Total Imports into Great Britain from Roumania.

1878.1879.1880.
Maize£587,635£805,788£558,745
Barley316,402462,622796,808
Other produce66,518104,592106,283
Total£970,555£1,373,002£1,461,836

The manufacturing industries of Roumania generally are hardly in their infancy, but at Galatz are to be found a wood factory and sawmills of a very superior order, owned by Messrs. P. Goetz & Co. They are lighted with the electric light, and are doing a large and increasing export trade; indeed last year (1881), as we are informed, a cargo of deals &c. was shipped from this factory to the Panama Canal Works. There is a very large flour mill, and also the 'Galatz Soap and Candle Company;' but this last has not proved a success, inasmuch as the raw products, including stearine (which is found in Roumania as ozokerit), are all imported at a cost which interferes with their profitable employment. Whilst we are dealing with the question of manufactures, we may mention that besides the petroleum refineries referred to in a former chapter, there are in Roumania sugar factories at Chitilla and Jassy, match factories in Bucarest and Jassy, and one cloth factory. Steam mills for grinding flour abound, and there are water mills for assisting in the preparation of flannel.

This seems a small beginning, but there is much hope in the future. The same causes that militated against the prosperity of Roumania in other respects have rendered the prosecution of national industries an absolute impossibility. Wilkinson referred at considerable length to this matter sixty years since. Who would have ventured to invest capital in mills and factories which were liable to be burned or plundered by Turks or Russians for strategical or other warlike purposes, or would be taxed beyond endurance by a suzerain master for the maintenance of his Constantinople harem and of his needy officials? The soil indeed could not be carried off, or there would not have been even an agricultural industry. But the time is not far distant when the advantages of Roumania as a manufacturing country will become apparent, and when her native products, coupled with her proximity to the Danube and Black Sea, will enable her to compete successfully with other nations, especially with those near neighbours from whom she is at present compelled to draw her supplies of manufactured commodities.

Her statesmen already recognise these facts, and they are taking steps accordingly. A new seaport is in course of formation at Constanta (Kustendjie), which will be connected with Bucarest and the whole of Roumania through the existing line to Cernavoda, and one in progress to Bucarest.[50] Besides being useful as a defensive maritime station, this new port will give an impetus to trade, which will be further stimulated by the establishment of entrepôts, hitherto confined to the seaports, at Bucarest and elsewhere.

But we have devoted sufficient space to Galatz and the nascent commercial and manufacturing industries of the country, and before treating of what is by far the most important source of her wealth, namely, her agricultural resources, we must say a word or two about the old Moldavian capital, Jassy. This is picturesquely situated at an altitude of more than 1,000 feet above the sea-level, on the railway from Pascani (Galatz-Cernowitz) to Kischeneff in Russia. The number of its inhabitants is uncertain, probably about 75,000, and includes a very large proportion of Jews, who monopolise the trade and banking business of the place.[51] It stands upon three eminences, and its principal streets have been paved by contract with a London firm at a cost of 200,000£.[52] It is lighted with petroleum lamps, and is badly drained and sewered, but possesses some important buildings, and contains many fine residences belonging to the landed gentry. Besides a university where there are some men of considerable attainments, it has a museum, school of art, various secondary educational establishments, and law courts, including a court of appeal. A noteworthy circumstance connected with the inhabitants of Jassy, and which applies equally to the whole of Roumania, is that the death-rate is persistently lower and the birth-rate higher amongst the Jews than the Christians, and in fact there have been periods when the Jewish population was increasing whilst the remainder was at a standstill.[53] When Jassy ceased to be the capital of Moldavia, it claimed and was awarded compensation by the legislature; but, according to the authority just quoted, 'no payment has ever been or appears likely to be made.'

Next in importance to Galatz as a port is Ibrail, or Braila, also near the mouth of the Danube; indeed, according to Consul Sanderson, the exports of the latter exceed those of the former, whilst Galatz imports much more largely owing to its nearer proximity to the embouchure and to the fact that the steamers first touch there. The same writer believes it probable that some day Ibrail will be a more considerable port than Galatz, but both are likely to be interfered with by the new port of Constanta. The other large towns, Craiova, the former capital of Little Wallachia; Ploiesti, a considerable town, with many picturesque churches, on the line from Bucarest to Kronstadt, and the junction from whence the railway branches off to Galatz, &c.; Tirgovistea, a former capital of Wallachia, not situated on the railway; Pitesti, &c., are all interesting in their way, but not sufficiently so to detain us, and we must now direct our attention to other phases of Roumanian progress.