WHITHER RUMANIA?

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 253, 24 October 1936, Page 11

WHITHER RUMANIA?

JIG-SAW PUZZLE.

HINT OF BALKAN INTRIGUE. WHAT IT IS ALL ABOUT. (By CECIL W. LUSTY.) A hint of Balkan intrigue is contained in this week's cable message that M. Tatarescu, Fascist Prime Minister of Rumania, is visiting Yugoslavia incognito, and fear is expressed by France that her influence will be weakened. Why M. Tatarescu chooses to visit Yugoslavia incognito, if secrecy is not observed, as is evident from the announcement, seems hard to understand. It does, however, add point to the ratlier mysterious way in which Balkan intrigue moves. The foreign policy of Rumania under the new Fascist Cabinet is not clearly defined. Certainly the recently dropped pilot, M. Titulescu, who held the position of Foreign Minister for about 20 years, had a strongly enunciated policy of alliance between France and Rumania and the strengthening of the Little Entente, a policy that has always been bitterly opposed by the Fascists of his country. King Carol himself effected the changes in the Rumanian Cabinet while M. Titulescu was on holiday; now, according to the cablegram, he is seeking to have near him those wMB are favourable to the deposed Minister's foreign policy. It is probable that M. Tatarescu is seeking to create a Fascist bloc, and is enlisting the aid of the strong Fascist parties in Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia lias four rival Fascist or semi-Fascist groups, the famous pre-war Nationalist organisation, the formei Komitadjis, the Fascists proper and [Yugoslav Action, a youth organisation formed by the late King Alexander in 1931 as part of his scheme for moulding Serbs, Croats and Slovenes into one new race of Yugoslavs. That Fascism is conceived out of the womb of inherent weakness of democracy is disproved by its birth in Yugoslavia, which is under a virtual dictatorship as rigid a suppression of political liberty as com-

plete as the Fascisms of Italy and Germa?iy and which at times has dealt as ruthlessly with its enemies. Fascism in Yugoslavia has" the familiar theatrical slogans of "Leadership Principle," "Corporate State," "Union of Classes," and so on. As the Fascists preface and conclude their violent attacks on the dictatorial Government by singing the National Anthem, their meetings bewilder the peasantry. Meantime, Fascism in Rumania bids fair to gain absolute control as the Cabinet has ordered the dissolving and disarming of all "shock troops" and rival factions. ' This move, as in Austria, will give the dictatorial Cabinet full control by means of the regular army. The order applies equally to the Iron Guard, the anti-Jew extremist Fascists accused of engineering the assassination in 1934 of the Prime Minister, M. Duca. the Peasants' Guard, composed of workers and probably the strongest numerically of any of the private armies., organised by the National Peasant party, of the Left, the Crusaders —sworn Fascist rivals of' the Iron Guards —the Inner Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation, and other semisecret. societies whose power is based on armed force.

Complicated Position. Other political parties, all of which have the support of armed bodies, are the National Agrarian party, one of the first to work for Fascism in Rumania; the People's party, also with a dictatorship as its object; Students' Revolutionary Association; Social Democratic party; Cuzists, an anti-semitic organisation; and National Christian party, representing the combined Rumanian Fascists and anti-semitic forces. The jig-saw puzzle is one of the most complicated in Europe, and yet, in spite of all the political turmoil and intrigue, Bucharest and Rumania in the eyes of the' visitor preserved the even tenor of their ways. One reason for the political factions in Rumania is the post-war swing of the social pendulum from one extreme to the other. Save In Hungary and Poland, the position of the peasantry in Central and South eastern Europe lias been revolutionised by extensive land reforms which expropriated the large estates and divided them among the peasants. The gains of the peasants in Eastern Europe have been more far-reaching, although less spectacular, than those that the peasants won in the French Revolution.

In Northern Rumania before the war tw® brothers were farming 400,000 acres, for which they were paying a yearly rental of some £130,000.

The . compensation in Rumania was only a'bout 3 per cent of the pre-war value of the land. The former landowner has thus been disgruntled and has courted or been wooed by political tactions. On the other hand the new social order led the more ambitious peasants to over-educate their children. Unfit for life on the land and without prospects of city employment, this post-war youth has become the prey of factions. Tha peasant movement itself is,, of, .course, opposed to the interests of the pre-war political elements. The mass of the people being- much better off, one cannot say that there is a crisis in national economy. Rather there is a crisis in State economy. Only the excessive overhead, civil and military, together with the derelict, burden of the post-war State policy of artificial industrial expansion keep Rumania and its neighbours in a condition of latent bankruptcy. Two other important decisions announced by the new Fascist Cabinet after its inception last month were the formation of a compulsory labour army for unemployed between the ages of 18 and 21, and abolition of university autonomy, so that police and army may enter university premises. Service in the compulsory labour .army will precede the normal " two years' compulsory military service, from 21 to 23. Rumania, Old and New. Bucharest—the "little Paris" of southeastern Europe as it is proud to be called—is one of the most outward and visibly progressive capitals in Europe. I found that due to fear of inflation a large proportion of disposable capital was being invested in buildings, and modern flats were springing up like mushrooms. Rumania is a leading Continental country in education advancement, by medium of schools, universities and broadcasting, and in 'cultural progress. The march of modernity is seen in the gay whirl of Rumanian life, in the cabarets and theatres of Bucharest, and in the casinos and pleasure resorts at Constantsa, and other Black Sea watering places. As a contrast, the preponderating peasantry still clings to its age-old customs —the worker in the fields adheres to his Tliracian dress and coin for Charon is buried with corpses.