Roumania Past and Present | Page 2

four hundred thousand heads of families amongst the peasantry came into peaceful possession of a large proportion of the land on equitable terms; and whilst the industrious agriculturist is now daily acquiring a more considerable interest in the soil, the landlords, who were merely drawing a revenue from the labour expended upon it by others, are gradually disappearing. That the prosperity and stability of the country have increased through the change is shown in many ways, but more especially by the enhanced value of Roumanian Government securities, of which I have been able to append a short statement in contrast with those of Russia and Turkey.[2]
What has occurred and is passing in Ireland the reader need not be told here. Possibly the consideration of the Roumanian land question may have given a bias to my views on the whole subject, and the excited state of the public mind causes me to hesitate in the expression of an opinion which may appear to be dogmatic. Still, looking at all the circumstances--at the partial resemblance between the former condition of Roumania and the present state of Ireland, at the past history of Irish reforms (such as the abolition of the Irish Church), at the rising land agitation on this side of the Channel, and at the recent recommendation of the Canadian Parliament that autonomy should be extended to Ireland--I have been able to arrive at no other conclusion than that the measures at present before Parliament may bring temporary relief to the peasantry, and temporary, nay let us hope permanent pacification, but that the question will be reopened, coupled probably with that of 'Home Rule,' and that at no distant period.
There are many other circumstances which warrant us in seeking to obtain a better knowledge of Roumania, but these were the chief considerations which induced me last year to visit the country and some of its leading institutions, and to collect the materials which I now venture in the following pages to lay before my readers.
No one knows so well as I do how imperfectly my task has been performed, nor the difficulties with which it has been surrounded, and there are one or two matters of which I should like to unburden myself to the reader. He will probably enquire why I have put the cart before the horse, giving a sketch of the present condition of the country before treating of its past history. The answer is that it was not originally my intention to deal with the latter at any length; but when I came to read and study the works which have appeared on the subject in French and German (of which a tolerably full list is appended to this treatise), so many topics of interest presented themselves for the historical student that I determined to publish a connected history of the country, however imperfect it might be, from the earliest times down to the present day. And in this I was further encouraged by the fact that the attempt has not yet been made in English, excepting in a very perfunctory manner in Consul Wilkinson's work, published by Longmans in 1820, which is now quite out of date. That such a review of Roumanian history, condensed as it necessarily is, was sure to be considered very dry by many readers, seemed to be certain; I therefore placed it after the description of the country as it exists to-day, and for those readers the perusal of the last chapter of that part of the work, dealing with the notabilities of the day, will probably suffice. But I believe that some matters relating to the Roman conquest of Dacia, the character and movements of the barbarians (of which I have prepared and appended a tabular statement), the subsequent history of the country, its struggles for freedom, and the condition of the inhabitants at various periods, will be new to the general student of history and sociology, and if my share has been badly done, it need not prevent him from prosecuting enquiries, for which he will find ample materials in the works of the continental writers to whom I have referred. As regards the controverted questions of the descent of the modern Roumanians and the foundation of the Principalities, I would direct his attention more especially to the recent publications of Roesler and Píc, the first an Austrian and the second a Slav writer, where he will find those subjects fully and warmly debated.
The only other matter on which I desire to give an explanation is my reason for not entering more minutely into what is called 'the Eastern Question,' nor attempting, as other authors have done, to predict the future relations of Roumania in regard to it. An American humourist has said, 'Never prophesy unless you know,' and