The country has a small, but growing, merchant marine. Although most of its ships are new, the more than 100 percent increase—to nearly 0.5 million deadweight tons—claimed to have been achieved between 1967 and 1969 was accounted for by less than a dozen ships, consisting of two tankers and some bulk cargo carriers that were built in Japan. The government releases no official statistics on its merchant fleet, but fragmentary information indicates that before 1967 it consisted of about thirty-five ships. One of them was a 2,000-deadweight-ton passenger-cargo vessel, and there were a few tankers totaling something over 100,000 deadweight tons. The remainder were freighters, averaging about 5,000 deadweight tons each.
Statistics on goods transported by sea substantiate the size and growth of the merchant marine fleet. Until about 1960 it had relatively little importance, but by 1966 cargo carried was almost ten times that of 1960, and by 1969 it had again tripled. The impressive growth statistics notwithstanding, sea transport in 1969 accounted for only about 1.5 percent of the total cargo transported.
Constanta is the major port on the Black Sea, but some smaller seagoing vessels go up the Danube River to Galati and Braila. All of the larger river towns, and all of those on rail lines that cross it or terminate at the river, are considered river ports. Mangalia, on the Black Sea coast south of Constanta and about five miles from the Bulgarian border, is a secondary seaport but has the country's largest naval installation (see ch. 13).
CHAPTER 4
SOCIAL SYSTEM AND VALUES
Since the end of World War II Romanian society and its values have been in a state of flux. The aim of communist social and economic policies has been to destroy the old order and replace it with a new one that will reflect communist ideology. The resulting changes have been fundamental and far reaching, particularly in the structure of the society and the place occupied in it by particular individuals. The effect on values has been less easy to determine.
The extent and the pace of change have been slowing down since the early 1960s, and some aspects of the old social order were beginning to reemerge, although in different forms. The changes that were continuing to affect the society in the 1970s were more the result of economic growth than of conscious efforts to bring them about. This was particularly true of the changing role of the family, which has come about as a consequence of increased industrialization and urbanization as much as by government design.
Least affected by the social upheaval since 1945 have been the ethnic composition of the country and the relations between the various ethnic groups. Although the population has always been predominantly Romanian, Hungarians and Germans constitute a majority in some areas of the country and remain a source of potential political and social problems. The Hungarian minority in particular, making up more than 8 percent of the population in 1966, has always been very sensitive to what it considers Romanian domination and has at times harbored irredentist feelings.