61 
The working of these lines under the Hungarian and Austrian rule, was 
done by the State in the conditions laid down by the then existing laws. 
By the annexation of these territories, the contracts concluded with the 
private companies, passed into the hands of the State, with all the charges 
therein stipulated, charges which for the greater part do not correspond to the 
advantages these railways produce. 
It is a question of railways, whose working has always been in deffi- 
ciency, and of railways which could only be put to some profit through new 
and important investments, in order to give them the solidity and the neces 
sary material for an exploitation, and direction towards an outlet in view of 
which they were not ciealed. 
A rough idea of the charge which will ensue for Roumania fiom this in 
heritance can be gathered from the examination of the table of the approxi 
mate situation of the railway companies worked by the State in annex. 46. 
These railways both by the bonds which will have to be issued for buying 
them up, so as not to depend on companies belonging to our former enemies, 
as for assuring the requisite service of the loan, as provided in the contracts 
of the concession, represent a heavy burden, which to this days has not been 
inscribed in the Roumaniant budget. 
- CONCLUSION 
Not for the first time did Roumania expose before her great allies the 
quite exceptional situation in which she is placed by the application of the 
treaties. 
Roumania who understood the necessity of solidarity between the allied 
and associated Rowers, as well during the war they waged for the common 
cause, as for the time following the war, and indifferently of the damages she 
suffered, does not ask for more than a treatment equal and proportional to the 
sacrifices she made. 
She always urged that the entire complex of the treaties forms an indivi 
sible whole : rights and duties closely connected, so that, the modification of 
the one without the mitigation of the other upsets the equilibrium of the whole 
structure, and threatens to crush under its burden some of the Allies. 
Any body may see clearly that if a reduction is made in the claims for re 
parations the obligations must be revised after the same norms in order to 
avoid the injustice which might ensue for some of the Allies in favor of our 
former enemies. 
By the explanations given above, we may see that practically the treaties 
of peace have determined certain rights and obligations between the allied states 
and the former enemies. 
The claims of Roumania in respect of reparations should be recovered in 
part out of the reparations due by Germany, and in part out of those due by 
Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary and Turkey.