to
'fair traders,' that is to say not in the refined sense in which the
term has been recently employed, but in its good old-fashioned
signification of honest dealers. 'It cannot be said,' he remarks, 'that
the bulk of the goods imported from Great Britain forms by any means a
fair sample of its produce and manufactures,' and 'there is already a
tendency amongst the well-to-do classes to purchase French or Austrian
manufactures when they are prepared to pay a high price for a really
good article, although the same goods might possibly be furnished them
from Great Britain at a lower rate.'[48] But Consul Sanderson gives
another reason for the preference shown for foreign as distinguished
from English manufactures. It is that the local trade is chiefly carried
on by natives of those countries from which the articles preferred are
imported, 'whilst there is not a single shop in Galatz kept by an
Englishman--it seems doubtful whether there be one in the whole of
Roumania.' And there is still a third reason, to which he only refers
incidentally, but we question whether it is not the most cogent of all.
Whilst continental states, and especially Austria, have shown little
delicacy in exacting favourable treaties of commerce from the Roumanian
Government, England has been at a disadvantage in that respect. We may
be told that we are placed on the most favoured nation footing, but we
were informed at Bucarest by persons occupying high positions, and whose
statements may be trusted implicitly, that, although this is apparently
and nominally the case, it is not so in reality, as the commercial
treaties have been initiated by Austria, and so framed as to give a
preference to her manufactures.[49]

Notwithstanding these drawbacks, however, our exports to Roumania are on
the whole increasing, as witness the following statistics (Board of
Trade, 1881), although there has been a slight falling off in cotton
stuffs on which the tariff is high, and in manufactured iron.

_Total Exports from Great Britain to Roumania._

+----------------------------+----------+----------+----------+
| | 1878. | 1879. | 1880. |
+----------------------------+----------+----------+----------+
| | | | |
|British manufactures | L887,488 | L997,078 |L1,112,761|
|Foreign and colonial produce| 112,987 | 100,354 | 86,501|
| and manufactures |