Rumania Joins Up

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21821, 26 November 1940, Page 4

Rumania Joins Up

ANE of the latest visitors to Berlin was the ” Rumanian dictator, General Antonescu, and the result of his excursion has been an extension of the German, Italian and Japanese Pact of September 27. That there must be some doubt about the effectiveness of the pact is shown by the gratification with which Rumania’s enforced acquiescence has been received. It is ludicrous to suggest that the Rumanian people are in any way free agents; that they can be bound by an arrangement acceptable to General Antonescu, an obvious tool of the Axis. One quality dictators appear to lack is a sense of humour; if they had that they would be able to see the inherent laughableness in the situations they create. Rumanian representatives will be admitted to the joint technical committees “as far as they are concerned with questions affecting Rumanian interests,” but it is not very apparent that Rumania at present has any interests of her own. German troops are on Rumanian soil; Rumanian industry and raw materials are at the command of Germany, and the people are left to exist on anything that Germany does not require. As far as the Rumanian people are concerned the “new order” in Europe is a cumbersome synonym for slavery.