TENSION IN RUMANIA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 September 1940, Page 7

TENSION IN RUMANIA

LOSS OF TRANSYLVANIA PROTEST MEETINGS HELD EXPRESSIONS OF BITTER RESENTMENT. TROOPS CONTROL CROWDS IN BUCHAREST. The fact that the Rumanians are bitterly disappointed regarding the surrender of more than half of Transylvania is indicated by rioting, which has occurred in Bucharest and North Transylvania, Daventry reports. Protest meetings began yesterday afternoon in Bucharest and soldiers with fixed bayonets and machine-guns hemmed in the crowd. An attempt was made to rush to the Royal Palace but the streets were barricaded. Police dispersed the crowd and the whole city is being patrolled by armed police. There is tension throughout Rumania and all musical and sporting events set down for yesterday have been cancelled. NAZI MINORITIES FREEDOM TO ORGANISE IN HUNGARY. PART OF SETTLEMENT TERMS. LONDON. August 30. At Belvedere Palace, Vienna, the Foreign Ministers of Germany, Italy, Hungary and Rumania, Herr von Ribbentrop. Count Ciano, Count Csaky, and M. Manoilescu, signed an agreement giving Hungary 17.600 square miles of Transylvania. Hungary gets more than two-thirds of Transylvania, including three districts inhabited by Magyars and Szeklers numbering 450,000. This approximates to Hungary’s original demands. The ceded territory contains 2,000,000 people, including 800,000 Rumanians.

Rumania has already begun the evacuation, which will be completed in a fortnight, when the territory must be handed over. The inhabitants of the ceded territory will receive Hungarian citizenship, but may elect to remain Rumanian within six months, whereupon they must go to Rumania. Hungary and Rumania have made an agreement for the fair treatment of their minorities remaining in each other’s territory. Germany has also extracted an agreement from Hungary and Rumania that German minorities will be allowled freedom to carry on Nazi organisations and will be represented proportionately in all self-governing institutions. Germans will get the right to be educated in German, have German civil servants, and use the German language officially where the German minority amounts to onethird of the population. Germans in the ceded territory will get facilities to return to Germany.

PROTEST TO AXIS MADE BY RUMANIAN PEASANT LEADER. LONDON, September 1. Dr Maniu, the Rumanian Peasant Party leader, has sent a message of protest to Hitler and Mussolini against the Vienna decision concerning the transfer of portions of Transylvania to Hungary.

"I protest with all my spirit against the Vienna arbitration which gives Hungary the majority of Rumanian materials in Transylvania together with the Hungarian minorities,” Dr Maniu said. "The verdict sets aside the principles of nationality laid down and is calculated to lead to further disruption and lack of harmony.” Dr Maniu has appealed to the dictators to cancel the decision, adding that Transylvania would never accept it without being consulted.