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THE Roumanian people desire the friendship of the Russian people. The vicinity of Russia and Roumania, the good relations between Russians and Roumanians, which did not cease to exist even when Russian interests were opposed to Roumanian interests-it is perhaps useful to remember, especially to-day, that history has never registered any war between Russia and Roumania-the identity of Russian and Roumanian economic interests, are factors which sufficiently explain the desire of the Roumanians to live in peace and friendship with the Russians.

It appears that lately the question of Bessarabia is beginning to be considered as an element calculated to disturb the permanent friendship between Russia and Roumania.

It is left to the future to disclose how far such opinion is right. I believe that the justice of Roumania's case regarding Bessarabia, the vital importance for the future development of RouVOL. XCV-No. 568.

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mania of the permanent character of her union with Bessarabia, and the relatively small interest represented by Bessarabia in proportion to the permanent and real interests of Russia, justifies me in stating that, if all elements of the problems be considered carefully, the Bessarabian question should never separate Russia and Roumania in their century-long friendship.

Let us cast a glance on the map of Europe. What does the small spot represented by Bessarabia mean for the gigantic Russian State? Russia possesses immense fertile plains which the addition of Bessarabia would only increase to an insignificant extent. Russia has free access to the Black Sea, with or without Bessarabia. Russia has inexhaustible raw material resources which could not be modified by the addition or detachment of Bessarabia.

Let us now consider the other aspect of the problem. Bessarabia has been Roumanian territory, under Roumanian sovereignty, from the very beginning of Roumanian history up to 1812.

It was in 1812 that, by virtue of the Treaty of Bucharest, the province of Bessarabia was placed for the first time under Russian sovereignty. This annexation did not last very long as far as the entire province was concerned. In 1856 its southern part was recovered by the motherland, by virtue of the Paris Convention.

However, in 1878, after a victorious war against the Turks in which the Roumanian Army gloriously co-operated with the gallant Russian troops, owing to diplomatic exigencies, one of the victorious allies-Roumania-had to be mutilated, and Southern Bessarabia returned to Russia in accordance with the Treaty of Berlin.

The injustice of such an act is all the more obvious as the population of Bessarabia has always been Roumanian, and has remained Roumanian, notwithstanding the historical vicissitudes.

Even according to the statistical data most unfavourable to the Roumanians, the Russian official statistical figures of 1897 (the last returns), the majority of the population is Roumanian.

Thus nobody was surprised in Europe when, in consequence of the military events in 1917 which reinforced the Nationalist and separatist movements of the various nations incorporated in the late Tsarist Russia, Bessarabia claimed its autonomy, and on March 27, 1918, it openly declared its union with the motherland.

This union has been recognised by the Great Powers, namely, Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan, which by the Treaty of October 28, 1920, recognised that Bessarabia forms a part of the Roumanian State.

Since that date three General Elections took place, and the population sent to Parliament a great number of deputies who have

not been the friends of the Governments which succeeded each other in Bucharest since 1918 up to the present, yet not one of them has ever claimed the separation of Bessarabia from the motherland.

Under such conditions, to claim a plebiscite to decide whether Bessarabia should or should not form a part of the Roumanian State is not only superfluous, but also unjust and dangerous. It would be superfluous because the will of the inhabitants of Bessarabia-whose predominant majority consists of Roumanians -has been expressed several times. It would be unjust because Roumania would be the only European State which would be expected, in spite of her international situation created by the Treaties, to submit to a referendum in order to render definite a position which has already been unanimously recognised as just. It would be dangerous because, at the moment when Roumania is beginning to collect the fruits of all the efforts she made since the war with the view of consolidating the internal situation, she would be thrown once more into the trouble from which she has just emerged.

I think that supporting by facts the various points which I have summarised above would not be without interest for British readers.

I propose to enumerate, therefore, a series of facts and proofs to support my statements. I have carefully avoided using any information of Roumanian origin, and have purposely selected foreign-preferably Russian-data.

I know that, although I endeavour to be scrupulously impartial, I remain none the less a Roumanian Minister, who defends the case of his country, and could perhaps not, therefore, convince the majority of my readers as I would like to do. However, if any of my readers, after having read these lines, would study for themselves the Bessarabian question, and, after having done so, would recall the present article, they would perhaps conclude that there are judges who can be impartial in their own case.

The frontiers of Bessarabia are almost exclusively natural. In the south-east there is the Black Sea; in the east and north the Dniester separates it from Russia and Southern Galicia. In the south there are the Danube branches, and in the west there is the Pruth, which up to March 27, 1918, separated politically that part of Moldavia from Roumania.

Before 1812 only the southern part of the province (Bender, Akkerman, Kilia, Bolgrad and Ismail) was called Bessarabia, while the rest was known under the name Moldavia.'

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Voltaire when speaking of Bessarabia, in his History of Charles XII., referred to the southern part of Moldavia only,

with the city of Bender, in which the Swedish hero spent his captivity. But it seems that since 1807, after the Treaty of Tilsit, Rumianzev, the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, tried to include under the name of Bessarabia the whole territory known to-day by that name. In fact, according to the interpretation of the Russian Foreign Minister, that treaty dealt with the evacuation by the Russian Army of ' Wallachia and Moldavia '

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only, but not of Bessarabia, and inferred the conclusion that this part of the Roumanian principalities ought to remain under Russian occupation.

When, after the Treaty of Bucharest of May 28, 1812, this province passed under the rule of the Tsars, the whole of the territory detached from Moldavia bore officially the name 'Bessarabia.' This was one of the innumerable means to blot out from the memory of the oppressed population the remembrance that its origin was common with the Roumanians beyond the Pruth.

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