Regular Royal Queen

Costanza, a bad sea-night's voyage from Constantinople, is a miserable port but about the only port Rumania has. It was haunted last week by Italian destroyers.

Mussolini sent the destroyers because Rumania refuses to pay her debts to Italians ($1,600,000). He threatened to seize Rumanian merchant vessels.

These financial difficulties pinch the social toe of Rumania's Queen, Marie. Mussolini told her she could not call on the Italian monarchs (TIME, April 7). Primo di Rivera, following the leader, told her she could not call on the Spanish. The French Senate voted money for entertaining her this Summer, but so great was the protest it became doubtful whether the moneys would be so used. Only Brussels beamed with a kindly light. The Belgian Foreign Office extended an official invitation to Queen Marie and her husband, Ferdinand.

Meanwhile, the Queen is reported to be giving away American Red Cross supplies as personal gifts from her royal self, and American firms (notably the Baldwin Locomotive and the International Harvester) are pleading in vain for payments of accounts rendered.