The Evening Star MONDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1938. DISTRACTED EUROPE.

Evening Star, Issue 22882, 14 February 1938, Page 10

The Evening Star MONDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1938. DISTRACTED EUROPE.

The small country of Rumania takes the spotlight in to-day’s picture of a distracted Europe. The Government flf M. Goga has resigned. His party, •The National Christians, were Fascists only one degree less pronounced than M. Codreanu’s Green Shirts, Iron Guards, or All for the Fatherland Party, with whom they had quarrelled during the elections. Goga is Rumania’s poet laureate. It has been wittily said that his followers must have chosen their name of. National Christians to express their detestation of the Jews. At the recent polls they obtained 39 seats and Codreanu’s section 66 out of a total of 380. Pretty plainly they were put in office by the King to keep Codreanu’s party, slightly worse extremists, out —the trick that was played unsuccessfully against Hitler before ho became Chancellor. But the drastic laws of the Goga Government against Jews, which pleased the country, were found to be against the Constitution, and it has had to go. The laws, moreover, went too far to be enforceable in a country where, it has been said, Jews perform functions out of all proportion to their numbers, more especially since those have been augmented from Germany. The head of the Orthodox £lhurch becomes Prime Minister of a* new Government, including no fewer than seven former Prime Ministers, but it will exist, apparently, only to give an appearance of constitutionalism to a military dictatorship which will possess all real power. Politics is to be “ eliminated ” from the country’s administration. The King will" .be his own dictator, supported by the army. 'in a backward country like Rumania, divided by factions, something like that may be the only effective form of rule. There is point in M. Goga’s gibe that the seven exPremiers who are to aid in giving a false complexion of normality to the new regime, are the men who have brought the country to its present unfortunate position. Democracy in Rumania by, too many accounts has for years past been degraded into a matter 6i • corruption and graft. It seems doubtful if the Jews are to be any better off under the new rule, with the Constitution which protected them suspended, than they were under Goga. But the Powers of the Berlin-Rome axis will be disappointed by developments. Goga was suspected of being their particular friend, though he had avowed goodwill towards all nations. As to Codreanu, his Iron Guard were believed to be heavily financed by Italy and also by Germany. A type midwav’ betwee'n Hitler and Rasputin is the description that has been given to this mystic, whose followers had made for constant disorder. Neither his Green Shirts nor M. Goga’s Blue Shirts will be encouraged in the days immediately to come. A few months before legions of the Green Shirts, it has been said, were continuing to spring up in the remotest villages, defying enactments against their activities that were only half-heartedly enforced.

Events in Germany are seen very much through a glass darkly. It is plain that disaffection in the army has given a sharp shock to Herr Hitler b Administration, though the- militarists may submit to the rebuff they have received.. Well-informed Berlin circles, it is said, feel that the discontent among sections of the officers’ corps is not likely to cause the .rulers great embarrassment, though the decisions made repeutly can scarcely be regarded as a final settlement of relations. Disaffection is likely to be widespread among more than soldiers, but it is well kept down. Austria is reported to be making offers to Germany to secure a guarantee of that country’s independence. Death sentences continue in Russia, and so does the war in Spain, If there is such a thing to-day as a “.good European ” he must murmur, looking at his continent, “ What a welter!”