ROUMANIA.
Rumania in 1900. By G. Benger. (Asher and Co. 10s. net.) —Mr. A. H. Keane has translated this most useful description of the Danubian State and its trade resources. Indeed, the volume, though handsomely illustrated and well got up, is mainly for the economist. It is an agricultural State. Corn alone constitutes 85 per cent. of its exports. Its imports, by the way, exceed its exports, Great Britain coming third in the general trade, and having, of course, an enormous proportion of the foreign carrying trade. Consul Benger in many tables analyses the trade and tendencies of commercial enterprise of Roumania. A consider- able portion of the inhabitants, one must remember, are more or less Slays—the Roman blood must be a thin strain—and are intensely conservative. Hence, as with other agricultural nation- alities in Eastern Europe, progress, political and economical, has to come from above. We sometimes forget this in criticising their rather stormy politics. Roumania has a large Debt, but she has incurred much of it in throwing off the Turkish yoke. She has taken a good position, which with such a magnificent waterway as the Danube she ought never to lose.
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