the annexation of the Dobrudja. Therefore, Rumania had to give up the Dobrudja. The Austrians, under Magyar pressure, demanded the surrender of the Carpathian passes-a condition which was pressed by Count Czernin, who remembered with bitterness the rebuff that he had suffered from the Rumanian King and Government at the time when Rumania came into the war. The Germans were determined to seize the immensely rich oilfields of Rumania and to secure for an unlimited period Rumanian wheat for Germany at a price to be fixed by German authorities. For years Germany had tried to get control of the Rumanian oilfields. Where bribes and the offer of a heavy price had failed, the chance of war now insured success. The oilfields were seized nominally by way of a monopoly for ninety-nine years.

As usual, Germany's allies had to yield up some of the prey to her. Thus the Germans succeeded in setting up a condominium over the most important part of the Dobrudja, between Constanza and the mouths of the Danube. From Campina, the centre of the oilfields district, a pipe line runs direct to Constanza, where the oil can be stored in enormous tanks, which were left practically untouched when Constanza was abandoned in November, 1916. It is essential for Germany that she should control the pipe line, and this she will certainly do under the form of the condominium.

As for the grain supply, the Germans, who had had to pay a heavy price for Rumanian grain before Rumania went to war, owing especially to British competition, were particularly careful to insure now against the repetition of anything so unpleasant. The form of the agreement which was dictated to Rumania on this point is

that the surplus is to go to Germany after the needs of Rumania have been satisfied. What the needs of Rumania may be will be decided by a Rumanian commission; but this is to be under German control, and there is not much doubt that the ration allowed to the Rumanian population will be proportioned pretty accurately to the needs of Germany.

These territorial and economic advantages secured, Germany went on to add humiliation for Rumania to the heavy toll of material loss. They insisted that the eight Rumanian divisions which were holding the Rumanian front should be demobilized at once under the control of German staff officers. Finally, the Germans asked that the Rumanian Government should give all possible facilities to a German force to pass through Rumania to Odessa. In point of fact, on March 10, long before the peace conditions were settled, the first German battalions passed through Galatz on their way to the Ukraine.

All these humiliating conditions had to be accepted. The motive of the Germans in piling up their actions so frequently was evidently to compel the Averescu Cabinet, which they suspected of being pro-ally, to resign. They hoped to force the King to form a Cabinet of their Bucharest friends. In this they succeeded. The present Government of Rumania may be pro-German; but the Rumanian Nation-from the last peasant soldier, who brought the Germans to a stand last Summer at Maraseshti and Oitoz, to the King-bitterly hates everything German.

Rumania was, however, to receive compensation in Bessarabia, formerly a part of Russia, whose national assembly had voted for union with Rumania on April 29.

The attitude of the Rumanians is represented in the

statement of General Averescu, the Prime Minister, quoted in the same article, p. 529).

"If Rumania accepts the humiliating German peace terms and is ready to yield to her enemies the dearest part of her territory, she does not do it only to spare the lives of the remnants of her army, but for the sake of her allies, too. If Rumania refuses the German conditions to-day she may be able to resist another month, but the results will be fatal. A month later she might have to lose even the shadow of independence which is left to her now; and then, no doubt, the Germans would deal with her in the same way as they dealt with occupied France and with Belgium. The whole Rumanian army would be made prisoners, and would be sent to work on the western front against the Allies, while the civilian population would be compelled to work in ammunition and other factories for the Kaiser's army. I fought in the ranks in 1877 to help my country to win the Dobrudja. You may imagine how I feel now, having to sign the treaty which gives it to our worst enemies. But we are compelled to amputate an important part of our body in order to save the rest of it. However painful it may be, we are bound to do it."

FROM AN ADDRESS BY FOREIGN SECRETARY ARTHUR J. BALFOUR

(Delivered in Parliament June 20, 1918, in reply to a Labor member.)

"Have the German Government ever openly and plainly said in any document or in any speech that Belgium is to be given up, that Belgium is to be restored, that Belgium is to be placed in a position of absolute

economic as well as political independence? I know of no such statement. It has been suggested that Belgian territory should be restored, and there have been other suggestions of one kind or another, but you will never find any frank avowal that Belgium, having been taken by one of the most iniquitous acts of which history has record, is to be put back so far as the perpetrators of the crime are concerned as far as possible in the position in which she was before the crime was committed. .

"The Allies are prepared to listen collectively to all reasonable arrangements. Certainly his Majesty's Government are not going to shut their ears to anything that can be called a reasonable suggestion. If such a suggestion was made which met with the approval of the Allies collectively, does the honorable gentleman really suppose that the fact that three years ago, or whenever it may have been, they took a different view would stand in the way of accepting this reasonable suggestion? Of course it would not. Any proposal to the Allies will be considered by the Allies on its merits. The so-called secret treaties were entered into by this country with other members of the alliance, and to these treaties we stand. The national honor is bound up with them.

"So far as we are concerned, we are bound by the Italian treaty, and we mean to hold by it. But it is a profound error to suppose that the time will come when the British Government, surveying the whole situation, and the Italian Government, surveying the whole situation, will find themselves in this position: The British Government saying, 'I think you ought to make peace in spite of this treaty,' and the Italian Government saying, 'There is the treaty, and we mean to hold to every word of it.' When the time comes the treaty may be a

proper instrument to carry out in every detail. What I say is that, whatever judgment may be come to, when the time comes, by the British Government is probably the judgment which the Italian Government would share to the full, and the judgment made by the Italian Government is the judgment which the English Government would share to the full. I have no reason to think that in the future, any more than in the past, there will be any divergence between the Allies for carrying on this If it should turn out that, in the common interest of the Allies as a whole, treaties made some years ago should require modification, I do not know whether a modification will be made by the Italians themselves. It rests with them; they are our ally, and we are bound to them, and we mean to keep to the full to the bargain we have made.

war.

"As far as I can make it out, his criticism is that we went to war for Belgium and France, and that if Belgium and France are satisfied why should we think of Italy? That spirit is a fatal spirit, because you might change it round, and you might say to Italy, 'You are bound by the alliance, very good terms are offered to you, why do you bother about anything else?' You cannot work an alliance on those terms. The only terms on which you can work an alliance are those of mutual confidence and mutual trust, and the only way you can have mutual confidence and mutual trust is by being open and aboveboard with those with whom you are working.

"All of us (the Government) think that no conclusion can be honorable or satisfactory which makes it perfectly plain that the peace is only a truce. All of us are desirous of seeing, as far as may be, that the wishes of the populations of the world shall meet with their due satisfaction.