RUMANIAN ACTION

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 248, 27 July 1940, Page 8

RUMANIAN ACTION

LONDON MINISTER RECALLED.

NAZ! ACTIVITY IN BALKANS. 1

(United Press Association.—Copyright.)

LONDON, July ‘25

Tho Rumanian Minister to London (M. V. Tilea) has been recalled by the Rumanian Government. The question of his successor is now under consideration.

Regret is expressed in official quarters at M. Tilea’s recall. He was appointed, to.. London in February last year. During his term of office he has been well-known for his efforts to maintain and improve relations between Britain and Rumania.

Recent developments in Rumania, with which commentators here incline to link the recall of M. Tilea and the feverish, activity of German diplomacy in south-eastern Europe, have brought the problems of that area back into the forefront of interest in diplomatic circles' in London.

British policy there, as elsewhere, has for long been directed to the maintenance of the principle that outstanding questions between States should he submitted to a peaceful settlement in a spirit of mutual respect and goodwill. As the menace of Nazi aggression grew, and its sinister shadow lengthened across Europe, the British Government sought to exercise a stabilissing influence, and found its efforts seconded with comprehension and loyalty by the Turkish Government. i It. will, for example, be recalled how in April, 1939, the British Government gave a guarantee to> Rumania after Hitler had unloosed his war in Europe. British diplomacy has never ialtered in its counsels on behalf of Balkan solidarity as a safeguard against Nazi exploitation and attack. Insofar' as Some accommodation between the Rotates was concerned on some matters long at issue between them, it was a condition of their close rco-operation and-a -unified front that the good offices of .the British Government would never be refused. • Sympathy with Bulgaria. On the other hand, in eases where good sense enjoined that to face a common danger questions which were liable to arouse passion and suspicion should be postponed or claims should be held in restraint against a return of conditions where a settlement by negotiation and without resort to violence could be anticipated, the British Government did not permit its sympathies and opinions on the merits of the questions themselves —sympathies often well known—to prejudice its moderating influnce. Tho Rumanian and Bulgarian frontier question may be cited as an illustration. The justice of the Bulgarian claims against. Rumania in this region for some time past has been recognised by the British Government and in the British press. They have always received sympathetic notice. But, while the strengthening of Rumanian resistance to encroachments from Berlin presented itself as one of the most important contributions to Balkan peace, Britain felt obliged to place first the safeguarding of justice and freedom for Europe, and to relegate to second place the realisation of justice in one. case in one part of Europe. It is believed in London that his; atitude is not understood in Sofia. More recent events have gone far to destroy hopes on which this atitude is founded, and if the result should be the earlier restitution to Bulgaria, in accordance with her just claims. British satisfaction will not be withheld, even if justice should paradixically he aided by outside intervention inspired by motives the reverse of just.