ROUMANIA. 



701 



ander John I upon their union into the prin- 

 cipality of Rouniania in 1861. The executive 

 authority is exercised hy a council of eight. 



The ministry is composed of the following 

 members : President of the Council and Minis- 

 ter of the Interior, J. C. Bratiano ; Minister of 

 Public Instruction and Worship, G. Kitzu; 

 Minister of Foreign Affairs, D. Sturdza ; Min- 

 ister of Finance, G. Lecca ; Minister of Agri- 

 culture, Commerce, and Domains, J. Campi- 

 neano; Minister of Justice, N. Voinov ; Minis- 

 ter of War, Gen. E. Falcoiano. 



Area and Population. The area, as fixed by 

 the Treaty of Berlin, is about 49,979 square 

 miles. The latest census taken in Roumania 

 gives the number of inhabitants at 4,424,961. 

 The capital, Bucharest, contains 221,000 in- 

 habitants ; Jassy, 90, W; Galatz, 80,000. The 

 number of marriages in 1883 was, exclusive 

 of the Dobrudja, 44,114; births, 205,337; 

 deaths, 125,677. 



Finances* The accounts for the fiscal year 

 ending March 30, 1882, state the total receipts 

 as 207,378,363 lei, or francs, and the expendi- 

 tures as 200,020,715 lei. The budget for 

 1884-'85 makes the receipts 130,269,433 lei, 

 of which 24,930,000 are derived from direct 

 taxes, 58,330,000 from indirect taxes, 20,075,- 

 566 from the domains, 9,617,925 from public 

 works, and the rest from the other ministries, 

 a part of the surplus of 1882-'83, and from 

 other sources. The expenditures are made to 

 balance the receipts, 50,130,064 being devoted 

 to the requirements of the public debt, 30,551,- 

 213 to military expenses, 12,786,239 to instruc- 

 tion and worship, and the remainder to the 

 other ministries and various expenses. The 

 public debt is divided into two classes the 

 budget loans and railway construction loans. 

 The former amounted, April 1, 1884, to 311,- 

 141,900 lei, the largest part bearing interest at 

 5 per cent, and provided with sinking funds 

 to redeem the last bonds in 1926. The latter 

 amounted to 368,842,279 lei, the main loans 

 paying 6 per cent, interest, and all, except the 

 two oldest loans, redeemable before 1923. 

 About one third of the public debt is held in 

 Roumania, and the rest mainly in Germany. 



The Army. The military force is composed 

 of the standing army with its reserve, the ter- 

 ritorial army with its reserve, the militia, and 

 the levy in mass. The law of 1876, modified 

 in 1882 and 1883, obliges every Roumanian 

 capable of bearing arms to serve, in person, 

 three years in the standing army and four years 

 in the territorial cavalry or four in the terri- 

 torial infantry. The effective strength of the 

 active army on the peace footing is 1,200 offi- 

 cers and 18,532 soldiers, with 2,945 horses and 

 180 guns. The territorial army can muster 

 about 120,000 men. The fortification of Bu- 

 charest by a ring of nineteen forts was author- 

 ized in 1884. 



Commerce. The total value of the imports in 

 1883 was 359,907,178 lei, against 268,851,921 

 in 1882, 274,757,458 in 1881, and 225,336,415 



in 1880 ; the total value of the exports in 1883 

 was 220,650,279 lei, against 244,730,199 in 

 1882, 206,518,317 in 1881, and 218,918,878 in 

 1880. Of the total imports in 1883, 153,973,- 

 000 lei came from Austria-Hungary, 78,743,000 

 from Great Britain, 43,887,000 from Germany, 

 36.491,000 from France, and the rest from 

 Turkey and other countries; of the total ex- 

 ports, Great Britain received 88,649,000 lei, 

 Austria-Hungary 71,478,000, and France 19,- 

 088,000. The imports and exports of the prin- 

 cipal classes of merchandise were valued in 

 1883 at the following amounts in lei : 



The exports of milk and cheese average 

 5,000,000 francs a year, those of fruits and 

 vegetables 7,500,000 francs, those of timber 

 5,000,000 francs, those of live animals 17,000,- 

 000 francs. The timber of the Roumanian 

 forests is exported in large quantities at very 

 low prices and is consumed without stint for 

 fuel. 



Agriculture. The Roumanians are almost ex- 

 clusively engaged in agriculture. The popula- 

 tion is only forty to the square kilometre, and 

 the method of cultivation is expensive. Nearly 

 half the area of the kingdom is cultivable soil, 

 but of the tillable land not much more than a 

 third part is under the plow, nearly half lying 

 in pasture, a twelfth part being meadow, and 

 a twenty-fifth vineyard and garden. Of the 

 lands not suitable for cultivation, two thirds 

 are sterile and unproductive, and one third is 

 covered with forest. The pasture-lands are 

 mainly leased from the large proprietors by 

 the sheep-growers. The country is rich in 

 both sheep and cattle, possessing 5,000,000 

 head of the former and 3,000,000 of the -lat- 

 ter, besides 500,000 goats, and over 1,250,000 

 swine. The lowlands in Roumania, as in the 

 neighboring parts of Austria and Russia, are 

 covered with a black humus a metre deep on 

 the average. Manure is never used, yet the 

 wheat-lands show no sign of exhaustion. The 

 creation of a peasant proprietary has long been 

 the aim of the Roumanian statesmen. Eman- 

 cipated from serfdom in 1848, but not endowed 

 with lands, the peasants were left in the same 

 dependence on the boyars as before. In 1864 

 Prince Couza issued an edict making them the 

 owners of the lands that they held in actual 

 possession, giving the proprietors an indemnity 

 amounting to 14,000,000 francs. By this act 

 400,000 peasant families were made the own- 

 ers of about the eighth part of the land. They 

 were prohibited from alienating their posses- 

 sions for a period ending in 1884. This term 



