The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe Jews

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe JewsThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: The JewsAuthor: Hilaire BellocRelease date: November 26, 2015 [eBook #50556]Most recently updated: October 22, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: E-text prepared by Clarity, Martin Pettit, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries (https://archive.org/details/americana)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JEWS ***

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: The JewsAuthor: Hilaire BellocRelease date: November 26, 2015 [eBook #50556]Most recently updated: October 22, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: E-text prepared by Clarity, Martin Pettit, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries (https://archive.org/details/americana)

Title: The Jews

Author: Hilaire Belloc

Release date: November 26, 2015 [eBook #50556]Most recently updated: October 22, 2024

Language: English

Credits: E-text prepared by Clarity, Martin Pettit, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries (https://archive.org/details/americana)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JEWS ***

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Jews, by Hilaire Belloc

THE JEWS

EUROPE AND THE FAITH"Mr. Belloc has developed a side of history which is a wholesome antidote to self-satisfied Anglicanism; and he has produced a brilliant and burningly sincere historical essay which sweeps his reader along. It is certainly the best book he has written."—The Church Times.THE OLD ROADWith Illustrations by William Hyde, a Map and Route Guides. New Edition.THE STANE STREETA Monograph. With Illustrations by William Hyde, and Maps.

EUROPE AND THE FAITH

"Mr. Belloc has developed a side of history which is a wholesome antidote to self-satisfied Anglicanism; and he has produced a brilliant and burningly sincere historical essay which sweeps his reader along. It is certainly the best book he has written."—The Church Times.

THE OLD ROAD

With Illustrations by William Hyde, a Map and Route Guides. New Edition.

THE STANE STREET

A Monograph. With Illustrations by William Hyde, and Maps.

By HILAIRE BELLOC

Hebrew text

CONSTABLE & COMPANY, LIMITEDLONDON BOMBAY SYDNEY

First Published 1922Second Impression 1922

ToMISS RUBY GOLDSMITHMY SECRETARY FOR MANY YEARS AT KING'SLAND AND THE BEST AND MOST INTIMATE OFOUR JEWISH FRIENDS, TO WHOM MYFAMILY AND I WILL ALWAYS OWEA DEEP DEBT OF GRATITUDE

The object of this book is more modest, I fear, than that of much which has appeared upon that vital political matter, the relation between the Jews and the nations around them.

It does not propose any detailed, still less, any positive legal solution to what has become a pressing problem, nor does it pretend to any complete solution of it. It is no more than a suggestion that any attempt to solve this problem ought to follow certain general lines which are essentially different from those attempted in Western Europe during the time immediately preceding our own. I suggest that, if the present generation in both parties to the discussion, the Jews and ourselves, will drop convention and make a principle of discussing the problem in terms of reality, we shall automatically approach a right solution.

We have but to tell the truth in the place of the falsehoods of the last generation. Therefore, of the three principles upon which this essay reposes, the principle thatconcealmentmust come to an end seems to me more important than the principle of mutual recognition, or even the principle of mutual respect. For it may well be that my judgment is at fault in the matter of Jewish national consciousness; it may well be that I exaggerate it, and itis certain that one party to a debate cannot be possessed of the full knowledge required for its settlement; the other side must be heard. But neither my judgment nor the judgment of any man can be at fault on the value of truth and the ultimate evil consequences of trying to build upon a lie.

The English reader (less, I think, the American) will often find in my sentences a note that will seem to him fantastic. The quarrel is already acute here in London, but it has not here approached the limits which it has reached long ago elsewhere; and a man accustomed to the quieter air in which all public affairs have, until recently, been debated in this country, may smile at what will seem to him odd and exaggerated fears. To this I would reply that the book has been written not only in the light of English, but of a general, experience. I will bargain that were it put into the hands of a jury chosen from the various nationalities of Europe and the United States it would be found too moderate in its estimate of the peril it postulates. I would further ask the reader, who may not have appreciated how rapidly the peril approaches, to consider the distance traversed in the last few years. It is not very long since a mere discussion of the Jewish question in England was impossible. It is but a few years since the mere admission of it appeared abnormal. The truth is that this question is not one which we open or close at will in any European nation. It is imposed successively upon one nation after another by the force of things. It is this force of things, this necessity for national well-being, and for the warding off of disorder, which has thrust the Jewish questionto-day upon a society still reluctant to consider it and still hoping it may return to its old neglect. It cannot so return.

I will conclude by asking my Jewish, as well as my non-Jewish, readers to observe that I have left out every personal allusion and every element of mere recrimination. I have carefully avoided the mention of particular examples in public life of the friction between the Jews and ourselves and even examples drawn from past history. With these I could often have strengthened my argument, and I would certainly have made my book a great deal more readable. I have left out everything of the kind because, though one can always rouse interest in this way, it excites enmity between the opposing parties. Since my object is to reduce that enmity, which has already become dangerous, I should be insincere indeed if from mere purpose of enlivening this essay I had stooped to exasperate feeling.

I could have made the book far stronger as a piece of polemic and indefinitely more amusing as a piece of record, but I have not written it as a piece of polemic or as a piece of record. I have written it as an attempt at justice.

The Jews are an alien body within the society they inhabit—hence irritation and friction—a problem is presented by the strains thus set up—the solution of that problem is urgently necessary.An alien body in any organism is disposed of in one of two ways: elimination and segregation.Elimination may be by destruction, by excretion or by absorption—in the case of the Jews the first is abominable and, further, has failed—the second means exile: it has also failed—the third, absorption, the most probable and most moral, has failed throughout the past, though having everything in its favour.There remains segregation, which may be of two forms: hostile to, or careless of, the alien body, or friendly to it and careful of its good—in this latter form it may best be calledRecognition. The first kind of segregation has often been attempted in history—it has been partially successful over long periods—but has always left behind it a sense of injustice and has not really solved the problem—also it has always failed in the end.The true solution is in the second kind of segregation, that is, recognition on both sides of a separate Jewish nationality.

The Jews are an alien body within the society they inhabit—hence irritation and friction—a problem is presented by the strains thus set up—the solution of that problem is urgently necessary.

An alien body in any organism is disposed of in one of two ways: elimination and segregation.

Elimination may be by destruction, by excretion or by absorption—in the case of the Jews the first is abominable and, further, has failed—the second means exile: it has also failed—the third, absorption, the most probable and most moral, has failed throughout the past, though having everything in its favour.

There remains segregation, which may be of two forms: hostile to, or careless of, the alien body, or friendly to it and careful of its good—in this latter form it may best be calledRecognition. The first kind of segregation has often been attempted in history—it has been partially successful over long periods—but has always left behind it a sense of injustice and has not really solved the problem—also it has always failed in the end.

The true solution is in the second kind of segregation, that is, recognition on both sides of a separate Jewish nationality.

In the immediate past the problem was shirked in Western Europe by a mere denial of its existence—somewere honestly ignorant of the existence of a Jewish nation—some thought the difference one of religion only—more admitted the existence of a separate nation but thought a convenient fiction, that it did not exist, necessary to the modern state.This ignorance or fiction has broken down in our own time—partly through the necessary reaction of truth against any falsehood—partly through the increasing numbers of the Jews in Western countries—more through the great increase of their power.Yet, though this old "Liberal" fiction about the Jews is dead, having proved unworkable in the face of fact, it had something to be said for it—it secured peace for a while—it chose models from the past—and it was based on a certain truth, to wit, that the Jew takes on very rapidly the superficial characters of the nation in which he happens for the time to be living—moreover it was desired by the Jews themselves—example of the old Jewish Peer and his claim "to be let alone"—practical proof of the failure in his case.At any rate the old "Liberal" fiction is now quite useless—the problem is admitted and must be solved.

This ignorance or fiction has broken down in our own time—partly through the necessary reaction of truth against any falsehood—partly through the increasing numbers of the Jews in Western countries—more through the great increase of their power.

Yet, though this old "Liberal" fiction about the Jews is dead, having proved unworkable in the face of fact, it had something to be said for it—it secured peace for a while—it chose models from the past—and it was based on a certain truth, to wit, that the Jew takes on very rapidly the superficial characters of the nation in which he happens for the time to be living—moreover it was desired by the Jews themselves—example of the old Jewish Peer and his claim "to be let alone"—practical proof of the failure in his case.

At any rate the old "Liberal" fiction is now quite useless—the problem is admitted and must be solved.

The Jewish problem, present throughout history, has assumed a particular character to-day—it is the character of a sharp reaction against the old pretence that Jews were identical with the nations in which they happened to live—it first took the form of irritation only—it was suddenly exasperated in a very high degree by the Jewish revolution in Russia—but long before this the increasing power of Jews in public life, the anti-Semitic writing on the Continent, the Dreyfus agitation, the South African War, and the Jewish leadership of Socialism had prepared the way—The situation on the outbreak of the Great War—Bolshevism—a short description to be expanded in a later chapter—Bolshevism is a Jewish movement,but not a movement of the Jewish race as a whole—its particular effect was to release criticism of Jewish power which had hitherto been silent from fear of, or sympathy with, Capitalism.Men hesitated to attack the Jews as financiers because the stability of society and of their own fortunes wasbound up with finance—but when a body of Jews also appeared as the active enemies of existing society and of private fortune, the restraint was removed—since the Bolshevist movement open (and hostile) discussion of the Jewish problem has become universal.

Men hesitated to attack the Jews as financiers because the stability of society and of their own fortunes wasbound up with finance—but when a body of Jews also appeared as the active enemies of existing society and of private fortune, the restraint was removed—since the Bolshevist movement open (and hostile) discussion of the Jewish problem has become universal.

The strain between Jewry and its hosts in Islam and Christendom much older than any modern cause can account for—the true causes are both general and particular—I call thosegeneralwhich are ineradicable and proceed from the contrasting natures of the two races,particularthose which depend upon the will on either side and can be modified to the advantage of both.The general cause of friction being a contrast in fundamental character, we note that the common accusations brought against Jews are false, as are the common praises given him by those not of the race.—In each case what has to be noted is not a series of virtues or vices special to the Jew, but the racial character or tone of each quality.These examined—the Jewish courage—examples—the Jewish generosity—the strength of Jewish patriotism—the consequent indifference to our national feelings—accusations arising therefrom, especially in time of war—the Jewish power of concentration—of eloquence—the Jewish tendency to "push" a Jewish success and hide a Jewish failure or danger—the evil effects of this tendency in our mutual relations.The poverty of the Jewish people—false effect produced by a few great Jewish fortunes—the instability of these—cringing of wealthy Europeans to Jewish money-dealers—dependence of our politicians on wealthy Jews—evil effect of this in the attempt to regulate domestic affairs of Eastern Europe.The ill effect of the partially Jewish financial monopoly—especially with Parliamentary corruption as pronounced as it is to-day.

The general cause of friction being a contrast in fundamental character, we note that the common accusations brought against Jews are false, as are the common praises given him by those not of the race.—In each case what has to be noted is not a series of virtues or vices special to the Jew, but the racial character or tone of each quality.

These examined—the Jewish courage—examples—the Jewish generosity—the strength of Jewish patriotism—the consequent indifference to our national feelings—accusations arising therefrom, especially in time of war—the Jewish power of concentration—of eloquence—the Jewish tendency to "push" a Jewish success and hide a Jewish failure or danger—the evil effects of this tendency in our mutual relations.

The poverty of the Jewish people—false effect produced by a few great Jewish fortunes—the instability of these—cringing of wealthy Europeans to Jewish money-dealers—dependence of our politicians on wealthy Jews—evil effect of this in the attempt to regulate domestic affairs of Eastern Europe.

The ill effect of the partially Jewish financial monopoly—especially with Parliamentary corruption as pronounced as it is to-day.

I have called "Special" causes of Friction thosewhich are remedial at will by either party—they would seem to be, on the Jewish side, the habit of secrecy and the habit of expressing a sense of superiority—on our side a disingenuousness and unintelligence in our treatment of Jews and a lack of charity.The deplorable Jewish habit of secrecy—the use of false names—examples—excuses for same not adequate—a regular code of such names which deceive us but can be decoded by fellow Jews.The expression of superiority by the Jew—our statesmanship has never sufficiently allowed for it—examples of this expression—Jewish interference in our religion—or national quarrels—and other departments which are alien to Jewish interests—on the other hand this quality has been a preservation of the race—the Jew should note the corresponding sense of superiority on our side—even the poor hack-writer, if he be of European blood, feels himself superior to the Jewish millionaire.

The deplorable Jewish habit of secrecy—the use of false names—examples—excuses for same not adequate—a regular code of such names which deceive us but can be decoded by fellow Jews.

The expression of superiority by the Jew—our statesmanship has never sufficiently allowed for it—examples of this expression—Jewish interference in our religion—or national quarrels—and other departments which are alien to Jewish interests—on the other hand this quality has been a preservation of the race—the Jew should note the corresponding sense of superiority on our side—even the poor hack-writer, if he be of European blood, feels himself superior to the Jewish millionaire.

This department of our inquiry often neglected through an error—it is presumed that, because we are the hosts and the Jew alien to us, no responsibility falls on us—this error forgets that the Jew is permanently with us and that every permanent human relation involves responsibility.The first cause of friction on our side isdisingenuousnessin our dealings with the Jew—examples of this—we conceal from the Jew our real feelings—we deceive him—the richer classes who intermarry with Jews and enter into business partnership with them especially to blame—the populace more straightforward—this deceiving of the Jew leaves him troubled when the quarrel comes to a head—he has not heard what is said behind his back.Disingenuousness in our suppression of the Jewish problem in history—gross examples of it in contemporary life and particularly in the popular press—Jews called "Russians," "Germans," anything but what they are.Unintelligence a second cause of friction—example: our treatment of Jewish immigration—we hate it, yet allow it because we dare not give it its right name—unintelligent treatment of the Jew in fiction—unintelligencein our astonishment at his international position—example of the cabinet minister's cousin who got into trouble.Last cause, lack of charity—people won't put themselves in the shoes of the Jew and see how things look fromhisside—we do not (as we should) mix with Jews of every class and address their societies—Summary—A warning against the idea that the friction between the Jews and ourselves is unimportant—it has bred catastrophe in the past and may in the future.

The first cause of friction on our side isdisingenuousnessin our dealings with the Jew—examples of this—we conceal from the Jew our real feelings—we deceive him—the richer classes who intermarry with Jews and enter into business partnership with them especially to blame—the populace more straightforward—this deceiving of the Jew leaves him troubled when the quarrel comes to a head—he has not heard what is said behind his back.

Disingenuousness in our suppression of the Jewish problem in history—gross examples of it in contemporary life and particularly in the popular press—Jews called "Russians," "Germans," anything but what they are.

Unintelligence a second cause of friction—example: our treatment of Jewish immigration—we hate it, yet allow it because we dare not give it its right name—unintelligent treatment of the Jew in fiction—unintelligencein our astonishment at his international position—example of the cabinet minister's cousin who got into trouble.

Last cause, lack of charity—people won't put themselves in the shoes of the Jew and see how things look fromhisside—we do not (as we should) mix with Jews of every class and address their societies—Summary—A warning against the idea that the friction between the Jews and ourselves is unimportant—it has bred catastrophe in the past and may in the future.

Error of neglecting to study Anti-Semitism on account of its extravagance—it is a most significant thing, however ill-balanced—character of the Anti-Semite—he does not recognize a Jewish problem to be solved but only a Jewish race to be hated—this hatred his whole motive—his self-contradictions—his delusion—his strength—the press still on the whole boycotts the Anti-Semitic movement—but it is growing prodigiously—its great power ofdocumentation—its vast accumulation of evidence—effect this will have when it comes out.The Jews met Anti-Semitism by nothing but ridicule—this weapon insufficient and bound to fail—their enemies have countered it by accumulatingfacts—the latter a much stronger weapon so long as the erroneous Jewish policy of secrecy is maintained.Danger to the Jews of the Anti-Semitic movement—(1) because of its intensity—(2) because of its formidable accumulation of evidence, which cannot be permanently suppressed—(3) and most important, because it is allied to a now widespread and more moderate, but very hostile, feeling, to which it acts as spear-head.

The Jews met Anti-Semitism by nothing but ridicule—this weapon insufficient and bound to fail—their enemies have countered it by accumulatingfacts—the latter a much stronger weapon so long as the erroneous Jewish policy of secrecy is maintained.

Danger to the Jews of the Anti-Semitic movement—(1) because of its intensity—(2) because of its formidable accumulation of evidence, which cannot be permanently suppressed—(3) and most important, because it is allied to a now widespread and more moderate, but very hostile, feeling, to which it acts as spear-head.

The revolution in Russia will be the historical point of departure whence will date the renewed hostility to the Jew in Western Europe.Examination of that revolution—it was (as said in Chapter III) "aJewish movement,but not a movementof the Jewish race:" importance of this distinction—unfortunately the two different terms "Jewish race" and "a Jewish movement" are confused in the popular mind.The Revolution not the result of an accident or of a universal plot—element of racial revenge—the Jew not a revolutionary—special character of the Russian situation—Industrial Capitalism, the great evil of our time, there recent and weak—therefore open to special attack—an international evil—the only two international forces applicable were the Jews and the Catholic Church—why the Catholic Church cannotdirectlyattack industrial Capitalism—why the Jew who happens to be opposed to it can and does directly attack it—neither our instinct for property nor our Nationalism an obstacle in his case.Grave perils to the Jew arise from his identification with Bolshevism—the more reason to meet these perils by a sane treatment of the Jewish problem.

The revolution in Russia will be the historical point of departure whence will date the renewed hostility to the Jew in Western Europe.

Examination of that revolution—it was (as said in Chapter III) "aJewish movement,but not a movementof the Jewish race:" importance of this distinction—unfortunately the two different terms "Jewish race" and "a Jewish movement" are confused in the popular mind.

The Revolution not the result of an accident or of a universal plot—element of racial revenge—the Jew not a revolutionary—special character of the Russian situation—Industrial Capitalism, the great evil of our time, there recent and weak—therefore open to special attack—an international evil—the only two international forces applicable were the Jews and the Catholic Church—why the Catholic Church cannotdirectlyattack industrial Capitalism—why the Jew who happens to be opposed to it can and does directly attack it—neither our instinct for property nor our Nationalism an obstacle in his case.

Grave perils to the Jew arise from his identification with Bolshevism—the more reason to meet these perils by a sane treatment of the Jewish problem.

The Jewish problem varies (1) according to the extent to which Jews have acquired control and domination in various places; (2) according to the tradition of each community in approaching the problem; (3) according to the strength in each community of the four international forces, which are the Catholic Church, Islam, Industrial Capitalism, and the Socialist revolt against this last.The individual Jew does not feel that he is in a position of control or even that he is interfering with his hosts—yet that is the universal complaint against him—it is a corporate or collective power—more and more resented.The position in Russia—repeated—in the Marches of Russia and Roumania and Poland—in Central Europe—in Occidental Europe—Ireland an exception.The position in the United States—Mr. Ford and the great effect of his action.The Western tradition more favourable to the Jews than the Eastern—problem of the Jews and Islam—position of the Catholic Church—effect of Industrial Capitalism and of its converse, Socialism, upon the problem.

The individual Jew does not feel that he is in a position of control or even that he is interfering with his hosts—yet that is the universal complaint against him—it is a corporate or collective power—more and more resented.

The position in Russia—repeated—in the Marches of Russia and Roumania and Poland—in Central Europe—in Occidental Europe—Ireland an exception.

The position in the United States—Mr. Ford and the great effect of his action.

The Western tradition more favourable to the Jews than the Eastern—problem of the Jews and Islam—position of the Catholic Church—effect of Industrial Capitalism and of its converse, Socialism, upon the problem.

England has gone to both extremes with the Jew. The Jew in the Roman time and in the Middle Ages—his monopoly of Usury inearlyMiddle Ages—The exile of all English Jews under Edward I—their return under Cromwell—followed by a growing alliance between the English State and the Jews—largely due to cosmopolitan commercial interests of Britain—also to common hostility towards the Catholic Church—aided by great wealth and security of this country—in the later nineteenth century the Jews, in spite of their small numbers, colour every English institution, especially the Universities and the House of Commons—the interests of the two races began to diverge before the Great War—none the less a formal alliance maintained through the control of the politicians by Jewish finance—its culmination in the attempt to form an Anglo-Judaic state in Palestine.

The chief interest of the Zionist experiment lies in its reaction upon theinternationalposition of the Jew—yet that point is not yet discussed—what will be the effect of the experiment on the position of JewsoutsidePalestine, necessarily the vast majority of the race?—an inevitable alternative—either the Jews lose their international position through loss of the fiction that they are not a nation—or the Zionist experiment breaks down—effect especially in Eastern Europe.Special effect of the experiment on Great Britain—difficulty of maintaining sacrifice for purely Jewish interests—which now clash with British—unpopularity of such sacrifice inevitable—grave error of first appointment to the headship of the New State—unworthiness of the politician chosen for that position.

Special effect of the experiment on Great Britain—difficulty of maintaining sacrifice for purely Jewish interests—which now clash with British—unpopularity of such sacrifice inevitable—grave error of first appointment to the headship of the New State—unworthiness of the politician chosen for that position.

This but a consequence of the conditions established inChapters IV, V and VI—our double duty of mixing with the Jews and of recognizing their separate nationality—necessity ofopenlyadmitting this separate nationality in conversation and social habits—in spite of difficulties opposed by convention—in this the wealthier classes should follow the lead of the populace—folly and danger ofFearin this matter—the fear of Jewish power a degrading and exasperating thing to the European—delay makes it worse—our plain duty is to recognize this alien nation, to respect it, and to treat it frankly as we do every nationality other than one's own.

Only a brief mention—for interference or advice in domestic concerns of Jewry would be an impertinence—but it is clear that all specially Jewish institutions favour the right policy for which I plead—those already in existence—schools, newspapers, Jewish societies—all increase of these institutions should be welcome, because they emphasize and make clear the separate nationality of the Jew.

This chapter is a digression on the various theories on the Jewish race and its fortunes which have arisen in history and some of which are still present.The theory that reconciliation is impossible—its attachment to the idea of a special curse or blessing.The theory of a mysterious necessary alliance between Israel and Britain—its most extravagant forms.The theory that the Jews are the necessaryfluxof Europe, without which our energies would decline—note on the intellectual independence of the Jew and on his original effect on our thought—demand for a Jewish history of Europe and Islam combined.The theory that the Jewish problem is domestic only and no concern of ours—its error, since the relations are mutual.The two theories of the Jew as a malignant enemyof our innocent selves, and of our malignant enmity against the innocent and martyred Jew—both erroneous.The theory that the Jewish problem isnowsolving itself by absorption—this theory false and due to a misunderstanding of history and a neglect of acute modern and recent differentiation—Mr. Ford's epigram on "the melting-pot."Fantastic theory that no Jewish national type exists!

This chapter is a digression on the various theories on the Jewish race and its fortunes which have arisen in history and some of which are still present.

The theory that reconciliation is impossible—its attachment to the idea of a special curse or blessing.

The theory of a mysterious necessary alliance between Israel and Britain—its most extravagant forms.

The theory that the Jews are the necessaryfluxof Europe, without which our energies would decline—note on the intellectual independence of the Jew and on his original effect on our thought—demand for a Jewish history of Europe and Islam combined.

The theory that the Jewish problem is domestic only and no concern of ours—its error, since the relations are mutual.

The two theories of the Jew as a malignant enemyof our innocent selves, and of our malignant enmity against the innocent and martyred Jew—both erroneous.

The theory that the Jewish problem isnowsolving itself by absorption—this theory false and due to a misunderstanding of history and a neglect of acute modern and recent differentiation—Mr. Ford's epigram on "the melting-pot."

Fantastic theory that no Jewish national type exists!

Granted that the solution I advance (a full recognition of separate nationality) is the just solution, should it be expressed in law?—Not, I think, until it has first appeared in our morals and social conventions—to begin with laws and regulations onourside would inevitably breed oppression—but the suggestion of separate institutions coming from the Jewish side should be welcomed—urgency of a settlement—modern quarrels are growing fiercer, not less—but for my part I say, "Peace to Israel."

THE THESIS OF THIS BOOK

It is the thesis of this book that the continued presence of the Jewish nation intermixed with other nations alien to it presents a permanent problem of the gravest character: that the wholly different culture, tradition, race and religion of Europe make Europe a permanent antagonist to Israel, and that the recent and rapid intensification of that antagonism gives to the discovery of a solution immediate and highly practical importance.

For if the quarrel is allowed to rise unchecked and to proceed unappeased, we shall come, unexpectedly and soon, upon one of these tragedies which have marked for centuries the relations between this peculiar nation and ourselves.

The Jewish problem is one to which no true parallel can be found, for the historical and social phenomenon which has produced it is unique. It is a problem which cannot be shirked, as the last generation both of Jews and of their hosts attempted to shirk it. It is a problem which cannot be avoided, nor even lessened (as can some social problems), by an healing effect of time: for it is increasing before our eyes. It must be met and dealt with openly and now.

That problem is the problem of reducing or accommodating the strain produced by the presence of an alien body within any organism. The alien body sets up strains, or, to change the metaphor, produces a friction, which is evil both to itself and to the organism which it inhabits. The problem is, how to relax those strains for good and to set things permanently at their ease again.

There are two ways to such a desirable end.

The first is by the elimination of what is alien. The second is by its segregation. There is no other way.

The elimination of an alien body may take three forms. It may take a frankly hostile form—elimination by destruction. It may take a form, also hostile but less hostile—elimination by expulsion. It may take a third form, an amicable one (and that far the most commonly found in the natural process of physical nature and of society)—elimination by absorption; the alien body becomes an indistinguishable part of the organism in which it was originally a source of disturbance and is lost in it. These three ways sum up the first method, the method of elimination.

The second method, if elimination shall prove impossible or undesirable, is that of segregation; and this again may be of two kinds—hostile and amicable. We may segregate the alien element without regard to its own ends or desires: the segregation of it being upon a plan framed solely from the point of view of the organism invaded, and the reduction of the strain or friction it creates effected by the mere cutting of it off from all avenues through which it can affect its host.

But we may also segregate the alien irritant byan action which takes full account of the thing segregated as well as of the organism segregating it, and considers the good of both parties. In this second and amicable policy the word segregation (which has a bad connotation) may be replaced by the wordrecognition.

This book has been written under the conception that all solutions of the Jewish problem other than this last are either impracticable, or bad in morals, or both.

It is written to advocate a policy wherein the Jews on their side shall openly recognize their wholly separate nationality and we on ours shall equally recognize that separate nationality, treat it without reserve as an alien thing, and respect it as a province of society outside our own.

It is written under the conviction that any attitude which falls short of this policy or is very different from it will now soon breed disaster.

The solution by way of destruction is not only abominable in morals but has proved futile in practice. It has been the constant temptation of angry popular masses in the past, when the Jewish problem has come to a head not once but a thousand times in various parts of our civilization during the last twenty centuries. From the pitiless massacres of Cyrenaica in the second century to the latest murders in the Ukraine that solution has been attempted and has failed. It has invariably left behind it a dreadful inheritance of hatred upon the one side and of shame upon the other. It has been condemned by every man whose judgment is worth considering and especially by the great moral teachers of Christendom. It is, indeed, hardly a policy at all, for it is blind. It is a gesture ofmere exasperation and not a final gesture at that.

The second form of elimination—expulsion—though theoretically sustainable (for a community has a right to organize its own life and no aliens therein have a claim to modify that life or to disturb it), is none the less in practice, and as regards this particular problem, only one degree less odious than the first. It means inevitably a mass of individual injustice, as well as common spoliation and every other hardship. It is almost impossible to dissociate it from violence and ill deeds of all kinds. It leaves behind it almost as strong an inheritance, if not of shame on the one side, at any rate of rancour upon the other, as does the first. And what condemns it finally is that it is not, and cannot be, complete.

For it is in the nature of the Jewish problem that this solution is only attempted at moments and in places where the strength of the Jews has declined; and this invariably means their corresponding strength in some other quarter.

A particular society attempting this solution of expulsion may succeed for a time so far as itself is concerned, but that inevitably means the reception of the exiled body by another district, and, sooner or later, the return of the force which it was hoped to be rid of. The greatest historical example of this is, of course, the action of the English. The English alone of all Christian nations did adopt this solution in its entirety. A strong national kingship, a government highly organized for its time, an insular position and a singular unanimity of national purpose promoted the expulsion of the Jews from England at the end of the thirteenth century; for more than three and a half centuriesthat expulsion was maintained, and England alone of the various divisions of Christendom was in theory free of the alien element and nearly as free in practice as it was in theory.

But, as we all know, in the long run the experiment broke down. The Jews were readmitted in the middle of the seventeenth century, and nowhere have they come to greater strength than in the very nation which attempted this solution of the problem with such drastic thoroughness five hundred years ago. None of the other parallel attempts up and down Europe were of the same thoroughness as the English attempt. Their failure came, therefore, more quickly. But such failure would seem in any case to be inevitable. Quite apart, therefore, from the moral objection which attaches to it, there is the practical experience that a solution is not to be found upon such lines.

Lastly, there is elimination by absorption. This would obviously be the most gentle, as it is the most evident, of all methods. It is further a normal and most usual method of nature herself when a living organism has to deal with disturbance excited by the presence of an alien body. So natural and so obvious is it that it has been taken by many men of excellent judgment upon both sides as a matter of course. It has been taken for granted that if absorption has not taken place in the past it has only been due to an ill-will artificially nourished and maintained against the Jews on our side, or by the unreasoning exclusiveness of the Jews on theirs.

Even to-day, in spite of a vast increase during our own generation, both in the public appreciation of the problem and in its immediate gravity, thereare very many men who still regard absorption as the natural end of the affair. These, though dwindling, are still numerous upon the non-Jewish side; upon the other, the Jewish side, they are, I think, a very small body. For I note that even those Jews who think absorption will come, admit it with regret, and certainly the vast majority would insist with pride upon the certain survival of Israel.

But here again I maintain that we have the index of history against us. In point of fact absorption has not taken place. It has had a better chance than any corresponding case can show: ample time in which to work, wide dispersion, constant intermarriage, long periods of tolerant friendship for the Jew, and even at times his ascendancy. If ever there were conditions under which one might imagine that the larger body would absorb the smaller, they were those of Christendom acting intimately for centuries, in relation with Jewry. Nation after nation has absorbed larger, intensely hostile minorities: the Irish, their successive invaders; the British, the pirates of the fifth and eighth centuries and the French of three centuries more; the northern Gauls, their auxiliaries; the Italians, the Lombards; the Greeks, the Slav; the Dacian has absorbed even the Mongol: but the Jew has remained intact.

However we explain this—mystically or in whatever other fashion—we cannot deny its truth. It is true of the Jews, and of the Jews alone, that they alone have maintained, whether through the special action of Providence or through some general biological or social law of which we are ignorant, an unfailing entity and an equallyunfailing differentiation between themselves and the society through which they ceaselessly move.

It is not true that conditions in the past differed from present conditions sufficiently to account for so strange a story. There have been generations and even centuries (not co-incident indeed throughout the world, but applying now to one country, now to another) where every opportunity for absorption existed; yet that absorption has never taken place. There was every chance in Spain at one moment, in Poland at another, but there was the best chance of all in the short but brilliant period of Liberal policy which has dominated Western Europe during the last three generations. That policy has had the fullest play: it has left the Jews not only unabsorbed, but more differentiated than ever, and the political problem they present more insistent by far than it was a century ago.

The thing might have come where there was a chaos of peoples, as in pagan Alexandria in the four centuries from 200B.C.to 200A.D., or in modern New York. It might have come where there was a particularly friendly attitude, as in mediaeval Poland or modern England. It might even have come, paradoxically, through the very persecution and strain of times and places where the Jews suffered the most hostile treatment: for their absorption might have been achieved under pressure though it had failed to be achieved under attraction. As a fact it has never come. It has never proved possible. The continuous absorption of outlying fractions, a process continually going on wherever the Jewish nation is present, has not affected the mass of the problem at all.The body as a whole has remained separate, differentiated, with a strong identity of its own under all conditions and in all places, and thea priorireasoning, by which men come to think this solution reasonable, is nullified by an experience apparent throughout history. That experience is wholly against any such solution. It cannot be.

There remains, then, only the solution of segregation; a word which (I repeat) I use in a completely neutral manner though it has unhappily obtained in this and other issues a bad connotation.

Segregation, as I have said, may be of two kinds. It may be hostile, a sort of static expulsion: a putting aside of the alien body without regard to that body's needs, desires or claims; the building of a fence round it, as it were, solely with the object of defending the organism which reacts against invasion, and suffers from the presence within it of something different from itself.

Or it may take an amicable form and may be a mutual arrangement: a recognition, with mutual advantage, of a reality which is unavoidable by either party.

The first of these apparent solutions has been attempted over and over again throughout history. It has had long periods of partial success, but never any period of complete success; for it has invariably left behind it a sense of injustice upon the Jewish side and of moral ill-ease upon the other.

There remains, I take it, no practical or permanent solution but the last. It is to this conclusion that my essay is meant to lead. If the Jewish nation comes to express its own pride and patriotism openly, andequally openly to admit the necessary limitations imposed by that expression; if weon our side frankly accept the presence of this nation as a thing utterly different from ourselves, but with just as good a right to existence as we have; if we renounce our pretences in the matter; if we talk of and recognize the Jewish people freely and without fear as a separate body; if upon both sides the realities of the situation are admitted, with the consequent and necessary definitions which those realities imply, we shall have peace.

The advantage both parties—the small but intense Jewish minority, the great non-Jewish majority in the midst of which that minority acts—would discover in such an arrangement is manifest. If it could be maintained—as I think it could be maintained—the problem would be permanently solved. At any rate, if it cannot be solved in that way it certainly cannot be solved in any other, and if we do not get peace by this avenue, then we are doomed to the perpetual recurrence of those persecutions which have marred the history of Europe since the first consolidation of the Roman Empire.

It has been a series of cycles invariably following the same steps. The Jew comes to an alien society, at first in small numbers. He thrives. His presence is not resented. He is rather treated as a friend. Whether from mere contrast in type—what I have called "friction"—or from some apparent divergence between his objects and those of his hosts, or through his increasing numbers, he creates (or discovers) a growing animosity. He resents it. He opposes his hosts. They call themselves masters in their own house. The Jew resists their claim. It comes to violence.

It is always the same miserable sequence.First a welcome; then a growing, half-conscious ill-ease; next a culmination in acute ill-ease; lastly catastrophe and disaster; insult, persecution, even massacre, the exiles flying from the place of persecution into a new district where the Jew is hardly known, where the problem has never existed or has been forgotten. He meets again with the largest hospitality. There follows here also, after a period of amicable interfusion, a growing, half-conscious ill-ease, which next becomes acute and leads to new explosions, and so on, in a fatal round.

If we are to stop that wheel from its perpetual and tragic turning, there seems to be no method save that for which I plead.

The opposition to it is diverse and formidable but can everywhere be reduced upon analysis to some form of falsehood. This falsehood takes the shape of denying the existence of the problem, of remaining silent upon it, or of pretending friendly emotions in public commerce which are belied by every phrase and gesture admitted in private. Or it takes the shape of defining the problem in false terms, in proclaiming it essentially religious whereas it is essentially national. Worst of all, it may be that very modern kind of falsehood, a statement of the truth accompanied by a statement of its contradiction, like the precious modern lie that one can be a patriot and at the same time international. In the case of the Jews, this particular modern lie takes the shape of admitting that they are wholly alien to us and different from us, of talking of them as such and even writing of them as such, and yet, in another connection, talking and writing of them as though no suchviolent contrast were present. That pretence of reconciling contradictions is the lie in the soul. Its punishment is immediate, for those who indulge it are blinded.

All opposition that ever I have met to the solution here proposed is an opposition sprung from the spirit of untruth; and if there were no other argument in favour of an honest and moral settlement of the dispute, the one argument based on Truth would, I think, be sufficient. It is a social truth that there is a Jewish nation, alien to us and therefore irritant. It is a moral truth that expulsion and worse are remedies to be avoided. It is an historical truth that those solutions have always ultimately failed; the recognition of those three truths alone will set us right.

Such is the main thesis of this book, but it needs an addition if its full spirit is to be apprehended, and that addition I have attempted to express in the last chapter.

If the solution I propose be the right solution, it yet remains to be determined whether it should first take the form of new laws from which a new spirit may be expected to grow, or first take the form of a new spirit and practice from which new laws shall spring. The order is of essential importance; for to mistake it, to reverse the true sequence of cause and effect, is the prime cause of failure in all social reform.

As will be seen by those who have the patience to read to the end of my book, I have, in its last pages, pleaded strongly for thesecondpolicy. It would be impossible to frame in our society, and in face of the rapidly rising tide of antagonism against the Jews, new laws that would not leadto injustice. But if it be possible to create an atmosphere wherein the Jews are spoken of openly, and they in their turn admit, define, and accept the consequences of a separate nationality in our midst,then, such a spirit once established, laws and regulations consonant to it will naturally follow.

But I am convinced that the reversing of this process would only lead first to confusion and next to disaster, both for Israel and for ourselves.

THE DENIAL OF THE PROBLEM

I have stated the Problem. There is friction between the two races—the Jews in their dispersion and those among whom they live. This friction is growing acute. It has led invariably in the past (and consequently may lead now) to the most fearful consequences, terrible for the Jew but evil also for us. Therefore that the problem is immediate, practical and grave. Therefore a solution is imperative.

But I may be—and indeed I shall be—met at the outset by the denial that any such problem exists. Such was the attitude of all our immediate past; such is the attitude of many of the best men to-day on both sides of the gulf which separates Israel from our world.

I must meet this objection before going further, for if it be sound, if indeed there is no problem (save what may be created by ignorance or malice), then no solution is demanded. All we have to do is to enlighten the ignorant and to repress the malicious: the ignorant, who imagine there is an alien Jewish nation among them, the malicious, who treat as though they were alien, men who are, in fact, exactly like ourselves and normal fellow-citizens.

I do not here allude to the great mass of convention, hypocrisy and fear which pretends ignoranceof a truth it well knows. I am speaking of the sincere conviction, still present in many—particularly those of the older generation—that no Jewish problem exists.

It is honestly denied by a certain type of mind that there is any such thing as a Jewish nation; there can therefore be no friction between it and its hosts: the thing is a delusion. Let us examine that mind and see whether the illusion is on our side or no.

It was the attitude familiar to the nineteenth century, and agreeable to that one of its political moods in which it found itself best satisfied: the negative attitude of leaving the Jewish nation unrecognized; of creating a fiction of single citizenship to replace the reality of dual allegiance; of calling a Jew a full member of whatever society he happened to inhabit during whatever space of time he happened to sojourn there in his wanderings across the earth. That was the attitude agreeable on the political side to everything which called itself "modern thought." Such was the doctrine proposed by the great men of the French Revolution. Such was the attitude accepted almost enthusiastically by Liberal England, that is, by all the dominant public life of England during the Victorian period. Such was the policy which once obtained universal favour throughout the whole of our Western civilization. That was the attitude which the West actually attempted to impose upon Eastern States, and the last effect of its rapidly-declining credit is to be found in certain clauses of the Treaty of Versailles: for that attitude is still the official attitude of all our governments.

In the Treaty of Versailles and the other treaties following the Great War the Jews of Eastern Europe were put under a sort of special protection, but not in a straightforward and positive fashion. The word "Jew" was never blurted out—it was replaced by the word "minority"—but the intention was obvious. The underlying implication was: "We, the Western governments, say there is no Jewish problem. The idea of a Jewish nation is a delusion and the conception of the Jew as something different from a Pole or a Rumanian is a mania. If you in the East are still benighted in this matter, at any rate we will prevent your ignorance or obsession from leading you to persecution." The same men who made these declarations proceeded to erect a brand-new highly-distinct Jewish state in Palestine, with the threat behind it of ruthlessly suppressing amajorityby the use of Western arms.

Both actions were the consequence of that confused position I have just defined (history will call it thelastexample), which, though much weakened in public opinion, was still honestly taken for granted bysomeof the Parliamentarians who framed the Treaty, and was certainly felt to be of personal advantage toall: the position that there is no Jewish nation when the admission of it may inconvenience the Jew, but very much of a Jewish nation when it can advantage him.

Those who defended this position did so from various standpoints; but these may all be regarded as so many degrees in a certain way of looking at the Jewish people. It was till lately the attitude of the majority of educated Frenchmen, Englishmen and Italians. It was, so to speak, theofficialpolitical attitude of Western Europe with its parliamentary governments and other corresponding institutions.

The most extreme form of this opinion was to be found in people who spoke of the Jew as nothing other than a citizen with a particular religion. A state would be dominantly Catholic or Protestant, but it would contain smaller religious bodies, eager minorities, for which a place had to be found, side by side with the more or less indifferent majority. Catholic France had a five per cent and wealthy Huguenot minority. Protestant England had a seven per cent and poor Catholic minority. Protestant Holland had a large minority—more than a third—of Catholics, and so forth. It had become odious to nineteenth century thought that religious differences (which it regarded as nothing more than shades of doubtfully-held private opinion) should be the concern of the State. A large number of people thought of the Jews, not as a race, but only as a religion; and regarding all religion thus, they concluded that it could involve no diminution of citizenship.

At the other end of the scale you had public men who fully appreciated the ultimate difficulties which would certainly arise from this inconclusive settlement of the matter. These regarded the Jews as a quite distinct nationality, and even as a nationality likely to clash with the national needs of its hosts; they would even (in private) express their hostility towards that nationality. None the less, they thought it must be treated in public life as though it did not exist. These men were most emphatic in their private letters and conversation—that the Jewish problem wasnotareligious but a national one. Nevertheless (they said) it was necessaryto-dayto mask that problem by a fiction and topretendthat the Jew was just like everybody else save for his religion. All other solutions (they said) demanded a knowledge of history and of Europe not to be expected of the public at large; again, the Jews were so powerful that iftheydesired the fiction to be supported they must be humoured. At any rate, recourse must be had, in our time at least, to this make-believe.

To the new and already antagonistic attitude towards the Jews now rising so strongly everywhere throughout Western Europe (which is in part a reaction from the nineteenth century position), this old-fashioned way of denying the Jewish race or ignoring its existence by a fiction appears morally odious, and we wonder to-day why it commanded universal support. It involved a falsehood, of course, often a conscious falsehood; and it was also undignified; for there appears to our generation something as grotesque in denying the existence of the Jewish nation as in denying our own. But that the fiction was maintained sincerely, and that the grotesque and undignified side of it went unperceived, we can assure ourselves in a few moments' converse with any one of that older generation which maintained it and still represents it among us.

It might have continued to flourish for yet another generation, at any rate among the leading classes of this commercial community, but for two new developments which broke it down, each development the result of so large a toleration. The first was the growth of numbers, the second of influence. What made that old falsehood glaringand that old grotesque apparent was the enormous increase throughout all the West of the Jewish poor, accompanied by the enormous increase of the power exercised by the Jewish rich in public affairs. Men grew angry at finding themselves pledged to a pretence that Jews were not, when their presence was everywhere unavoidable, in the streets, and in the offices of government. The fiction was possible when a very few financiers, mixed with and lost in the polite world, were alone concerned. It became impossible in the face of the vast new ghettoes of London, Manchester, Bradford, Glasgow, and the formidable and growing list of Jewish and half-Jewish Ministers, Viceroys, ambassadors, dictators of policy.

This contempt for and irritation with what I have called the nineteenth century attitude, the Liberal attitude, was already apparent before the end of that century. It was muttering during the South African war in England and the Dreyfus case in France; it became vocal in the first years of this century, especially in connection with parliamentary scandals; with the Bolshevist rising in 1917 it became clamorous. It will certainly grow. We already have a formidable minority prepared to act against the interest of the Jew. It will in all probability become, and that shortly, a majority. It may appear at any moment, on some critical occasion, on some new provocation, as an overwhelming flood of exasperated opinion.

All the more does it behove us to treat the old-fashioned neutrality and fiction fairly; to examine it even with a bias in its favour; to set down all that can be said in its defence before we reject it, as I think we must now all reluctantlyreject it. I say "reluctantly"; for after all it was the fixed mood of our fathers, who did great things: we feel their reproach when we abandon it, and there are still present with us very many of our elders to whom our new anxiety is abhorrent.

We must remember in the first place that the treating of the Jew in the West as no Jew at all, but a plain citizen like the rest, worked well enough for a time. One might almost say that there was no Jewish problem consciously present to the mind of the average educated Englishman or Frenchman, Italian, or even western German, between, say, the years 1830 and 1890. A very small body of Jews in England and France, in Italy and the rest of the West, were vaguely associated with wealth in the popular mind; a large proportion of them were distinguished for public work of various kinds; many of them with beneficence. The presence of such men could not conceivably lead to political difficulties—or at least, so it then seemed. The stories of persecution that came through from Eastern Europe, even examples of friction between great bodies of Jews there and the natives of the States where they happened to find themselves, were received in the West with disgust as the aberrations of imperfectly civilized people.

Even in the valley of the Rhine, where the Jew was more numerous and better known "in bulk," the convention of the more civilized West was accepted. The doctrines, the abstraction of the French Revolution in this matter had prevailed.

Here any reader with an historical sense will at once point out that the space of time I have just quoted—1830 to 1890—is ridiculously short. Anytreatment of a very great political problem, centuries old, which works for only sixty years and then begins to break down is no settlement at all. But I would reply that this period was especially a time in which historical perspective was lost. Men, even highly educated men, in the nineteenth century, greatly exaggerated the foreground of the historical picture.

You may note this in any school manual of the period, where all the four centuries of our Roman foundation are compressed into a few sentences, the dark ages into a few pages, the whole vast story of the Middle Ages themselves into a few chapters; where the mass of the work is invariably given to the last three centuries, while of these the nineteenth is regarded as equal in importance to all the rest put together.

This false historical perspective is apparent in every other department of their political thought. For instance, although capitalism, huge national debts, the anonymity of financial action and the rest of it, did not begin to flourish fully until after the first third of the nineteenth century, and though anyone might (one would think) have been able to discover the exceedingly unstable character of that society, yet our fathers took it for granted as an eternal state of things. Your Victorian man with £100,000 in railway stock thought his family immutably secure in a comfortable income, and what he thought about capitalism he thought also about his newly-developed anonymous press, his national frontiers, his tolerance of this, his intolerance of that, his parliaments and all the rest of it. It is no wonder if, under such a false sense of permanence and security, he lost historicalperspective in this other and graver matter we are here discussing.

But apart from the argument that what I have called the nineteenth century or Liberal attitude towards the Jews worked well for its little day (at least, in Western Europe), there is also the fact that under special circumstances something very like it has worked well for much longer periods in the past. Take, for example, the position of the Jews in such a town as Amsterdam. The reception of a Jew as a citizen exactly like others, though he was present in very large numbers, the fiction denying his separate nationality, has held for generations in that community and it has procured peace and apparent contentment upon both sides. And what is true to this day of Amsterdam has been true in the past for long periods in the life of many another commercial and cosmopolitan society: that of Venice, notably, and, in a large measure, that of Rome; in that of Frankfort, of Lyons, and of a hundred cities at special times. It was true of all Poland for generations.

One might add to the list indefinitely, but always with the uncomfortable knowledge, as one wrote, that the experiment invariably broke down in the long run.

Again, there was to be advanced for this Liberal attitude of the nineteenth century the very powerful argument that while to one party in the issue, the Englishman, the Frenchman, the Italian, etc., it seemed well enough and certainly did no harm, it was highly acceptable to the other. The Jew as a rule not only accepted but welcomed this particular way of dealing with whatheat any rate has always known to be a very grave problem indeed. Forthe Jew has a racial memory beyond all other men. The arrangement seemed to give him all the security of which his racial history (a thing of which every Jew is acutely conscious) had made him ardently desirous. I think we should add (though the phrase would be quarrelled with by many modern people) that this fiction satisfied the Jew's sense ofjustice. For it is no small part of the problem we are examining that the Jew does really feel such special treatment to be his due. Without it he feels handicapped. He is, in his own view, only saved from the disadvantage of a latent hostility when he is thus protected, and he is therefore convinced that the world owes him this singular privilege of full citizenship in any community where he happens for the moment to be, while at the same time retaining full citizenship in his own nation.

Now, if in any conflict an arrangement seems workable enough to one party and is actually acclaimed by the other, it is not lightly to be disregarded.

If, for instance, a man and his tenant quarrel about the tenure of a field upon a very long lease, the tenant caring little about nominal ownership but very much about his inviolable tenure, the landlord quite agreeable to a very long lease but keen on retaining the titular ownership, that quarrel can be easily settled. One could give any name to the tenant's position other than the name of "owner," yet satisfy all his practical demands. A rough parallel exists between such a position and the attempt at a settlement which marked the nineteenth century.

What the Jew wanted was not the proud privilege of being called an Englishman, a Frenchman, anItalian, or a Dutchman. To this he was completely indifferent (for his pride lay in being a Jew, his loyalty was to his own, and what is more, he might at any moment fold up his tent and go off to another country for good). What the Jew wanted was not the feeling that he was just like the others—that would have been odious to him—what he wanted wassecurity; it is what every human being craves for and what he of all men most lacked: the power to feel safe in the place where one happens to be. On the other hand, his hosts had not yet found any practical inconvenience in granting this demand. They did not know the historical argument against it, or they thought it worthless, because they thought the past barbarous and no model for their own action. So a compromise was arrived at, the fiction was solidly established, and the Jew, though remaining a Jew, became a German in Hamburg, a Frenchman in Paris, an American in New York, as he wandered from place to place, and for a long lifetime no one felt himself much the worse for the false convention.

The next argument in favour of this policy was the fact that it drew upon a number of ideas, each one of which at some time or another had been taken for granted by our ancestors in each one of their numerous (but unsuccessful) attempts to deal with the problem after their own fashion.

For instance, a modern objector says: "What rubbish to treat Jews as though they merely represented a religion! We all know they represent anation!" But all manner of legislation in the past, even in times and places where the difference between Jews and Europeans was most marked, has perpetually fallen back upon that very pointof religion alone. Over and over again you find it the test of policy: in early, and again in fifteenth century Spain, under Charlemagne's rule in Gaul, in early mediaeval England, at Byzantium, and to this day in Eastern parts where the Jew is subject to perpetual interference. Exception was in all these made for the Jew who abandoned his religion. His nation was left unmentioned.

It is pertinent to quote such a simple and recent example as the body of Prussian officers, now happily extinct. It was a standing rule in the smarter Prussian regiments (I believe in nearly all) that no Jew could get his commission. The Prussian system left the granting of commissions, in practice, to the existing members of the regimental staff; they treated their mess as a Club and they blackballed Jews. But they would admitbaptizedJews, and did so in considerable numbers. Was the Jew less of a Jew in race through his baptism? Throughout all the centuries that religious criterion, which the modern reformer cries out against as a piece of humbug and a mask for the real political problem, has been the criterion taken. It is true that the modern solution did not attempt a religious segregation. On the contrary, the Liberal thought of the nineteenth century held all such segregation in abhorrence; but it had this in common with the older fashion, that it made religion the point of interest, and to that extent masked the more real point of nationality and allegiance.

Lord Palmerston, making his famous speech on the sanctity of a Greek Jew's bedstead, and insisting that the said Greek Jew was an English citizen; Lord Palmerston carefully avoiding theword "Jew" and pretending throughout his speech that the Greek Jew in question was as much an Englishman as himself, was in a very different mood from a Spanish fifth-century Bishop admitting a Jew to Office on condition of his conversion. Yet the two had this in common, that neither regarded the Jew as the member of another nation, but each (for very different reasons) as no more than the member of a religion.

To Palmerston, this Greek Jew about whose bedstead he made his famous speech, and onto whose bedstead hangs to this day the phrase "Civus Romanus Sum," was above all a fellow-citizen. He may have seemed to Palmerston a doubtful sort of Englishman because his home was Greece, but he certainly did not seem doubtful because he happened to be a Jew. Palmerston would have thought that only a matter of private opinion, and would no more have regarded a Jew as an alien on account of this private opinion than he would have regarded as alien a fellow-Member of the House of Commons who preferred roast mutton to boiled.

Take, again, another aspect of the nineteenth century liberal idea: the recognition of citizenship. You have had that over and over again in the attempted solutions of the past. It was the very essence of the Roman method. For though the Government of the Roman Empire was much too concerned with realities and with enduring work to accept any fiction in the matter, or to pretend in practice that the Jew was not a Jew; though, on the contrary, the Romans recognized at once the gulf between the Jews and themselves, and recognized it not only by their cruelty to the Jew but also bythe privileges they granted him; yet it was always their policy to admitcitizenshipas the primary distinction. The Jew who could claim that he was a full Roman citizen was, in the eyes of a Roman Tribunal, much more important in that capacity than in his social capacity as Jew. His "point," as we should say in our modern slang, was his citizenship, not his Judaism. So, I say, this solution has for a further argument the fact that in one part or another it is in touch with the various attempts our race has made in the past to solve the problem.

There is yet another argument strongly in favour of the Liberal fiction which was attempted in the immediate past, and thought to have been successfully established. It is the consonance of that fiction with the whole body of modern custom and law, with the whole mass of modern economic and social habit.

We travel so much, we mix so much, our economic activities are at once so complicated, so interlocked, and (unhappily) for the most part so secret, that any other way of meeting the Jews would have seemed—at any rate if it had appeared in the shape of a positive law—a monstrous anachronism. A man must meet his friends' friends and treat them as a normal part of the general society in which he moves. As the Jew permeated the society of the West everywhere (small though his numbers were in the West), as he everywhere intermarried with Europeans of the wealthier class, to insist in his presence upon his separate nationality would have been odious; it would have been like making a guest feel out of place in one's home.

What is more, to by far the greater part of thewealthier and governing classes of the Western States the difference of race was so far masked that it had almost come to be forgotten. Sometimes a shock would revive it. An English squire would find, for instance, that a relation of his by marriage, whose Jewish name and descent he had never bothered about, was cousin to, and in close connection with, a person of a totally different name—an Oriental name—mixed up in some conspiracy, say, against the Russian State. Or he would learn with surprise that a learned University man with whom he had recently dined was the uncle of a socialist agitator in Vienna. But the shock would be a passing one, and the old mood of security would return.

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