Carol Holds Minority Treaties Do Not Apply to Refugees

Following are quotations concerning the Jewish question from King Carol’s interview in Bucharest (briefly reported in yesterday’s JTA NEWS) with A.L. Easterman, correspondent of the laborite Daily Herald, as reported by the Havas News Agency:

"My choice of a government was not dependent on what might be said elsewhere but solely on the ground of national needs. The government is Authoritarian and I think this is necessary. My people must feel that there is order in the country.

"It cannot be denied that there is a strong anti-Semitic feeling in Rumania — an old problem in our country. What happened was something in the nature of an invasion of Galician and Russian Jews who came in illegally. Their number has been exaggerated, some saying they totalled 800,000 — but the maximum was about 250,000. They invaded the villages and are not a good element. Can people be regarded as good citizens who entered the country by fraud?

"Those Jews who lived in Rumania before the war will remain untouched. But those who came after the war are without real rights except as refugees. We will consider what we must do about them. There is no question of expulsion. But public feeling is such that we cannot give political rights to invaders.

"If we take certain measures which seem illogical to the British mind and not in accordance with civilization it should be born in mind that our object is to save the remainder. It is important to note that the Jews concerned — the invaders — do not come within the scope of minority treaties which apply only to citizens legally transferred to different territories as a result of war."