NOTES ON THE CABLES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16289, 23 January 1915, Page 10

NOTES ON THE CABLES

Bt tiUKAPNEL. BALKAN DE V.ELOFMENTS. There iia.i m the courts of Rumania a contest, between (jemian and iwiotiuui diplomats, and itussiu mus come out « winner. I'lio Court ol Ruuuuia w German <n descent ana instinct, but tlio people uru opposed to the Germanising ol the baikans, ana the association ot Austria witli Germany boded not good to Kumania, lor tiio Romanians iiavo 110 love for the Hungarians wlio rule over about six million Rumanians, and aubject them to much indignity. Rumania has a population ol about 7,ouU,l>A>, and is a little larger tnau England, 'liie people are known to the Germans and Russians as WallacliLans, "Walla" meaning strangers or foreigners. "Rumani" is a variation ol "Romani," the Latin word for Romans. They owe their name to the fact thai a Roman colony was settled on the banks of the Danube m the days when .Byzantium (Constantinople! was the capital ot the Eastern Roman Empire. The language of the Rumanians is more like ancient Latin than is that ot modern Italy, with this exception, that it has absorbed many words ot iblav, Hungarian, and Turkish origin. Rumania oan easily put in the field a well drilled and equipped army of 500,000 men. By obtaining ttio possession of Transylvania she can add about 10 millions to lier population, and thus become the most powerful of the Balkan Slates. Transylvania is rich in timber, minerals, and oil, and is, moreover, a valuaiblo pastoral and agricultural district. '.Ike prize is worth gaming, and, although the Russian diplomatic wit is to the German as a rapier is to a pole-axe, it should have required no great act of diplomacy to gain the sympathy of Rumania lor the Allies.

Grecco and Bulgaria aje, it is said, also about to swing into line. If so, it ie the result of German diplomatic idiocy in pushing Turkey into the conflict. What Bulgaria desires is Adrianople and its vilayet. When these States begin to act, the end the war sliould not loom so far off. Germany can see the clouds gathering, and they have no silver lining for her. Her proposed renewal of a great offensive is a bluff, and her Zeppelin or aeroplane raid is another one, only it is an extremely stupid one, no matter whichever way it is looked at. It is a strange ease of inversion to see a people capable of deep analytical work acting in suoh a way as evidences traits of mental puerility.