A GREAT ROUMANIAN.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3132, 28 August 1922, Page 7

A GREAT ROUMANIAN.

M. Take Jonescu, the famous Roumanian lawyer and statesman, whose death from angina pectoris was lately reported from Home, was one of the most interesting personalities among European leaders, and one of the most popular men among his fellow-country-men, who were proud of the great ability which lifted him head and shoulders above any of his contemporaries in the Near East, with perhaps the exception of M. \enizelos. He was more than a great Roumanian; he was a great European who had studied closely and indefatigably the problems not only of his own country, but of the other States of Europe, In the pursuit of those stud.es he travelled widey, and, as he told Count Tisza when the latter said he never felt any need to leave Austria-Hungary: "I. should die if 1 went in for the same regime. 1 leave Boumania three times a year, and pass four months in Western Europe, and look upon, these journeys as a necessity—a sort of intellectual hygiene. If we stay at home too long our norizon contracts." Few foreign statesmen had a greater knowledge and appreciation or Great Britain than M. Jonescu, who came to be called the "Lloyd George of Roumania.' the earliest and darkest days or the war his advocacy of the cause of the Entente was constant. Within a month or two of August, 1914, he expressed hit; firm opinion that "Roitmania ought to and will join the Entente, for two reason*-in the European interest of defending the freedom and independence of nations against the undisguised aim of universal domination, and in the Roumanian interest to secure national unity all along the Northern and Western Roumanian boundaries." His object, was' realised on August 27, 1916, when Ronmania entered the war, and after trial and tribulation he saw the dawn of a greater Roumania. Born in October, LBSB, M. Jonescu was educated at Bucharest, and at the age of IT went to Pans to study /aw. There he remained until 1881, when he was called to the Roumanian Bar, at.u began to practice at Bucharest, ivhtre he speedily rose to eminence as an advocate, owing to his great legal knowledge, his wide culture, his readiness of speech, and his power of grasping details rapidly. As soon as he had established himself at the Bar he took to politics, and in 1884 entered the Chamber of Deputes as a Liberal. Becoming disgusted at the corruption which prevailed in Roumanian pchtics, he left the Liberals, and remained outbide all parties till M. Brati.uui s tall in 1888, when he joined the Consenatives In M. Catargiu's Conservative Ministry of 1891 He accepted the portfolio of Public Instruction, and was subsequently Finance Minister in the short-lived administration of M. la-ita-cuzene. He held the same office under M. Carp from 1904 to 1907, when, owing to ina disagreement with his leaders with legard to the suppression o the Agrarian insurrection, he seceded from the Conservatives, and formed a third part;), which he called the Lor,servative fentfuocratic. After the outbreak of war the Conservative Party split, and those members who favored intervention on the side of the Entente joined the t.on-Mjrvative-Democrats under the pint leadership of M. Filipcscu and M. lake Jonescu. Over a year before Roumania finally threw in her lost with the Allies, U: Filipescu and ivL Jonescu addressed a joint letter to the King ol Roumania, declaring that the inaction of the Government was ruining the country, and demanding tne immediate mobilisation of the Roumanian army. In the autumn of 1916, after Ronmania, had entered the war, with disastrous initial results m the held, M. Take Jonescu and his leading lieutenants joined the Britiauu Cabinet, which had removed from Bucharest to J assy owing to the enemy invasion. Here, with "Queen Marie, M. Jonescu became the very soul of the country s resistance, and, after the Bolshevik abandonment, proposed a fighting retreat to the Caucasus, where the Roumanian army could have joined up with the British. When Roumania surrounded on all sides, had to accept a German peace. M. Jonescu was expelled by the Germans. Coming to Western Europe lie there set up the National Council of Roumanian Unity, whose programme of national reunion mm endorsed by M. Clemenceau and the Powers. Since the armistice' M. Jonescu had served as Foreign Minister in the first Avarescu Cabinet, which enabled him to realise his scheme for the establishment of a "Little Entente" —originally conceived during the last year of the war. M. Jonescu subsequently became Prime Minister, but last January the Avarescu party curried 1 a want of confidence resolution on the Electoral and' Finance Bills, and M. Jonescu resigned office.