Back to Eratiano

The course of Rumanian politics is an orbit, often fiery as a comet's tail, yet at present circular and without end. Just as the earth's solar year extends eternally from January to January, so the Rumanian political cycle starts when M. Jon Bratiano* becomes Premier, and is not full rounded until he has resigned and then resumed that office. Therefore, politically sneaking, it was "January" in Rumania last week, for M. Bratiano had just resumed the Premiership once more. He has been absent from office--not from power--for some 15 months. To sketch the events of those months is to trace the orbit, perhaps the horoscope, of Rumania.

The day of Jon Bratiano begins when his valet awakens him at 9 a.m., presenting a light, Parisian breakfast of coffee and rolls. Although punctual about this breakfast hour, M. Bratiano is, thereafter, the acme of exquisite and sophisticated ease--of nicely timed delay. "I try to put off until tomorrow," he has said, "the mistakes which people tell me I ought to make today."

Such is M. Bratiano's outward, dilettante philosophy of life and statecraft. The pose has deceived many. A man with so much leisure for all that art and culture have to give must be, it would seem, extremely lucky to continue strong. In a measure Jon Bratiano has been lucky. He was fortunate, for example, to be born the son of that greater Jon C. Bratiano (1821-91) who freed Rumania from Turkey.

Born luckily to place and power, Premier Jon Bratiano has held and builded upon both. He and his brother Vintila, and brother-in-law Prince Babu Stirbey (intimate of Queen Marie) control the State. They dominate Rumanian banking, oil, manufactures. Their large estates are worked by peasants in a manner all but feudal. Because they have used their power to systematically exploit Rumania, a tide of public indignation periodically rises, and before it M. Bratiano resigns the Premiership, announces that he has "retired," and proceeds to lie in wait.

Fourteen months ago such a tide of resentment was at the flood. It might have led King Ferdinand of Rumania on to better fortune for his dynasty, had he dared to brave Jon Bratiano then. Instead Ferdinand I, weak, invalided, accepted M. Bratiano's resignation as Premier without comment, and meekly called one of the Bratiano henchmen, General Fofoza Alexander Averescu, to the Premiership.

The General, ruthless, instantly suppressed the news organ Lupta, which had commented despairingly: "In the face of the country's unanimous expectation that it would receive a Government which it had indicated unquestionably was its choice, it is answered again with a Government by the Bratiano family. May God protect Rumania from . . . this [the King's] deed."

Thenceforward the Rumanian cycle has moved smoothly--with General Averescu masquerading as a defender of the citizenry but actually obedient to oligarchs Jon and Vintila Bratiano. These gentlemen resolved, recently, to resume power, sensing that popular resentment had guttered down.

At once, King Ferdinand requested General Averescu to resign (TIME, June 13), an unusual proceeding for a constitutional monarch. The King then called to the Premiership Prince Babu Stirbey. Of him the fact should be noted that Opposition leaders openly and vulgarly couple his name with that of Queen Marie (TIME, Feb. 15, 1926). Whether their insinuations be true or false, King Ferdinand displayed in calling Prince Stirbey to the Premiership an extraordinary humility of spirit.

The last act, the final returning of the cycle upon itself, came last fortnight, when Prince Babu Stirbey dissolved Parliament, then resigned and was succeeded last week by Jon Bratiano as Premier.

Freshened by coffee and rolls, the Great Man did a swift, careful morning's work in assembling a Cabinet blindly serviceable to himself. The Foreign Office must, of course, be wholly his, so he took that portfolio personally. The Ministry of Finance, equally vital, went to suave, keen Vintila Bratiano. Other appointments:

Jon G. Duca Minister of the Interior

M. Argetoianu Minister of Agriculture

M. Letu Minister of Education

Alexander Lapedatu Minister of Religion

Stelian Popescu Minister of Justice

Jon Inculetz Minister of Public Health

Nicolai Lupu Minister of Labor

M. Aglescu Minister of Communication

M. Mosoin Minister of Public Works

Paul Angelescu Minister of War

M. Mrazec Minister of Commerce

Elections. Premier Bratiano last week set July 18 as the election day for the Chamber of Deputies, and July 25 for the Senate election. It is notorious that, in Rumania, the party which conducts an election always wins. For a long time hence Jon Bratano seems destined to be the overload of his country, the keeper of his King.

* See front cover.