Increasing Sabotage in Rumania

Manawatu Times, Volume 66, Issue 1, 2 January 1941, Page 7

Increasing Sabotage in Rumania

Shortage of Food and Fuel PEOPLE BITTER OVER BEING SOLD TO GERMANS United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. Received Wednesday, 7.30 p.m, LONDON, Dec. 31. The Daily Telegraph s Ankara correspondent says reliable observers who have arrived from Rumania confirm that sabotage is occurring almost daily, it greatly increased in December with grave effect to the oil fields, refineries and railway tracks. Exhaustive efforts to discover the culprits failed. The shortage of food and fuel is bitterly felt throughout the country. The population of many regions is reported to be alrn&st starving. German troops, however, are receiving numberless trainloads of food, clothing and other commodities bought with the Rumanians’ own money or requisitioned. Unrest is growing among the middle class and the poor who are the chief sufferers since tho Iron Guard assumed power. Passive resistance is growing because the people realise that tho Iron Guard has presented the country to the Germans in order to satisfy its own ambitions.

It is reliably estimated that there are only 65,000 Germans in Rumania. The Times’ Sofia correspondent states that King Boris received M. Filoff (Premier) and M. Popoff (Foreign Minister). They are believed to have conferred chiefly on problems of foreign relationships. M. Popoff, closing the debate on Foreign Affairs, declared there was no justification for any change in Bulgaria’s foreign policy. The Government is determined not to change it. Ho emphasised that Bulgarians should lean neither to the left nor right and should not be - influenced by street psychology.” •