The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1927. TROUBLE IN THE LEAGUE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 223, 21 September 1927, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1927. TROUBLE IN THE LEAGUE.

For the emus that lack* aeeietanet, For the wrong that neede reeieta.net, For the future in the distance And the food that we om fa

During the past week the attention of the League of Nations has been largely concentrated on the dispute between Hungary and Rumania in regard to the treatment of the Transylvanian lands. A committee Vas set up some time ago by the Council of the League to consider this matter, and the Hungarian representatives have emphatically refused to accept its findings. There was a long and heated argument between • Count Apponyi, speaking for the old Magyar feudal landlords, and M. Titulesco, the head of the Rumanian delegation, but it led to no definite result. At last Sir Austen Chamberlain seems to have lost patience, and after reproaching the Hungarians for their obstinate refusal to make a single concession to their opponents, he threatened-to withdraw from the committee. .

The facts behind this acrimonious controversy can be stated clearly and briefly. Ever since 1864, when serfdom was abolished, the Rumanians have been breaking up their large estates and subdividing the land among the I peasantry. When, after the Great War, the Powers, on nationalist principles, annexed Transylvania to Rumania, a large number of Hungarian subjects came under Rumanian authority, about 900,000 out of the Transylvantan population of 2,700,000 being of Magyar origin. Naturally the Rumanians proceeded to apply to their new territory the same method of subdivision which had been in progress in their own rural districts for half a century. The Hungarians strenuously objected, and were supported vigorously by the Magyar Government at Budapest. It must be understood that the Rumanians are not confiscating this land, but only expropriating the landowners, offering them very Substantial compensation. But the N Hungarian ruling class consists of landowners accustomed to manage large estates on feudal lines, and while they bitterly resent the loss of their huge holdings they view the Rumanian land system with peculiar abhorrence, because it is part of the settlement imposed upon them by the Trianon Treaty, which they have pledged themselves never to accept.

It is evident firom the tone of the discussion between Count Apponyi and M. Titulesco that the Hungarians are in reality making a stand not simply against the Rumanian land policy, but against the whole settlement arranged by the Powers after the war. TEe Rumanians appear to have taken a false step in withdraw ing their judge from the mixed arbitration tribunal which was adjudicating upon the land question, evidently as a protest against the impracticable attitude of the Hungarians. But if we are to judge by Sir Austen Chamberlain's caustic comments, the general feeling of the League is strongly against Hungary, and the Magyar are likely to lose rather than gain by this disingenuous attempt to tear up the Trianon Treaty and thrdw Eastern Europe into the melting-pot again.