring city. These two cities, one in “old Rumania” and one in a “new province,” are symbols graphically showing 'the differences between German-Hungarian and Rumanian culture. Can Craiova impose itself on Timisoara? That is one of Rumania’s supreme problems.

It has to be remembered that of the 20,000,000 Rumanians nearly 30 pei cent, or approximately 0,000,000 are foreigners. Less than half the population lives in the old kingdom, and of the inhabitants of the new provinces only a trifle more than half are Rumanians. In two of the new provinces, in fact, the Rumanians are a minority, while they form barely one third of the urban population in the others. In 1918 they formed less than one fifth. Rumania has just been divided into ten administrative provinces, each with a provincial governor. The chief city in five of these ten administrative provinces contains a majority of nonRumanians.

Over against this large foreign population the Rumanians were divided intc a dezen pc litical parties, as well as intc “new and old Rumanians.” Coulc' 14,000 003 disunited people in such circumstances absorb 6,000,000 aliens? That was one of the supreme problems that faced the sovereign, and the answer he gave it was the creation of a royal dictatorshin.