278 



The Review of Reviews. 



Septtmber /, 190'j. 



THE JAPAN OF EUROPE : 



With King Charles I. as Mikado. 



The first position in the new number of the 

 Foriii/g/iilv Review is given to Mr. Alfred Steads 

 paper on "King Charles I. of Roumania, ' who 

 celebrated the fortieth anni\ersar\' of his accession to 

 the throne on the 20th of last May. 



THE MIKADO OF THE NEW JAPAN. 



Mr. Alfred Stead's devotion to Japan and its rulers 



is so pronounced that it was with some surprise I 



find King Charles and his Roumanians exalted to the 



same lofty p»edestal where stands the first object of 



his fond idolatry. He says: — 



King Cliarles of Roumania has only one rival among his 

 roya! or imperial peers, and that is the present Emperor 

 of Japan. To these two monarohs alike has been given to 

 see in forty years incredible changes in their States, amd 

 in both cases these changes, this i>rogre3s, are due to the 

 guiding hand of the Chief of State. Koumajiia. may 

 well be proud to be called the Japan of Europe — now a 

 term of jjraise and highest honour. She has achieved in 

 the midst of the incessant jealousy and opposition of 

 Europe, much that the free Empire of the Far East has 

 accomplished. But. in all justice, it mixst be recorded that 

 the progress of Roumania. if less great, is perhaps more 

 meritorious even than that of Japan. To a small State, 

 which was hampered at every ttirn by Turkish reaction 

 and European greed or ignorance, with frontiers marching 

 with great empires, the opportunities of progress were much 

 lees facile than in the island Empire of Japan, compara- 

 tively free from outside influence. King Charles came a 

 stranger to a strange, vassal country, with only his own 

 unalterable? determination, his strong sense of duty, and 

 his Hohenzollern ancestry to back liim up. But he was not 

 daunted, and recognised to the fitll that saying of the, 

 Japanese Emperor Ninloku. '■ llie people's happiness is my 

 happiness, the people's misfortune is my misfortune." " God 

 sends to men trials in order to enable them to prove their 

 moral force and their generosity." 



HOW HE BEGAN HIS REIGN. 



^^'hen he was summoned to the throne he was ad- 

 vised liv Prince Bismarck to acre|)t the ]iosition and 

 " face Europe with a faii accompli — a protest onlv re- 

 mains on paper, a fact cannot be revoked " — advice 

 which the Iron Chancellor was apt to give to his 

 friends, and illustrate by his own example- He owed 

 his nomination largely to the influence of three ladies 

 Madame de Cornu, the friend and agent of Napoleon 

 III.. Madame Drouyn de Shuys. and Baronne de 

 Frnncke. He entered Roumania. near the Bridt;e 

 of Trajan, with a Swiss passport under the name of 

 Charles Hettingen. His path w-as full of thorns. 

 But bv judicious submission to the Sultan on one 

 side, and resolute insistence on his rights against the 

 great Powers on the other, he succeeded in holding 

 his own. In 1870 the sympathies of the Roumanians 

 ■were so strongly in favour of France that the Hohen- 

 zollern prince was on, the verv brink of abdication. 

 From this he was saved bv M. Sturdza. who domi- 

 nated the National Assembly, and averted a grave 

 crisis. 



THE CRUCIAL MOMENT. 



When the Russians embarked on their liberating 

 war in Bulgaria thev at first coldlv refused King 

 Carl's offer of assistance: — 



In a memorandum on May 17th the Russians declared 

 that " Russi.a has no need of the assistance of the Rou- 

 manian army. Tlie forces which Russia has put in motion 

 to attack the Turks are more than sufficient to attain the 



high end that the Emperor hae undertaken in beginning 

 the war." 



But iin July 31st the King 

 received the following appeal by telegram from the Grand 

 Duke Nicholas. Russian Commander-in-Chief :—" The Turks, 

 having massed very great numbers at Plevna, are de«troy- 

 ing us. Please make a junction, demonstration, and, if 

 possible, the passage of the Danube which you desire. . . . 

 This demonstration is indispensable, in order to facilitate 

 my movements." On .\uguet 18th the Grand Duke wrote : — 

 "'Ihe Roumanian army will maintain its individuality, and 

 will find itself placed, for all details, under the direct com- 

 mand of its immediate leaders." Three days later came 

 a second telegram; — "When can you cross? Do this as 

 soon as possible." On the 28th the Prince visited the Tear 

 and tile Grand Duke, and was offered the command of all 

 the troops, Russian and Roumanian, before Plevna. 



After the fall of Ple\na the proclamation of the 

 Kingdom of Roumania was only a matter of time. 

 The Prince had repudiated the Sultan's suzerainty 

 in 1877 ; he assumed the regal title in 1881. 



SOME ACHIEVEMENTS OF HIS REIGN. 



Mr. .\lf red Stead says : — 



The efforts of King Charles have been principaUy devoted 

 towards internal develoinuent. Railways have increafied 

 and improved since the State purchased them in 1886, at an 

 outlay of 237.500,00U francs. Then there were 1407 kilo- 

 metres; in 1903 these had increased to 5177. In the Do- 

 brudja. given to Roumania after the war with Turkey, the 

 King has created a great commercial port at Constantza, 

 whence the grain and petroleum of Roumania can flood the 

 market. From here will radiate a Roumanian merchant 

 marine, which will bear the Roumanian flag to all parte of 

 the world, .\griculture has been carefully cherished, and 

 to-day the country is one of the greatest grain-exporting 

 countries of the world, and the lot of the peasant, formerly 

 so low. has been impi-oved- .\n educational system has 

 sprung into being, owing much to the direct support and 

 inspiration of the Ro.val family. The finances have been 

 put on a stable footing, and although the uation has al- 

 ready acquired a sufficiency of debt, the future is not at all 

 dangerously beset. Thanks to the discovery of extensive 

 petroleum fields, Roumania has been strengthened and 

 raised from the position of a country relying solely on the 

 rain and sun for its prosperity. 



This is all very well, but it hardly sufficient to 

 warrant us in placing King Carl side bv side with the 

 author of the greatest revolution of our times. 



"SOMETHING FOR OUR TAXES." 



Sir Oliver Lodge is evidently one of the higher 

 " sensitives "' who receives impressions vibrating 

 through most diverse spheres of life. He has quite 

 accustomed us to consider him a dynamometer in 

 theologv. Now in the Contemforary he breaks out 

 as a financier, and expresses in his persuasive fashion 

 feelings that are crvstallising into more or less con- 

 scious conviction in the mass of his fellow-country- 

 men. He entitles his paper " Squandering a Sur- 

 plus." He indulges in some party reference to the 

 repeal of the duty on corn and tax on coal. But his 

 main contention is that the Government surplus is as 

 n rufe squandered instead of being applied to pur- 

 poses of positive benefit to the nation. He says : — 



It is all nonsense to behave as if we were nationally poor. 

 k couple of millions per annum, which would amount per- 

 haps to a farthing in the pound of our aggregate national 

 earnings, could be expended easily on enlightened objects 

 each year of peace without conscious effort on the part of 

 .anybody; and people would feel they were getting some- 

 thing for their taxes Tbe need for extreme economy is not 

 really felt so long as there is no waste and so long as some- 

 thing tangible is obtained by the expenditure. 



ALL WE GET NOW. 



He remarks on the fact that no one has opposed 

 the extra million a year involved in the present Edu- 



