JS-. a?. 



MARKET-PLACE IN A ROUMANIAN TOWN 



There are a million small farmers in Roumania and only a few thousand large ones; 

 but the few big landowners have more land than the many small ones. The average size of 

 the million small farms is 8 acres, while that of the 4,471 large ones is 2.200 acres. With so 

 many small farms, naturally a prolific farming population has little money to buy machinery 

 and must be content with the ways and methods of past generations. 



petroleum, and timber — which form the 

 chief exports of Roumania. hut these also 

 form the chief exports of Russia, who, 

 by the stroke of the pen, may rule Rou- 

 mania completely out of competition." 



FIFTY PEASANTS CAST ONE VOTE 



Let us turn from her choice and the 

 trials its making- involved and go about 

 among the people, in the hope that we 

 may learn something of their ways, their 

 viewpoint, their relationships, their his- 

 tory. 



Roumania proper is a country of 

 53,000 square miles, with a population, 

 as stated before, of less than 8,000,000. 

 It is thus slightly larger than Pennsyl- 

 vania, although it has half a million fewer 

 people than the Keystone State. 



The country today is governed by a 

 king, who is a constitutional monarch. 

 and a parliament made up of a Senate 

 and a Chamber of Deputies. The Senate 

 has T20 members, who are elected for 

 eight years. Xo man with an income of 

 less than Si. 880 a year can be a senator. 

 The Chamber of Deputies has a member- 



ship of 183, and the term of a deputy is 

 four years. The masses can vote for 

 deputies indirectly, but not even indi- 

 rectly for senators. It takes fifty man- 

 hood-suffrage votes to offset one prop- 

 erty-owner's or educated-man's vote. 

 The men who get their right to vote on 

 the basis of manhood suffrage and not 

 on the basis of wealth or education sim- 

 ply vote for a man to cast their vote for 

 deputy, and it takes fifty of them to have 

 one vote cast in their behalf. 



The electorate is divided into three 

 classes, the value of their respective 

 votes being dependent on the status of 

 the individuals entitled to vote in the 

 several classes. The manhood-suffrage 

 contingent above referred to constitutes 

 the third class. Railroad passes are 

 given by law to all government officials, 

 including both senators and deputies. 



SURPASSES ALL HER T.ALKAX NEIGHBORS 



Military service is compulsory, and 

 usually every boy has to spend two or 

 three years with the colors upon reach- 

 ing his majority, after which he goes into 



188 



