The Rumanian cabinet faced its first serious crisis today when Prof. Alexander Cuza, Minister without Portfolio, voiced a demand that Rumania quit the league of Nations, which he described as a “Jewish institution.”
Prof. Cuza, co-leader with Premier Octavian Goga of the anti-Semitic National Christian Party, threatened to resign together with his son, George, Public Works Minister, and other of his followers in the Cabinet, unless Foreign Minister Istrate Micescu stays away from Geneva next week when the Council session opens. Pressure was being brought on Cuza to defer the League issue until after the forthcoming session.
Prof. Cuza also expressed dissatisfaction over the Government’s revocation of his son’s order prohibiting Jews to employ Christian maids under 40. He voiced anger at suppression of reports about the decree following its publication in the official party organ, Tara Noastra.
(Commenting on British and French representations and on United States Minister Franklin Gunther’s visit to Premier Goga last week, in which the Jewish question was discussed the Nationalist newspaper Curentul said editorially: “There is nothing to justify these ‘representations,’ which self-respect forces us to reject. The Government does not intend to persecute, but simply to eliminate those who fraudulently became nationalized Rumanians after the war. The problem undoubtedly has an international aspect and will have to be brought before the League of Nations.”
(Official sources said Rumania itself would bring up the Jewish question at Geneva and would reaffirm that it is forced to take measures against the country’s post-war Jewish immigrants, according to the Havas News Agency. Foreign Minister Micescu will inform the league, it is understood, that all anti-Semitic measures will be in conformity with due processes of law and will not partake of spoliation or racial intolerance with regard to those Jews who were already in Rumania when the post-war treaties were concluded.)
Reports from Bessarabia and Bukovina told of growing dissatisfaction with the Government among, peasants, who had been promised during the election campaign that Jewish property would be divided among Rumanians, and were said to be besieging the offices of district commissioners demanding that the promises be fulfilled.
Shutting down of many Jewish businesses, the result of liquidation of their enterprises by wealthier Jews who are preparing to leave the country, is increasing unemployment and creating dissatisfaction among non-Jewish employes. In many towns, the Jews are being invited by the political police to keep their establishments going, but this has failed to check the liquidation of Jewish property. Jewish merchants and industrialists are convinced that the Government will keep its promise to put Government commissars in charge of their properties.
Liquidation of realty is proceeding on a large scale since non-Jewish tenants are refusing to pay rents to Jewish landlords. Prices of property are dropping from thirty to forty per cent.
Meanwhile, district commissioners are taking advantage of the situation by introducing local anti-Jewish measures without awaiting orders from Bucharest. The authorities at Jassy have prohibited Jewish butchers from selling non-kosher meat. Shechita, ritual slaughter of animals, has been entirely proscribed at Bihisu, Moldavia.
The Supreme Council of the Rumanian Bar Association has decided to postpone elimination of 1,540 Bucharest Jewish lawyers, pending examination of their naturalization papers.
The Minister of Justice today appointed a special commission, composed of magistrates, to examine Jews’ naturalization papers with the purpose of denationalizing hundreds of thousands who allegedly obtained citizenship by fraud.
The Austrian consulate here has stopped granting visas to Rumanian Jews. Since not even transit visas are being given, Jewish travellers to western Europe are compelled to take other routes.
Premier Goga today received in audience Prof. Benjamin Akzin, member of the executive of the New Zionist Organization, of London.
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