 In a bid to gain legal recognition of the union, Romanian also concluded inter-governmental accords which offered preferential compensations to deposed owners of British, French and Italian citizenship.The literacy rate grew to over 40% by 1930; however, the region continued to lag educationally.In 1924, Pan Halippa, a strong supporter of the Union in 1918, criticized the Romanian government for transforming Bessarabia into an "inferno", where the "Moldavian people suffers and bleeds more than under the Tsarist regime".