The reconstruction of South-Eastern Europe

\

SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE

claims with regard to the Magyars will be fully satisfied.

But those claims of Serbia in respect of the Banat are complicated by the presence of large numbers of Roumanians inhabiting the eastern part of that province, for whose freedom and unity Roumania has gallantly entered into war on the side of the Allies.

The Serbs and the Roumanians have lived for more than a thousand years in close relations and neighbourhood, and history has not yet chronicled a single instance of conflict between them. The sympathy for Roumania’s national aspirations and rights can nowhere be felt more strongly than in Serbia. Their cases being identical, now as in the future, they ought always to be found side by side. We may fairly hope that the teaching of their past history, as well as hardships and glories of the present brotherhood in arms, will inspire them with a lofty determination for complete agreement. No petty quarrel over a few villages in the Banat should mar the good relations between them, nor obscure the clear vision of their mutual interests and need for co-operation in the future.

All the arguments that we have used in the «Problem of the Adriatic ” concerning the relations between the Southern Slavs and Italy, can with equal force be applied to their relations with Roumania. In addition let us only state that Roumania neither economically nor strate-

205