why this solution has not yet been attempted, he says:  ’Our country is governed at present by an agrarian class....  Her whole power rests in her ownership of the land, our only wealth.  The introduction of circulating capital would result in the disintegration of that wealth, in the loss of its unique quality, and, as a consequence, in the social decline of its possessors.’[1] This is the fundamental evil which prevents any solution of the rural question.  A small class of politicians, with the complicity of a large army of covetous and unscrupulous officials, live in oriental indolence out of the sufferings of four-fifths of the Rumanian nation.  Though elementary education is compulsory, more than 60 per cent. of the population are still illiterate, mainly on account of the inadequacy of the educational budget.  Justice is a myth for the peasant.  Of political rights he is, in fact, absolutely deprived.  The large majority, and by far the sanest part of the Rumanian nation, are thus fraudulently kept outside the political and social life of the country.  It is not surmising too much, therefore, to say that the opportunity of emancipating the Transylvanians would not have been wilfully neglected, had that part of the Rumanian nation in which the old spirit still survives had any choice in the determination of their own fate.

[Footnote 1:  St. Antim, Cbestiunea Social[)a] [^i]n Rom[^a]nia, 1908, p. 214.]

6

Contemporary Period:  Internal Development

In order to obviate internal disturbances or external interference, the leaders of the movement which had dethroned Prince Cuza caused parliament to proclaim, on the day of Cuza’s abdication, Count Philip of Flanders—­ the father of King Albert of Belgium—­Prince of Rumania.  The offer was, however, not accepted, as neither France nor Russia favoured the proposal.  Meanwhile a conference had met again in Paris at the instance of Turkey and vetoed the election of a foreign prince.  But events of deeper importance were ripening in Europe, and the Rumanian politicians rightly surmised that the powers would not enforce their protests if a candidate were found who was likely to secure the support of Napoleon III, then ‘schoolmaster’ of European diplomacy.  This candidate was found in the person of Prince Carol of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, second son of the head of the elder branch of the Hohenzollerns (Catholic and non-reigning).  Prince Carol was cousin to the King of Prussia, and related through his grandmother to the Bonaparte family.  He could consequently count upon the support of France and Prussia, while the political situation fortunately secured him from the opposition of Russia, whose relations with Prussia were at the time friendly, and also from that of Austria, whom Bismarck proposed to ‘keep busy for some time to come’.  The latter must have viewed with no little satisfaction the prospect of a Hohenzollern occupying the throne of Rumania