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Sun (Christchurch), Volume III, Issue 793, 25 August 1916, Page 6

There will be no certainty regarding Rumania's attitude until the Allies can definitely see their victory approaching, and should Rumania ever range herself against the enemy one may be certain that the triumph of the Allies is assured. There is no sentiment about it as far as the Rumanian Government is concerned. That Government wants certain definite guarantees as to finance and boundaries, it wants, as its price for intervention, a large part of Transylvania and Bukowina in which the majority of the population is Rumanian. In the days of the first Russian advance Rumania was promised a large extension of territory as the price of her aid, but then came the great retreat, the intervention of Bulgaria, and the smashing of Serbia, and since then Rumania has adopted the alleged American policy of "watchful waiting." Undoubtedly the sympathies of the people are pro-Ally, but almost all the big business interests of Rumania are under German control, thanks to "peaceful penetration," carried on over many years, and that influence also counts. Also the population generally is prosperous, for the high prices of imports is evened up by the high prices the community has been receiving for jts primary products (for which Austria and Germany have had to pay in gold) and such prosperity goes a long way towards neutralising the influence of national aspirations. But the Russian advance, the Allied offensive in the west, the German failure at Verdun, are winning support to the interventionists, of whom MM. Filipescu and Take Jonescu are the leaders. Germany, plainly, is again getting jumpy over the uncertainty of Rumania's intentions, and Hungary, who lords it over some millions of Rumanians in Transylvania, is said to be "preparing the public for the worst." Bulgaria's effort to force events in Macedonia also seems to have been inspired largely by dubieties concerning Rumania, but Rumania has been "on the brink" too often for anyone to accept the latest uneasiness as a definite symptom of approaching intervention.