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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..12cedcd --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #50556 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50556) diff --git a/old/50556-8.txt b/old/50556-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 91344be..0000000 --- a/old/50556-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8480 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Jews, by Hilaire Belloc - - -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 at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - - -Title: The Jews - - -Author: Hilaire Belloc - - - -Release Date: November 26, 2015 [eBook #50556] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JEWS*** - - -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) - - - -Note: Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive/American Libraries. See - https://archive.org/details/jewsbelloc00bellrich - - - - - -THE JEWS - - - * * * * * * - -_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_: - - -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. - - * * * * * * - - -THE JEWS - -by - -HILAIRE BELLOC - -[Illustration: Hebrew text] - - - - - -Constable & Company, Limited -London Bombay Sydney - -First Published 1922 -Second Impression 1922 - - -To - -MISS RUBY GOLDSMITH - -MY SECRETARY FOR MANY YEARS AT KING'S -LAND AND THE BEST AND MOST INTIMATE OF -OUR JEWISH FRIENDS, TO WHOM MY -FAMILY AND I WILL ALWAYS OWE -A DEEP DEBT OF GRATITUDE - - - - -PREFACE - - -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 that _concealment_ must 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 it is 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 question to-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. - - - - -CONTENTS - - PAGE -CHAPTER I - -THE THESIS OF THIS BOOK 3 - -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 called _Recognition_. 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. - - -CHAPTER II - -THE DENIAL OF THE PROBLEM 17 - -In the immediate past the problem was shirked in -Western Europe by a mere denial of its existence--some -were 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. - - -CHAPTER III - -THE PRESENT PHASE OF THE PROBLEM 43 - -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 was -bound 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. - - -CHAPTER IV - -THE GENERAL CAUSES OF FRICTION 69 - -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 those _general_ which are ineradicable and -proceed from the contrasting natures of the two races, -_particular_ those 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. - - -CHAPTER V - -THE SPECIAL CAUSES OF FRICTION 99 - -I have called "Special" causes of Friction those -which 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. - - -CHAPTER VI - -THE CAUSE OF FRICTION UPON OUR SIDE 123 - -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 is _disingenuousness_ -in 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--unintelligence -in 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 -from _his_ side--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. - - -CHAPTER VII - -THE ANTI-SEMITE 145 - -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 -of _documentation_--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 accumulating _facts_--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. - - -CHAPTER VIII - -BOLSHEVISM 167 - -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) "_a_ Jewish movement, _but not a movement -of 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 cannot _directly_ attack 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. - - -CHAPTER IX - -THE POSITION IN THE WORLD AS A WHOLE 189 - -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. - - -CHAPTER X - -THE POSITION OF THE JEWS IN ENGLAND 215 - -England has gone to both extremes with the Jew. -The Jew in the Roman time and in the Middle Ages--his -monopoly of Usury in _early_ Middle 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. - - -CHAPTER XI - -ZIONISM 231 - -The chief interest of the Zionist experiment lies in its -reaction upon the _international_ position of the Jew--yet -that point is not yet discussed--what will be the -effect of the experiment on the position of Jews _outside_ -Palestine, 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. - - -CHAPTER XII - -OUR DUTY 249 - -This but a consequence of the conditions established in -Chapters IV, V and VI--our double duty of mixing with -the Jews and of recognizing their separate nationality--necessity -of _openly_ admitting 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 -of _Fear_ in 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. - - -CHAPTER XIII - -THEIR DUTY 271 - -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. - - -CHAPTER XIV - -VARIOUS THEORIES 277 - -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 necessary _flux_ of -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 enemy -of our innocent selves, and of our malignant enmity -against the innocent and martyred Jew--both erroneous. - -The theory that the Jewish problem is _now_ solving -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! - - -CHAPTER XV - -CONCLUSION. HABIT OR LAW? 301 - -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 on _our_ side 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 - - - - -CHAPTER I - -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 by an 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 word _recognition_. - -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 of mere 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 centuries that -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, -there are 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 equally unfailing -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 200 B.C. to 200 A.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 the _a priori_ -reasoning, 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, and -_equally openly to admit the necessary limitations imposed by that -expression_; if we on 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 such -violent 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 the _second_ -policy. 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 lead to 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 - - - - -CHAPTER II - -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 ignorance of 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 a _majority_ by the use of Western arms. - -Both actions were the consequence of that confused position I have just -defined (history will call it the _last_ example), which, though much -weakened in public opinion, was still honestly taken for granted by -_some_ of the Parliamentarians who framed the Treaty, and was certainly -felt to be of personal advantage to _all_: 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, the -_official_ political 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 was _not_ a religious but a -national one. Nevertheless (they said) it was necessary _to-day_ to mask -that problem by a fiction and to _pretend_ that 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 if _they_ desired -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 glaring and 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 reluctantly reject 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. -Any treatment 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 historical perspective -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 what _he_ at any rate has always known to be a very -grave problem indeed. For the 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 of _justice_. 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, an Italian, 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 was _security_; 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 a -_nation_!" 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 point of 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 admit _baptized_ Jews, 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 the word "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 by the privileges they granted him; yet it was always -their policy to admit _citizenship_ as 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 the wealthier 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. - -With the growth of plutocracy the anomaly of treating Jews as -individuals separate from the rest of the community increased. The most -important men in control of international finance were admittedly -Jewish. The Jew's international position made him always useful and -often necessary in the vast international economic undertakings of our -time. The anonymity which had come to be taken for granted throughout -modern capitalism made it seem absurd or impossible, always highly -unusual, and probably futile, to search for a separate Jewish element in -any particular undertaking. - -There is one last argument for this Liberal policy, which has a strong -practical value, though it is exceedingly dangerous to use it in the -defence of that policy because it cuts both ways. It is the argument -that the Jew ought to be thus treated as a citizen exactly like the rest -and given no position either of privilege or disability, because he -does, as a fact, mould himself so very rapidly to his environment. - -When men say--as they are beginning to do--that a Jew is as different -from ourselves as a Chinaman, or a negro, or an Esquimaux, and ought -therefore to be treated as belonging to a separate body from our own, -the answer is that the Jew is nothing of the kind. Indeed, he becomes, -after a short sojourn among Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans or Americans, -so like his hosts on the surface that he is, to many, indistinguishable -from them; and that is one of the main facts in the problem. - -That is the real reason why to the majority of the middle classes in the -nineteenth century, in Western countries, the Jewish problem was -nonexistent. Were you to say it of any other race--negroes, for -instance, or Chinamen--it would sound incredible; but we know it in -practice to be true, that a Jew will pass his life in, say, three -different communities in turn, _and in each the people who have met him -will testify that he seemed just like themselves_. - -I have known a case in point which would amuse my non-Jewish readers but -perhaps offend my Jewish readers were I to present it in detail. I shall -cite it therefore without names, because I desire throughout this book -to keep to the rule whereby alone it can be of service, that nothing -offensive to either party shall be introduced; but it is typical and can -be matched in the experience of many. - -The case was that of the father of a man in English public life. He -began life with a German name in Hamburg. He was a patriotic citizen of -that free city, highly respected and in every way a Hamburger, and the -Hamburg men of that generation still talk of him as one of themselves. - -He drifted to Paris before the Franco-German War, and, there, was an -active Parisian, familiar with the life of the Boulevards and full of -energy in every patriotic and characteristically French pursuit; notably -he helped to recruit men during the national catastrophe of 1870-71. -Everybody who met him in this phase of his life thought of him and -talked of him as a Frenchman. - -Deciding that the future of France was doubtful after such a defeat, he -migrated to the United States, and there died. Though a man of some -years when he landed, he soon appeared in the eyes of the Americans with -whom he associated to be an American just like themselves. He acquired -the American accent, the American manner, the freedom and the restraints -of that manner. In every way he was a characteristic American. - -In Hamburg his German name had been pronounced after the German fashion. -In France, where German names are common, he retained it, but had it -pronounced in French fashion. On reaching the United States it was -changed to a Scotch name which it distantly resembled, and no doubt if -he had gone to Japan the Japanese would be telling us that they had -known him as a worthy Japanese gentleman of great activity in national -affairs and bearing the honoured name of an ancient Samurai family. - -The nineteenth century attitude almost entirely depended upon this -marvellous characteristic in the Jews which differentiates them from all -the rest of mankind. Had that characteristic power of superficial -mutation been absent, the nineteenth century policy would have broken -down as completely as the corresponding Northern policy towards the -negro broke down in the United States. Had the Jew been as conspicuous -among us, as, say, a white man is among Kaffirs, the fiction would have -broken down at once. As it was, all who adopted that policy, honestly or -dishonestly, were supported by this power of the Jew to conform -externally to his temporary surroundings. - -The man who consciously adopted the nineteenth century Liberal policy -towards the Jews as a mere political scheme, knowing full well the -dangers it might develop; the man only half conscious of the existence -of those dangers; and the man who had never heard of them but took it -for granted that the Jew was a citizen just like himself, with an -exceptional religion--each of those three men had in common, aiding the -schemes of the one, supporting the illusion of the other, the amazing -fact that a Jew takes on with inexplicable rapidity the colour of his -environment. That unique characteristic was the support of the Liberal -attitude and was at the same time its necessary condition. - -The fiction that a man of obviously different type and culture and race -is the same as ourselves, may be practical for purposes of law and -government, but cannot be maintained in general opinion. A conspiracy or -illusion attempting, for instance, to establish the Esquimaux in -Greenland as indistinguishable from the Danish officials of the -Settlement, would fail through ridicule. Equally ridiculous would be the -pretence that because they were both subjects of the same Crown an -Englishman in the Civil Service of India was exactly the same sort of -person as a Sikh soldier. But with the Jews you have the startling truth -that, while the fundamental difference goes on the whole time and is -perhaps deeper than any other of the differences separating mankind into -groups; while he is, within, and through all his ultimate character, -above all things a Jew; yet in the superficial and most immediately -apparent things he is clothed in the very habit of whatever society he -for the moment inhabits. - -I say that this might seem to many the last and strongest argument in -favour of the old-fashioned Liberal policy, but I repeat that it is a -dangerous argument, for it cuts both ways. If a food which disagrees -with you looks exactly like another kind of food which suits you, you -might use the likeness as an argument for eating either sort of food -indifferently. You might say: "It is silly to try to distinguish; one -must admit, on looking at them, that they are the same thing"; but it -would turn out after dinner a very bad practical policy. - -There is indeed one last argument which to me, personally, and I suppose -to most of my readers, is stronger than all the rest, for it is the -argument from morals. - -If the Liberal attitude of the nineteenth century had proved a stable -one, omitting that element in it which is a falsehood and therefore a -factor of instability, one could retain the rest; _then_ it would -satisfy two appetites common to all men--appetite for justice and the -appetite for charity. - -Here is a man, a neighbour present in the midst of my society. I put him -to inconvenience if I treat him as an alien. I like him; I regard him as -a friend. To treat such a man as though he were, although a friend, -something separate, not to be admitted to certain functions of my -community, offends the heart, as it also offends the sense of justice. -Such a man may possess a great talent for, say, administration. Like all -men possessed of a great talent, he must exercise it. You maim him if -you do not allow him to exercise it. A rule forbidding him to take part -in the administration of the society in which he finds himself, or even -a feeling hindering him in such activities, creates, not only in him, -but in those who are his hosts, a sense of injustice; and if it were -possible to adopt a policy wherein the separate character of the Jew -should be always in abeyance, so that he could be at the same time an -Englishman and yet not an Englishman, or a Frenchman and yet not a -Frenchman, then we should have a settlement which all good men ought to -accept. - -Unfortunately that solution is false because, like many appeals to a -virtuous instinct, it is sentimental. We call "sentimental" a policy or -theory which attempts to reconcile contradictions. The sentimental man -will equally abhor crime and its necessary punishment; disorder and an -organized police. He likes to think of human life as though it did not -come to an end. He likes to read of the passion of love without its -concomitant of sexual conflict. He likes to read and think of great -fortunes accumulated without avarice, cunning or theft. He likes to -imagine an impossible world of mutually exclusive things. It makes him -comfortable. - -Now we commit the fault of the sentimental man (the gravest of practical -faults in politics) when we cling at this late date to a continuance of -the old policy. You cannot have your cake and eat it too, you cannot at -the same time have present in the world this ubiquitous fluid, yet -closely organized Jewish community, and _at the same time_ each of the -individuals composing it treated as though they were _not_ members of -the nation which makes them all they are. You cannot at the same time -treat a whole as one thing and its component parts as another. If you -do, you are building on contradiction and you will, like everybody who -builds on contradiction, run up against disaster. - - * * * * * - -I am minded to give the reader another anecdote (again taking care, I -hope, to suppress all names and dates to prevent identification, which -might irritate my Jewish readers or too greatly interest their -opponents). As a younger man it was my constant pastime to linger at the -bar of the House of Lords and listen to what went on there. I shall -always remember one occasion when an aged Jew, who had begun life in -very humble circumstances, had accumulated a great fortune and had -purchased his peerage like any other, rose to speak in connection with a -resolution or with a bill dealing with "aliens"--the hypocrisy of the -politician, and the popular ferment against the rush of Jewish -immigrants into the East End between them gave rise to that -non-committal name. This old gentleman very rightly pushed all such -humbug aside. He knew perfectly well that the policy was aimed at "his -people"--and he called them "my people." He knew perfectly well that the -proposed change would introduce interference with their movement and -would subject them to humiliation. He spoke with flaming patriotism, -and I was enthralled by the intensity, vigour and sincerity of his -appeal. It was a very fine performance and, incidentally (considering -what the man was!), it illustrated the vast difference between his -people and my own. For a life devoted to accumulating wealth, which -would have killed nobler instincts in any one of us, had evidently -seemed to him quite normal and left him with every appetite of justice -and of love of nation unimpaired. He clinched that fine speech with the -cry, "What our people want is to be let alone." He said it over and over -again. I am sure that in the audience which listened to him, all the -older men felt a responsive echo to that appeal. It was the very -doctrine in which they had been brought up and the very note of the -great Victorian Liberal era, with its national triumphs in commerce and -in arms. - -Well, within a very few years the younger members of that very man's -family came out in Parliamentary scandal after scandal, appearing all in -sequence one after the other--a sort of procession. They had been let -alone right enough! But they had not let _us_ alone. I ask myself, -sometimes, How would it sound if some years hence any one of those -descendants--having by that time been given his peerage (for they are -rich men and all of them in professional politics)--should return to -that cry of his ancestor and ask to be "let alone"? There would be no -response _then_ in the breasts of the contemporaries who might hear him. -Manners will so much have changed in this regard that he would be -interrupted. But I do not think that my hypothetical descendant of that -rich old Jew is likely to make any such speech. I think that when the -time comes for making it, the whole idea of "letting alone" will be -quite dead. - -I have quoted this old man's speech with no invidious intention but only -as an actual example of the way in which the "letting alone" of this -great question breaks down. I am as familiar as any Jewish reader of -mine with names that have dignified public life in the past, Jewish -names, Jewish peers: and I recall in particular the honoured name of -Lord Herschell to the friendship between whose nearest and my own I -preserve a grateful and sacred memory. - - * * * * * - -But to return to the failure of the sentimental argument. - -The sentimental argument fails because it involves contradictions--that -is, incompatibility of fact. - -Even if one had not this strictly rational principle to guide one, there -is the whole of history to guide one. It is true that the pretence of -common citizenship has worked now for a shorter, now for a longer, -period, but never indefinitely. You always come at last to a smash. The -Jew is welcomed in mediaeval Poland; he comes in vast numbers; all goes -well. Then the inevitable happens and the Jew and the Pole stand apart -as enemies, each accusing the other of injustice, the one crying out -that he is persecuted, the other that the State is in danger by alien -activity within. Spain alternatively pursued this policy, and its -opposite; the whole history of Spain--the original seat of Jewish -influence in Europe after the general exile--is a history of alternating -attempts at the sentimental solution and a savage reaction against it: -the reaction of the man, who, fighting for his life, strikes out -violently in terror of death. That is the history not only of Spain but -of every other country at one time or another. - -Indeed, we have before our very eyes to-day the beginning of exactly -such a reaction in the West of Europe and the United States of America, -and it is the presence of that reaction which has caused this book to be -written. The attempt at a Liberal solution has already failed in our -hands; if it had not failed there would be no more to be said, or, at -any rate, we could postpone the discussion until the actual difficulty -began. But we have only to look around us to see that, after these few -years, this one lifetime, during which the experiment has flourished in -the highest part of civilization, it is already breaking down. -Everywhere the old questions are being asked, everywhere the old -complaints are being raised, everywhere the old perils are reappearing. -We must seek some solution, for if we fail to find it we know from the -past what tragedies are in store for us both. There is a problem, a most -direct and urgent problem. Once it is recognized, a solution of it is -necessarily demanded. - -But it is not enough to show that the mere denial of the existence of -that problem--the old nineteenth century Liberal policy--was false and -bound to break down. It is just as necessary, if we appreciate how -practical and immediate the problem is, to state it and illustrate it -from contemporary events. It is not enough to show that the attempted -Liberal policy has failed. One must also, before trying to discover a -solution, analyse the nature of the problem as it presents itself at the -moment, and that is what I propose to do in the next chapter. - - -THE PRESENT PHASE OF THE PROBLEM - - - - -CHAPTER III - -THE PRESENT PHASE OF THE PROBLEM - - -I said in my last that the old solution of ignoring or denying the -Jewish problem was bound to break down and had broken down, and this was -tantamount to saying that the problem persists. But I said one must go -farther and state the full nature of that problem as it stands at this -moment before one could attempt a practical solution. - -It is not enough to say that a person who imagines himself immortal and -immune from disease is, as a fact, dangerously ill, and that the -break-down of his health has disproved his theory. One must go on to -find out exactly what is the matter with him, and, if possible, what the -cure for the trouble may be. - -The Jewish problem in its larger sense I have defined in the first -chapter of this book, and that as I think every one defines it, -including all the many Jews who have discussed the matter. It is the -presence within one political organism of another political organism at -friction with it: the strains set up by such an unnatural state of -affairs; the risk of disaster to the lesser body and of hurt to both if -it remain unremedied. The true solution therefore is only to be -discovered in some policy which will permanently relieve the strain and -re-establish normal relations. The end of such a solution should be the -functioning, as far as possible, of both parties, at their ease and -without disturbance one to the other. - -But this general statement of the problem--that it is the presence to -each party of an alien body and the consequent irritation and friction -on each--is not enough. We must pursue it more closely and develop it in -greater detail, describing how the friction and the irritation are -increasing: insisting that they have even become a menace. Then only can -we set out to discover as far as possible by analysis what exact -character the disease bears and why it is of this character. Only after -all this can we explore a remedy. - -When we look round the modern world, say the last twenty years, we -discover, in widely separate places, and among very different interests, -and inhabiting the most diverse characters, the presence of what is for -many a new political feeling: it runs from irritation to exasperation, -from grumbling to invective; it is everywhere directed against the Jews. -One activity after another, in which the Jews are variously in the right -or in the wrong, or indifferent, has aroused hostility in varying -degrees--but increasing--and though the danger-spots are still, as I -have said, dissociated in the main, yet they are beginning to coalesce -and to form large areas inimical to Israel. - -It is objected of the Jew in finance, in industry, in commerce--where he -is ubiquitous and powerful out of all proportion to his numbers--that he -seeks, and has already almost reached, dominion. It is objected that he -acts everywhere against the interests of his hosts; that these are being -interfered with, guided, run against their will; that a power is -present which acts either with indifference to what we love or in active -opposition to what we love. Notably is it said to be indifferent to, or -in active opposition against, our national feelings, our religious -traditions, and the general culture and morals of Christendom which we -have inherited and desire to preserve: that power is Israel. - -These feelings grew as one example after another of the Jewish strength, -the Jewish cohesion, arrived to feed them. How violent they were to -become might be seen by taking as a special example their extreme form, -called "Anti-Semitism." When we come, later in this book, to examine -that modern phenomenon, we shall find it to be not only a proof of the -insistence and gravity of the problem we are trying to solve, but also -some explanation of its nature. - -Upon a world thus already exasperated, and in some large sections -exasperated to the point of unreason--for the anti-Semitic drive was, -and is, full of unreason--there suddenly fell the double effect of the -Bolshevist revolution: a revolution which struck both at the benevolent -who would hear no harm of the Jews, and those who had hitherto shielded -or obeyed them as identified only with the interests of large Capital. -It was a blow in flank under which staggered both the supporters of -Jewish neutrality and the dependants upon Jewish finance. - -The old Liberal policy still officially held the field; but when this -shattering explosion came it compelled attention. Bolshevism stated the -Jewish problem with a violence and an insistence such that it could no -longer be denied either by the blindest fanatic or the most resolute -liar. - -Such was, in its largest lines, the recent historical sequence leading -up to the state of affairs we now find. Let us trace that sequence in -more detail and from a little farther back. - -A lifetime ago, when the Liberal policy was founded and when conditions -were favourable to its establishment, the populace might still nourish -its traditional antagonism to the Jew, but in the West of Europe his -numbers were very limited (only a few thousand in France and England -combined, and hardly as many in Italy). - -He belonged for the most part to the classes that did not come into -direct competition with the poor of the large towns. From the -countrysides he was absent. He had not attempted to govern his hosts as -a politician, nor, in any large measure, to indoctrinate them through -the Press. The rapid decline of religion at that time broke down one -barrier, and the transformation of the governing classes from the old -territorial Lords to the modern plutocracy broke down another. The -convention that the Jew was indistinguishable from the citizens of the -country in which he happened to live, or, at any rate, from that in -which he had last lived, was further fostered by the break-up of that -cosmopolitan aristocratic society which had marked the eighteenth -century, and which could note and register the movements of prominent -individuals from nation to nation. The new industrial fortunes and the -new international finance both contributed to the same end, while the -Jew also began to compete successfully in every one of the liberal -professions without as yet dominating any of them. No conflicts had -arisen between the Jewish race and the national interests of any -European people, with the exception perhaps of the Poles; and these were -subject and silenced. - -Throughout all this time, from the years after Waterloo to the years -immediately succeeding the defeat of the French in 1870-71, the weight -and position of the Jew in Western civilization increased out of all -knowledge and yet without shock, and almost without attracting -attention. They entered the Parliaments everywhere, the English Peerage -as well, and the Universities in very large numbers. A Jew became Prime -Minister of Great Britain, another a principal leader of the Italian -resurrection; another led the opposition to Napoleon III. They were -present in increasing numbers in the chief institutions of every -country. They began to take positions as fellows of every important -Oxford and Cambridge college; they counted heavily in the national -literatures; Browning and Arnold families, for instance, in England; -Mazzini in Italy. They came for the first time into European diplomacy. -The armies and navies alone were as yet untouched by their influence. -Strains of them were even present in the reigning families. The -institution of Freemasonry (with which they are so closely allied and -all the ritual of which is Jewish in character) increased very rapidly -and very greatly. The growth of an anonymous Press and of an -increasingly anonymous commercial system further extended their power. - -It is an illusion to believe that all this great change was Jewish in -origin. The Jew did not create it, he floated upon it, but it worked -manifestly to his advantage, and we find him at the end of it -represented on the governing institutions of Western Europe fifty or one -hundredfold more than was his due in proportion to his numbers. The Jews -intermarried everywhere with the leading families and, before any sign -that a turn of the tide had taken place, they had already achieved that -position in which they are now being assailed and to oust them from -which such strong efforts are preparing. - -Perhaps the first event which cut across this unbroken ascent was the -defeat of the French in 1870-1. Not that its effects were immediate in -this field, but that a nation defeated is the more likely to raise a -grievance, real or imaginary; in seeking a cause for social misfortunes -following on its military disasters, it will naturally fix upon an -international rather than a national one, and blame its alien population -rather than its own. Moreover, the date of the French defeat was also -the date on which was overthrown the temporal power of the Papacy. In -this also the Jews had played their part. It gave them the opportunity -to play a still greater part in the immediate future of the new Italy. -Within a few years Rome was to see a Jewish Mayor who supported with all -his might the unchristianizing of the city and especially of its -educational system. - -One small but significant factor in the whole business of these 70's and -early 80's--the beginning of the last quarter of the nineteenth -century--was the rise to monopoly of the Jewish international news -agents, among which Reuters was prominent, and the presence of Jews as -international correspondents of the various great newspapers, the most -prominent example being Opper, a Bohemian Jew, who concealed his origin -under the false name of "de Blowitz," and for years acted as Paris -correspondent for _The Times_, a paper in those days of international -influence. - -The first expression of the reaction that was at hand was to be found in -sundry definitely anti-Semitic writings appearing in Germany and France, -most noticeable in the latter country. - -Their effect was at first slight, though they had the high advantage of -extensive documentation. The great majority of educated men shrugged -their shoulders and passed such things by as the extravagancies of -fanatics; but these fanatics none the less laid the foundation of future -action by the quotation of an immense quantity of facts which could not -but remain in the mind even of those who were most contemptuous of the -new propaganda. In these books special insistence was laid upon exposing -what the Jews themselves call "crypto-Judaism"--that is, the presence -everywhere throughout Western Europe of men in important public -positions who passed for English, French or what not, but were really -Jews. - -In many cases (I have already quoted the poet Browning and the -distinguished family of Arnold) these people were not hiding their -religion but had simply drifted from the original Jewish community of -which their ancestors had been members, but in most others there was -more or less present an element of conscious secrecy. It was evidently -the object of those who produced the literature I am describing to -attack that secrecy in particular and to undo its effects; and, as I -have said, even where their fanaticism was most ridiculed, the vast -array of facts which they marshalled could not be without its effect -upon the memory of their contemporaries. - -There next appeared a series of direct international actions undertaken -by Jewish finance, the most important of which, of course, was the -drawing of Egypt into the European system, and particularly into the -system of Great Britain. - -Of more effect upon public opinion was the excitement of the Dreyfus -case in France and, immediately afterwards, of the South African War, in -England. - -The characteristic of the Dreyfus case was not the discussion upon the -guilt or innocence of the unfortunate man from whom it takes its title, -but the immense international clamour with which it was surrounded. This -local affair was made an affair of the whole world, and men took as -passionate an interest in it in the remotest corners of civilization as -though they had been the principals actually engaged. - -Such a phenomenon could not but astonish the mass of onlookers who had -hitherto not given the Jewish question a thought, and when there was -added to it the great ordeal of the South African War, openly and -undeniably provoked and promoted by Jewish interests in South Africa, -when that war was so unexpectedly prolonged and proved so unexpectedly -costly in blood and treasure, a second element was added to the growing -feeling, not yet, indeed, of antagonism to Jewish power (half cultured -France was Dreyfusard, and much more than half England favoured the Boer -War at its origin), but of interest in the Jewish question, of -curiosity, on the part of the average citizen, who had not hitherto -heard of it. - -The original minority which had begun to oppose Jewish power, with -their extreme left wing of Anti-Semites, and their core of men whose -quarrel was rather with the financial control of the modern world than -with any racial problem, tended to grow. As always happens with a -growing movement, events appeared to suit themselves to that growth and -to promote it. - -The Panama scandals in the French Parliament had already fed the -movement in France. The later Parliamentary scandals in England, Marconi -and the rest, afforded so astonishing a parallel to Panama that the -similarity was of universal comment. They might have passed as isolated -things a generation before. They were now connected, often unjustly, -with the uneasy sense of a general financial conspiracy. They were, at -any rate, connected with an atmosphere essentially Jewish in character. - -Meanwhile there had already begun one of those great migratory movements -of the Jews which have diversified history for two thousand years and -which are almost always the prelude to each new disturbance in the -equilibrium of the Jews and each new resuscitation of the Jewish problem -in its most acute form. - -The great reservoir of the Jewish race was, of course, that country of -Poland which had so nobly succoured the Jews during the persecutions of -the late Middle Ages. Poland had made itself an asylum for all the Jews -who cared to go to it, and was now, after the infamous partition -inaugurated by Prussia, still the home of something like half the Jews -of the world. The hatred of the Jews entertained by all classes of -Russians, the persecutions they suffered from the fact that Russia, -since the partition, governed that part of Poland where they were most -numerous, started the new exodus. The movement was a westerly one, -mainly to the United States, but there also arose in connection with it -a novel growth of great ghettoes in the English industrial towns, more -particularly in London, while New York was slowly transformed from a -city as free of Jewish population as London and Paris had been in the -past, to one in which a good third or more of its inhabitants became -either entirely Jewish or partly Jewish. - -This vast immigration, which was in full swing just before the outbreak -of the great war, and which was adding so active a leaven to the -increasing ferment, which had even planted the beginnings of a ghetto in -Paris and which was affecting the whole of the West, was supplemented by -one more factor of the first importance. - -Modern capitalism, by which the Jew had so largely benefited, but which -he did not originate and in which prominent, though few, Jewish names, -were so immixed, had for its counterpart and reaction the _socialist_ -movement. This, again, the Jews did not originate, nor at first direct; -but it rapidly fell more and more under their control. The family of -Mordecai (who had assumed the name of Marx) produced in Karl a most -powerful exponent of that theory. Though he did no more than copy and -follow his non-Jewish instructors (especially Louis Blanc, a Franco-Scot -of genius), he presented in complete form the full theory of Socialism, -economic, social, and, by implication, religious; for he postulated -Materialism. - -After Karl Marx came a crowd of his compatriots, who led the industrial -proletariat in rebellion against the increasing power of the capitalist -system, and began to organize a determined revolt. - -Before the Great War one could say that the whole of the Socialist -movement, so far as its staff and direction were concerned, was Jewish; -and while it took this purely economic form in the West, in the East--in -the Russian Empire--it took a political form as well, and the growing -revolutionary force in that Empire was equally Jewish in direction and -driving power. - -Such was the situation on the eve of the Great War. Men were beginning -to be thoroughly alive to what was meant by the Jewish problem. The old -security was dispelled for ever; but as yet only a minority, though now -a large one, was prepared to deal with that problem and to discuss it -openly. All that was official, and particularly the Press, with its vast -influence, had as yet refused in any department to face the realities of -the position. The convention forbidding public allusion to the Jewish -question was still very strong. On the surface it seemed as though the -old Liberal policy still stood firm and, indeed, unshakeable. The Jews -were in every place of 'vantage: they taught in the Universities of all -Europe; they were everywhere in the Press; everywhere in finance. They -were continually to be found in the highest places of Government and in -the chanceries of Christendom they had acquired a dominant power which -none could question. But the challenge against this unnatural position -necessarily worked against great odds, it remained private and had -great difficulty in finding expression. None the less, it extended, and -by 1914 had become serious. - -The immeasurable catastrophe of the war--with which the Jews had nothing -to do and which their more important financial representatives did all -they could to prevent--fell upon Europe. It seemed at first as though, -in the face of that overwhelming tragedy, what had been so rapidly -growing--I mean the debate and conflict upon Jewish claims--would be -silenced. The Jews were found fighting gallantly in all the armies. -Their services were generously acknowledged, though the cruel ambiguity -of their situation was hardly realized. Considering that they had no -national interest in the fight, it must have seemed to them a mere -insanity, crucifying their nation to no purpose. For Zangwill put the -matter well indeed when he said that those who eagerly and spontaneously -joined the first recruiting (and these were numerous) did so "for the -honour of Israel." The sacrifice was not without fruit. In its presence -many a complaint was silenced and much was revealed which, but for it, -would have remained unprobed. The Christian family in its bereavement -saw at its side a Jewish neighbour who had lost his son in what was no -concern of his race; the Christian priest witnessed the agony of the -young Jewish soldier. The defender of the Western nations saw at his -side not only the Jewish conscript (who should never have been called) -but the Jewish volunteer. Thus, the first to enlist from the United -States was a Jew, later promoted, whom I had the pleasure and honour of -meeting on Mangin's staff at Mayence. I hope he may see these lines. - -It looked as though in the presence of such a suffering, which the Jews -shared with us, the growing quarrel between them and ourselves would be -appeased. Men who had been prominent not only for their discussion of -the Jewish problem, but for their direct and open antagonism to Jewish -power and even to the most legitimate of Jewish claims, were now -compelled to silence. Reconciliation was in the air ... when, in the -very heat of the struggle, came that factor, incalculably important, -which now rules all the rest; I mean the factor of what is called -_Bolshevism_. - -This new Jewish movement changed the whole face of things and, coming on -the top of the rest, has transformed the problem for all our generation. - -Henceforth it was to be discussed quite openly. Henceforth it could only -become, more and more, the chief problem of politics and give rise to -that menacing situation upon a solution of which depends the security of -our future. - -For the Bolshevist movement, or rather explosion, was Jewish. - -That truth may be so easily confused with a falsehood that I must, at -the outset, make it exact and clear. - -The Bolshevist Movement was _a_ Jewish movement, but not a movement of -the Jewish race as a whole. Most Jews were quite extraneous to it; very -many indeed, and those of the most typical, abhor it; many actively -combat it. The imputation of its evils to the Jews as a whole is a grave -injustice and proceeds from a confusion of thought whereof I, at any -rate, am free. - -With so much said let me return to the affair. - -What is called "Labour," that is, the direction of the proletarian -revolt against capitalist conditions, had, as we have seen, been -directed in the main by the Jew. His energy, his international quality, -his devotion to a set scheme, prevailed. All this was not peculiar to -Russia but present throughout the industrialized areas of the West. - -By the word "directed" I do not mean any conscious plan. I mean that the -Jews, with their perpetual movement from country to country, with their -natural indifference to national feeling as a force counteracting class -feeling, with their lucid thought and their passion for deduction, with -their tenacity and intellectual industry, had naturally become the chief -exponents and the most able leaders. They formed, above all, the cement -binding the movement together throughout the world. It was they, more -than any others, who insisted on a clear-cut solution upon the lines -which their compatriot Karl Marx had copied from his greater European -contemporaries, and made definite in his famous book on Capital. - -But there was all the difference in the world between this intellectual -leadership, this organization of socialism by Jews _while Socialism -still remained a mere theory_, and the control and actual management of -it in a great State when it passed from theory to practice. - -The words "social revolution" were still but words in 1914 and men did -not take them too seriously. But when in 1917 a socialist revolution was -accomplished suddenly at one blow, in one great State, and when its -agents, directors and masters were seen to be a close corporation of -Jews with only a few non-Jewish hangers-on (each of these controlled by -the Jews through one influence or another), it was quite another -matter. The thing had become actual. The menace to national traditions -and to the whole Christian ethic of property was immediate. More -important than all, so far as the Jewish problem is concerned, many who -had remained silent upon it on account of convention, avarice or fear, -were now compelled to speak. From that moment, in early '17, it became -the chief political problem of our time: coincident with, intimately -mixed with, but in all its implications superior to, the great economic -quarrel on to which it was now grafted. - -The story may be briefly told. The Russian State, ill-equipped for -modern war, had passed during the end of the year 1916 through a strain -which it had found intolerable. Russian Society, after the mortal losses -sustained, was upon the eve of dissolution, and the formidable -revolutionary movement which had for years left its direction and -organization in Jewish hands broke out, for the third time in our -generation: but this time successfully. - -After rapidly accelerating phases it settled into the situation which -has endured from the early part of 1918 to the present day. In the towns -the freely-elected Parliament was repudiated and a "Dictatorship of the -Proletariat" was declared. The workshops were in future to be run by -Committees, in the Russian "Soviets," and similar organizations were to -control agriculture in the villages, where the peasants had already -seized the land and were streaming back from the dissolved armies to -their homes. - -In practice, of course, what was set up was no proletarian Government, -still less anything so impossible and contradictory in terms as a -"dictatorship" of proletarians. The thing was called "The Republic of -the Workmen and Peasants." It was, in fact, nothing of the sort. It was -the pure despotism of a clique, the leaders of which had been specially -launched upon Russia under German direction in order to break down any -chance of a revival of Russian military power, and all those leaders, -without exception, were Jews, or held by the Jews through their domestic -relations, and all that followed was done directly under the orders of -Jews, the most prominent of whom was one Braunstein, who disguised -himself under the assumed name of Trotsky. A terror was set up, under -which were massacred innumerable Russians of the governing classes, so -that the whole framework of the Russian State disappeared. Among these, -of course, must specially be noted great numbers of the clergy, against -whom the Jewish revolutionaries had a particular grudge. A clean sweep -was made of all the old social organization, and under the despotism of -this Jewish clique the old economic order was reversed. Food and all -necessities were controlled (in the towns) and rationed, the manual -labourer receiving the largest share; and none any share unless he -worked at the orders of the new masters. - -The agricultural land was in theory nationalized, but in practice the -Jewish Committees of the towns were unable to enforce their rule over -it, and it reverted to the natural condition of peasant ownership. But -the Jewish Committees of the towns were strong enough to raid great -areas of agricultural production for the support of themselves and their -troops and of their dependants in the cities, who had come close to -starvation through the breakdown of the social system. - -What followed later is of common knowledge: the attempts at -counter-revolution, led by scattered Russians and other military -leaders, all failed because the peasants believed that their -newly-acquired farms were at stake and eagerly volunteered to defend -them, the greatly increased misery of the towns, the slow decline of -industrial production (in spite of the most rigid despotism, enforcing -conscript labour), and the general deliquescence of society. - -If the motives of the men who thus brought the whole of a Christian -State into ruins within a few weeks were analysed, we should, it is to -be presumed, discover something of this sort: their main motive was the -pursuit of the political and economic ideals of which they were the -spokesmen and which already so many of their compatriots, the Jews, -throughout the rest of Europe, had espoused--communism so far as -property was concerned; the Marxian doctrine of socialist production and -distribution; the Socialist doctrine imposed by arbitrary and despotic -arrangements, favouring those who had in the past been least favoured. -In this economic and political group of motives the leading motive was -probably enough, the doctrine of Communism in which these men, for the -most part, sincerely believed. - -To this must be added an equally sincere hatred of national feeling, -save, of course, where the Jewish nation was concerned. The conception -of a Russian national feeling seemed to these new leaders ridiculous, -as, indeed, the conception of a national feeling must seem ridiculous to -their compatriots everywhere; or, if not ridiculous, subsidiary to the -more important motives of individual advantage and to the righting of -such immediate wrongs as the individual may feel. The Christian religion -they naturally attacked, for it was abhorrent to their social theory. - -They also had a certain crusading, or propagandist, ideal running -through the whole of their action--the desire to spread Communism far -beyond the boundaries of what had once been the Russian State. It is -this which has led them to intrigue throughout Central, and even in -Western, Europe, in favour of revolution. - -Though these were the main motives, other motives must also have been -present. - -It is impossible that Committees consisting of Jews and suddenly finding -themselves thus in control of such new powers, should not have desired -to benefit their fellows. It is equally impossible that they should have -forgone a sentiment of revenge against that which had persecuted their -people in the past. They cannot but, in the destroying of Russia, have -mixed with a desire to advantage the individual Russian poor the desire -to take vengeance upon the national tradition as a whole; it has even -been said--but denied, and I know not where the truth lies--that Jews -were among those guilty of the worst incident which we now know in all -its revolting details--the murder of the Russian Royal family--father, -mother and girls, and the unfortunate sickly heir, the only boy. -Further, it is impossible, with Jewish Committees thus in control of the -Russian treasury and of Russian means of communication, that they should -not have had some sympathy with their compatriots who were so largely -in control of Western finance. However sincere their detestation of -capitalism (for probably in most of them the opinion is held sincerely -enough), it is in the nature of things that one of their blood and kind -should, however misguided they may think him, appeal to them more than -one of ours. And it is this which explains the half alliance which you -find throughout the world between the Jewish financiers on the one hand -and the Jewish control of the Russian revolution on the other. It is -this which explains the half-heartedness of the defence against -Bolshevism, the perpetual commercial protest, the continued -negotiations, the recognition of the Soviet by our politicians, the -clamour of "Labour" in favour of German Jewish industrialism and against -Poland: all that has taken place wherever Jewish finance is powerful, -particularly at Westminster. - -But, be this as it may, the tremendous explosion which we call -Bolshevism brought the discussion of the Jewish problem to a head. The -two forces which had hitherto held back the discussion of that problem -were that Liberal fiction which had ruled for more than a generation, -according to which it was indecent even to mention the word Jew, or to -suggest that there was any difference between the Jew and those who -harboured him; and, secondly, the fact that the Jews were erroneously -regarded by most of the well-to-do people in the West--that is, by most -of those who had the control of the Press and therefore of all public -expression--as so controlling wealth that they were at once the natural -guardians of property and so placed that an attack upon them jeopardized -the wealth of the critic. The man who had gone into the City, or who -had his life spent upon the Bourse in Paris, or who was negotiating any -great capitalist enterprise, who had to do in whatever capacity with the -running of the great banks or with the international means of -communication by sea and land, even the man who got his precarious -living by writing--each and all had hitherto felt that a public silence -upon the Jewish problem was necessary to his private welfare. - -Those who recognized the gravity of the problem had hitherto been moved -by fear to be silent upon it, at least in public, though in private they -were often voluble enough. Those who recognized it in a lesser degree -had also been affected by the same fear. Lastly, you had the large class -who were under no necessity for restraint, whether from fear or any -other cause, but who were quite content to leave things as they were so -long as they received their regular salary or dividends, and who were -profoundly convinced that any interference with the Jew would imperil -those dividends or that salary. - -The Jewish Bolshevist movement put an end to that state of mind. The -people who had hitherto been silent through avarice, convention, or -fear, now found themselves between an upper and a nether millstone. -Hitherto they had at least believed that to keep silence was to secure -or to advance their economic position. Now they found, suddenly risen -upon the flank of that position, a new and formidable Jewish force -determined upon the destruction of property. There was no longer any -reason to keep silent. There was a growing need to speak. And though the -old habit, the old secrecy, was still strong upon them, the necessity -for combating Jewish Bolshevism was stronger still. All over Europe the -Jewish character of the movement became more and more apparent. The -leaders of Communism everywhere proclaimed that truth by adopting the -asinine policy of pretending that the revolution was Russian and -national; they attempted--far too late--to hide the Jewish origins of -its creators and directors, and made a childish effort to pretend that -the Russian names so innocently put forward were genuine, when the real -names were upon every tongue. Yet at the same time they were receiving -money and securities of the victims through Jewish agents, jewels -stripped from the dead or rifled from the strong boxes of murdered men -and women. In one specific instance the promise of a subsidy to a -Communist paper in London was traced to this source; it was proved that -the Englishman involved was a mere puppet and that the Jewish -connections of the family through marriage were the true agents in the -transaction. In another a Trade Deputation was pompously announced under -Russian names, which turned out upon inspection to consist, as to its -first member, of a man engaged all his life in the service of a Jewish -firm, as to the other, of a Jew who was actually the brother-in-law of -Braunstein! The diplomatic agent nominated and partially accepted by the -British Government to represent the new authority of the Russian towns -was again a Jew, Finkelstein, the nephew by marriage of a prominent Jew -in this country. He passed under the name of Litvinoff. So it was -throughout the whole movement, in every capital and in every great -industrial town. - -We must not neglect the very obvious truth that in all this there was -ample fuel for the flame. The industrial proletariat throughout the -world was equally disgusted and equally ready for revolt. The leadership -of the movement may be Jewish but its current was not created by the -Jew. To imagine that is to fall into the most childish errors of the -"Anti-Semite." The stream of influence arose from the sufferings and the -burning sense of injustice which industrial capitalism had imposed on -the dispossessed mass of wage earners. They were (and are) naturally -indifferent as to whether those whom they hope may be their saviours -come from Palestine, Muscovy or Timbuctoo. They are interested in -economic freedom: in the doctrine of socialism and in its results, not -in the personality of those who guide them. - -Their position is comprehensible enough: but my point is, that the -directing minority of Western European capitalism which had hitherto -been silent upon the Jewish problems from the motives I have described -were now released; they were free to speak their mind, and began to -speak it. The volume of their protest cannot but increase. The cat, as -the expression goes, is out of the bag, or, to put it in more dignified -language, the debate will now never more be silenced. It is admitted -that the revolutionary leadership is mainly Jewish. It is recognized as -clearly now as it has long been recognized that international finance -was mainly Jewish; and even those who would tolerate silence upon the -one peril will certainly not tolerate it upon the other. - -The danger is, indeed, not over. The debate will take place--that is no -peril, but a good; the danger is rather that, as restraint is gradually -removed, the natural antagonism to the Jewish race, felt by nearly all -those who are not of it and among whom it lives, may take an irrational -and violent form, and that we may be upon the brink of yet one more of -those catastrophes, of those tragedies, of those disasters which have -marked the history of Israel in the past. - -To avert this, to discover some solution of the problem while there is -yet time, to prevent deeds which would bring us to shame and that small -minority among us to suffering, should be the object of every honest -man. - - -THE GENERAL CAUSES OF FRICTION - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -THE GENERAL CAUSE OF FRICTION - - -The immediate cause of the new gravity apparent in the Jewish problem is -the Revolution in Russia. The completely new feature of open discussion -now attaching to it (a thing which would have seemed incredible in -England twenty years ago) is the leadership the Jews have assumed in the -economic quarrel of the proletariat against capitalism. - -Most people, therefore, on being asked the cause of friction between the -Jews and their hosts at this moment will reply (in England, at least) -that it lies in the anti-social propaganda now running loose throughout -Industrial Europe. "Our quarrel with the Jews," you will hear from a -hundred different sources, "is that they are conspiring against -Christian civilization, and in particular against our own country, under -the form of social revolutionaries." - -Such a reply, though it is the almost universal reply of the moment in -this country, is most imperfect. - -The friction between the Jews and the nations among which they are -dispersed is far older, far more profound, far more universal. For a -whole generation before the present crisis arose, the comparatively -small number of men who were hammering away steadily at the Jewish -problem, trying to provoke its discussion, and insisting on its -importance, were mainly concerned with quite another aspect of Jewish -activity--the aspect of international finance as controlled by Jews. -Before that aspect had assumed its modern gravity the reproach against -the Jews was that their international position warred against our racial -traditions and our patriotisms. Before that again there had been the -reproach of a different religion and particularly of their antagonism to -the doctrine of the Incarnation and all that flowed from that doctrine. -And there had been even, before that great quarrel, the reproach that -they were bad citizens within the pagan Roman Empire, perpetually in -rebellion against it and guilty of massacring other Roman citizens. - -In another civilization than ours, in that of Islam, another set of -reproaches had arisen, or rather another species of contempt and -oppression. After long periods of peace there would come, in particular -regions, the most violent oppression. Within the last few years, for -instance, a Jew in Morocco was treated as though he was hardly human. He -had to turn his face to the wall when any magnate was passing by. He had -to dress in a particular manner to mark him off as something degraded -among his fellow-beings. He might not ride through the gate of a town, -but had to dismount. There were twenty actions normal to civic life in -the Moroccan city which were forbidden to the Jew. - -All this is as much as to say that the friction between the Jews and -those among whom they live is always present, and has always been -present, now latent, now rising furiously to the surface, now grumbling -through long periods of uncertain peace, now boiling over in all the -evils of persecution--which is as much as to say that this friction -between Jew and non-Jew, while finding different excuses for its action -on different occasions, has been a force permanently at work everywhere -and at all times. - -What is the cause of it? What is its nature? - -The matter is very difficult to approach, because we are not dealing -with things susceptible of positive proof. You can prove from historical -record that the thing has existed. You can show its terrible effects, -ceaselessly recurrent throughout all our history. But it is another -matter to analyse the unseen forces which produce it, and any such -analysis can be no more than an attempt. - -I take it that the causes of this friction, with all its lamentable -results, are of two kinds. There are, first, _general_ causes for it, by -which I mean those causes which are always present and are ineradicable. -Their effort may be summed up in the truth that the whole texture of the -Jewish nation, their corporate tradition, their social mind, is at issue -with the people among whom they live. There are, next, special causes, -by which I mean social actions and expressions which lead to friction -and could be modified, the two chief of which are the use of secrecy by -the Jews as a method of action and the open expression of superiority -over his neighbours which the Jew cannot help feeling but is wrong to -emphasize. - -I will deal with these in their order, and first consider the general -causes; though I must admit at the outset that a mere summary of them is -no sufficient explanation of the phenomenon. There would seem to be -something more profound and even more mysterious about it. For it will -be universally conceded that, while the closest intimacy and respect is -possible between individuals of the two opposing races, the moment you -come to great groups, and especially to the popular instinct in the -matter, the gravest friction is apparent. It is an issue too deep than -to be accounted for by mere differences of temper. It is as though there -were some inward force filling men on either side, not indeed with -necessary hostility--it is against any such necessity that all this book -is written--but certainly with conflicting ends. - -It is first to be noted that most of the accusations made against the -Jews by their enemies and most of the very proper rebuttals of those -accusations advanced by the Jews and their defenders, miss the mark -because they attempt to put in abstract form what is really something -highly concrete. And this is equally true of the praise bestowed upon -the Jews, of the special virtues ascribed to them and of the denials of -these virtues. - -They miss the mark because they attempt to express in terms of one -category what should be expressed in terms of another. They are doing -what a man does when he compares two pictures by their outline while in -point of fact their interest lies in colour, or when he affirms -something of a tune the fundamental point of which something is not the -air at all but the instruments upon which it is played: as who should -say that "God save the King" was "shrill" because he heard it played on -a penny whistle or "booming" because he heard it played on a -violoncello. The real point to note is not that the Jews appear to us -(or we to them) to possess certain abstract qualities and defects, but -that in their case each quality or defect has a special character, a -special national _timbre_ which it lacks in ours. - -Thus you will hear the Jews arraigned by their enemies for three such -vices as cowardice, avarice and treason--to take three of the commonest -accusations. You examine their actions and you find innumerable -instances of the highest courage, the greatest generosity and the most -devoted loyalty: but courage, generosity and loyalty of a Jewish kind, -directed to Jewish ends, and stamped with a highly distinctive Jewish -mark. - -The man who accuses the Jews of cowardice means that they do not enjoy a -fight of his kind, nor a fight fought after his fashion. All he has -discovered is that the courage is not shown under the same -circumstances, nor for the same ends, nor in the same mode. But if the -word courage means anything, he cannot on reflection deny it to actions -of which one could make an endless catalogue even from contemporary -experience alone. Is it cowardice in a young man to sacrifice his life -deliberately for the sake of his own people? Did that young Jew show -cowardice who killed the Russian Prime Minister, the antagonist of his -people, after the first revolution following on the Russo-Japanese war? -Was it cowardice to walk up in a crowded theatre, surrounded by all the -enemies of his race, and shoot their chief in their midst? Is it -cowardice to stand up against the vast alien majority, and to do so over -and over again, perhaps through a whole lifetime, insisting on things -that are grossly unpopular with that majority and running a risk the -whole time of physical violence? You find Jews adopting that attitude -all over Europe. Can one think it is cowardice which has permitted the -individuals of this nation to maintain their tradition unbroken through -two thousand years of intermittent torture, spoliation and violent -death? The thing so stated is ridiculous, and it is clear that those who -make such an accusation are confounding their own form of courage with -courage as a universal attribute. - -They think that because Jews show courage under other circumstances and -in another way from themselves, corresponding to another appetite, as it -were, therefore it is no longer courage: to think like that is to -confess yourself very limited. - -I can testify, myself, to any number of courageous acts which I have -seen performed by Jews. I am not alluding to acts of courage in warfare, -of which there is ample evidence, but to acts of a sort in which our -race would not have shown the same quality or _timbre_ of courage. I -will cite one case. - -Rather more than twenty years ago, when feeling on the Dreyfus case was -at its height and when the feeling of the French Army in particular was -at white heat, I happened to be in the town of Nîmes, through which, at -the time, a body of troops was passing. The café in which I sat was -filled with young sergeants. There were hardly any civilians present -beside myself. There came into the place an elderly Jew, very short in -stature, highly marked with the physical characteristics of his race, an -unmistakable Jew. He was somewhat bent under the weight of his years, -with fiery eyes and a singularly vibrating intonation of voice. He was -selling broadsheets of the most violent kind, all of them insults -against the Army. He came into this café with the sheets in his hand so -that all could see the large capital letters of the headlines, and -slowly went round the assembly ironically offering them to the lads in -uniform with their swords at their side, for they were of the cavalry. - -Every one knows the French temper on such occasions--a complete silence -which may at any moment be transformed into something very different. -One sergeant after another politely waved him aside and passed him on. -He went round the whole lot of them, gazing into their faces with his -piercing eyes, wearing the whole time an ironical smile of insult, -describing at intervals the nature of his goods, and when he had done -that he went out unharmed. - -It was an astonishing sight. I have seen many others as astonishing and -as vivid, but for courage I have never seen it surpassed. Here was a -man, old and feeble, the member of a very small minority which he knew -to be hated, and particularly hated by the people whom he challenged. -Because he held one of his own people to be injured, he took this -tremendous risk and went through this self-imposed task with a sort of -pleasure in that risk. You may call it insolence, offensiveness, what -you will: but you cannot deny it the title of courage. It was courage of -the very highest quality. - -I repeat: you may see evidence of that sort of courage in Jewish action -throughout the world and in every age. You have the beginning of it in -the Siege of Jerusalem; to-morrow, if the fear which we now all -entertain should unhappily prove well founded, we shall see it again -upon the same scale. - -Take avarice. When the Jew is accused of avarice by his enemies they -are reading into him that vice in a form of which _they_ know themselves -capable, which _they_ themselves practise, which _they_ fully -understand, but which _he_ never practises in their fashion. The Jew is -adventurous with his money. He is a speculator, a trader. He is also a -man who thinks of it in exact terms. He is never romantic about it. But -he is almost invariably generous in the use of it. Our race, when it -yields to the vice of avarice, is close, secretive, uncharitable. He is -pitiless and sly in accumulation. He is vociferous in his insistence -upon the exact terms of an agreed compact. He is also tenacious in the -pursuit of anything which he has set out on, the accumulation of money -among the rest. He is almost fanatical in his appetite for success in -whatever he has undertaken, the accumulation of money among the rest. -But to say that the money, once accumulated, is not generously used, is -nonsense. There is not one of us who could not cite at once a dozen -examples of Jewish generosity upon a scale which makes us ashamed. - -Nor is it true to say that this generosity has ostentation for its root, -or, as it is called, "Ransome," either. Though a love of magnificence is -certainly a great passion in the Jewish character, it does not account -for the most of his generosity. It is a generosity which extends to all -manner of private relations, and if you will take the testimony of those -who have been in the service of the Jews and are not Jews themselves, -that testimony is almost universally in favour of their employers, if -those employers be men of large means. - -They will tell you that they felt humiliated in serving a Jew; that the -relations were never easy; that there was always distance. But not -often that they were treated meanly. Just the other way. There has -usually been present a _spontaneous_ generosity. The same argument -applies to the cry of "Ransome." It is true that some of the more -scandalous Jewish fortunes have thrown up defences against public anger -by the return of a small proportion in the shape of public endowments: -it is an action and a motive not peculiar to them. But that does not -explain the mass of private and unheard benefaction to which we can all -testify and which is as common with the middle-class Jew as with the -wealthy. It is here as in the matter of courage a question of _kind_. -Those of our people who happen to be generous (they are rare) do not -calculate. They often forget or confuse the sums they have made away -with, as though it were mere extravagance. The Jew knows the exact -extent of his sacrifice, its proportion to his total means. Is he then -less generous? By no means. He is, in scale _more_ generous--but in a -different fashion. - -It might be argued that this generosity of the Jew is a consequence of -the way in which he regards money. It comes and goes with him because he -is a speculator and a wanderer. It has been said that no great Jewish -fortune is ever permanent; that none of these millionaires ever founded -a family. This is not quite true; but it is true that considering the -long list of great Jewish fortunes which have marked the whole progress -of our civilization it is astonishing how few have taken root. But -though this conception of money may be an element in the generosity of -the Jew it does not fully explain it, and at any rate that generosity is -there, and contradicts flatly the accusation of avarice. Indeed the -general accusation of avarice fails: and _that_ is why it is a sort of -standing jest permitted even where the Jews are most powerful. It is a -jest they themselves do not resent because they know it to be beside the -mark. - -The accusation of treason is on the same footing--save that it is even -more "to one side" than the others quoted. There is no race which has -produced so few traitors. It is not treason in the Jew to be -international. It is not treason in the Jew to work now for one interest -among those who are not of his people, now for another. He can only be -charged with treason when he acts against the interests of Israel, and -there is no nation nor ever has been one in which the national -solidarity was greater or national weakness in the shape of traitors -less. Indeed, that is the very accusation their enemies make against -them; that they are too homogeneous; that they hold too much together -and are too fierce in self-defence; and you cannot have that accusation -coupled with an accusation of treason. What is true is that the Jew -lends himself to one non-jewish group in its action against another. He -will serve France against the Germans, or the Germans against France, -and he will do so indifferently as a resident in the country he benefits -or the country he wounds: for he is indifferent to either. The moment -war breaks out the intelligence departments of both sides rely upon the -Jew: and they rely upon him not only on account of his indifference to -nationalism but also on account of his many languages, his travel, the -presence of his relations in the enemy country. And this is true not -only of war but of armed peace. - -But it is clear that in all this there are examples of what _in us_, -would be treason. In him such actions are not treasons, for he does not -betray Israel. But they all have an atmosphere repellent to us. They are -things which if we did them (or when we do them) degrade us. They do not -degrade the Jew. - -One might continue the list of such accusations indefinitely, and in -every one you would find that the root of the quarrel is not the -presence of a particular defect but the presence of a difference in -circumstances, temperament, character: a different colour and taste in -the quality or defect concerned. It is _that_ which offends. It is -_that_ which causes the misunderstandings and which leads to the -tragedies. - -While this is true of the accusations made against the Jewish people it -is unfortunately equally true of the corresponding qualities which they -and their defenders advance in the rebuttal. The Jew is essentially -patriotic: that is true. But not patriotic to our ends or in our way. He -is essentially self-respecting. But not self-respecting to our ends or -in our way. A personal obligation which he cannot meet, a personal and -intimate contract in which he may default, especially to one of his own -people, is abhorrent to the Jew; but not in our way. He has not our -shame of bankruptcy for instance, but much more than our shame of -personal borrowing. Drunkenness, a vice most offensive to human dignity, -is with him the rarest vice: with us the commonest. But our sense of -dignity in repose he has not, nor does he feel our sense of injured -dignity in mummery. His tenacity, which all know and all in a sense -admire and which is far superior to our own, is also a narrower -tenacity, or at any rate a tenacity of a different kind. He will follow -one end where we will follow many. His wonderful loyalty to all family -relations we know: but we do not appreciate it because it is outside our -own circle. Even his intellectual gifts, which are less affected by this -matter of _timbre_, have something alien to us in them. They are -undeniable but we feel them to be used for other ends than ours: they -are coldly used when ours are used enthusiastically: they are used with -intensity when we use them with carelessness. - -If we leave the controversial field and concern ourselves with an -appreciation of Jewish qualities, apart from our like or dislike of them -and apart from their difference in intimate texture, as it were, from -our own, they may be summarized I think as follows:-- - -The Jew concentrates upon one matter. He does not disperse his mind. And -this concentration carries with it strength and weakness. It has been -said in connection with it (all such terms are metaphorical) that his -mind is not elastic. But this is a great element in his success. I have -noticed that the Jew having once taken up a particular task shows an -indifference to other tasks which, from our standpoint, is marvellous. -How many instances could not one cite of two Jewish brothers, the one -occupied in finance, the other in science, or the one in politics, the -other in music, and how clearly do we see in those instances the -complete indifference of the Jew to things outside the province he has -undertaken! How remarkable in our eyes is his resistance to any -temptation which might lead him away from his end. The Jew who is -devoted to science, for instance, remains completely indifferent to its -opportunities for enrichment. The Jew who is devoted to philosophy (and -what great names he can show in this sphere throughout the centuries!) -lives in poverty and is perfectly content so to live. The Jew devoted to -any particular ideal of social change devotes himself entirely to that, -and ends his task often more powerful, hardly ever more wealthy, nearly -always much poorer than when he began it. Above all he refuses to be -distracted for a moment from his goal. - -Another character which is affiliated to this first leading character of -the Jew would seem to be the lucidity of his thought. The Jew's argument -is never muddled. That is one of his prime assets not only in all -discussion but in all action. It is also, if a cause of strength, a -cause of the enmity he arouses: or (to use my milder term) of the -"friction." - -For an exactly constructed process of reasoning, from which there is no -escape, has in it (for those less capable of it) something of the bully. -A man may feel the conclusion to be false: perhaps he _knows_ it to be -false. He lacks the power to express his reasons. He may not know how to -state the principles which his adversary has left out of account, or -when to bring them into discussion, and he feels the iron logic offered -to him like a pistol presented at the head of his better judgment. But -for strength and for weakness also, lucidity is the mark of the Jew's -mind. He carries that lucidity into the smallest details of whatever he -may perform. - -One must add to all this a certain intensity of action which is very -noticeable and which again is a cause of friction between himself and -those about him. Hear a Jew speaking, especially a Jew speaking upon the -revolutionary platform, and note the _high voltage_ at which the current -is working. The energy which he uses is not the energy of a large flame -but of a well-directed blow-pipe: a stream of heat. He is wholly -absorbed, not in his own expression, but in actively penetrating the -mind of his hearers. And here again is that difference in quality to -which I have alluded. One might say indifferently that the Jew is never -eloquent or that he is always eloquent when he speaks upon things that -possess his soul. He is not eloquent in our fashion; but he is at any -rate astonishingly effective in his own. - -The Jew has this other characteristic which has become increasingly -noticeable in our own time, but which is probably as old as the race: -and that is a corporate capacity for hiding or for advertising at will: -a power of "pushing" whatever the whole race desires advanced, or of -suppressing what the whole race desires to suppress. And this also, -however legitimately used, is a cause of friction. - -Men get the feeling of a swarm in the presence of such action. They also -get the feeling of being tricked: and it breeds bad blood. - -In the aspect of the deliberate use of secrecy I shall deal with this -character in my next chapter, for I think in that aspect it is a -particular cause of friction which can be eliminated. But the general -capacity and instinct of the Jew for corporate action in the "booming" -of what he wants "boomed" and the "soft pedalling" of what he wants -"soft pedalled" is ineradicable. It will always remain a permanent -irritant in its effect upon those to whom it is applied. The best proof -of it is that after the most violent "boom," after the talents of some -particular Jew, or the scientific discovery of another, or the -misfortunes of another, or the miscarriage of justice against another, -has been shouted at us, pointed and iterated until we are all deafened, -there comes an inevitable reaction, and the same men who were half -hypnotized into the desired mood are nauseated with it and refuse a -repetition of the dose. - -The converse is true. Men who find that some important matter has been -suppressed, some bad scandal in the State or some trick in commerce -because Jewry desired it to be suppressed, are soon on the alert. They -will not suffer the operation as quietly the second time as they did the -first. Indeed they tend if anything to grow too suspicious. Anyhow, in -both cases this ineradicable racial habit, a cause perhaps of Jewish -survival and certainly an element of Jewish strength, is also a cause of -acute friction between them and us. - -But a mere category of this kind is, as I have said, useless to explain -the fundamental quality, the hidden root, of the ceaseless conflict -between the very soul of the Jew and the soul of the society around him. -All these points are but manifestations of some profound, some -subterranean power for contrast, the value of which we cannot grasp, but -the effects of which are only too apparent. And there remains in the -minds of those who most rely upon this race and of those who most -suspect them the sense of an impassable gulf between them and ourselves. -It is the recognition, the admission of such a contrast, the telling of -the truth about it, the working upon it as a necessary condition, which -must form the foundation for any solution at which we can arrive. - - * * * * * - -There is one feature in the European's attitude towards the Jews which -must be specially dealt with, and that is the false impression that the -friction between us and them is in the main a quarrel with their wealth. - -That impression has been greatly weakened by the recent revolutionary -activity of the Jew surging up from the depths, appearing upon the -surface, and producing the great upheaval in Russia, and the attempted -upheavals elsewhere. But though the new Jewish revolutionary movement -has shaken the old insistence on Jewish wealth it is hard to eradicate -it. It has been present throughout the ages, and will remain at the back -of people's minds perhaps for ever, because the few Jews who do -concentrate on piling up great fortunes concentrate on that task so -entirely. Yet the impression is false and is the fruitful cause of the -worst misunderstandings. - -For the Jews are not a rich nation, and the very fact that they stand in -the popular mind--and especially in the mind of rich people in times of -corruption--for wealth, is an example of the way in which they are -misunderstood and of the way in which injustice to the Jew arises. - -The Jews are a poor nation. An enemy would say that they were poor -because they did not work, but this again would be an injustice, because -the Jew works exceedingly hard and has often in the past and does still -in many places work hard, not only in negotiation and commerce but with -his hands. - -We see the Jews in the Middle Ages monopolizing important manual -occupations in some districts--dyeing and shipbuilding, for instance. -And there are many parts of Eastern Europe where they work upon the land -to-day. - -The Jews are a poor nation because they are an alien nation and because -their activities are for the most part condemned to working against the -grain, in a society which is not their own. But that they _are_ a poor -nation is not only true but abundantly evident to any one who has -travelled and watched their various settlements with any sympathy. - -Now that they have arrived in such great numbers in the West people are -beginning to appreciate this. We have already seen how, a lifetime ago, -when the Jews of the West (I mean especially in France and England and -America) were a small number of merchants and financiers, the great -wealth of a very small number among them was not counterbalanced in our -experience by the exceeding poverty of the mass. But to-day we can see -for ourselves how true it is that, once you get below the exceptional -fortunes and a comparatively small middle-class, the Jewish nation is no -more than millions of exceedingly poor families. - -Those who have watched them outside the West, those who have seen them -in their great eastern communities where the bulk of the race still -resides, in the Marches of Russia, will abundantly agree. It helps us to -understand the Jewish problem if we grasp the fact that a great part of -the Jewish complaint against us is precisely this poverty to which the -bulk of the Jews are condemned. It is all very well to sneer at the -Jewish complaint of persecution and oppression and to cite ironically, -whenever it arises, the immense fortunes of a few families like the -Rothschilds and the Sassoons, the Monds, the Samuels and the rest. From -the point of view of the average Jew that is not the way the thing looks -at all. What he notices, and notices rightly, is that he has no part in -that well-distributed, solid, permanent, inherited wealth which is the -mark of a healthy European community. - -Further (a most important point already touched on in passing), these -great fortunes are ephemeral. - -In the European nations you have a mass of great fortunes far larger in -number, and even in total, than the Jewish financial fortunes. But those -great fortunes have been in the past and are still, wherever our society -is healthy, permanent. They run through European history in the shape of -the great families, in the shape of the _nobility_. - -The great territorial families in this country have been wealthy for -centuries and remain in established wealth, and the same is in the main -true of the great Italian families, it is obviously true of the great -German families, and, in spite of the great changes of the last century -and a half, it is still largely true of the old French families. It is -not true of the Jewish families. The vast Jewish fortunes which have -marked history rise suddenly and melt again almost as suddenly. A Jew -will begin in some very small way--as a pawnbroker in Liverpool, for -instance, or a very small bookseller in Frankfort. You will find his son -a great banker, his grandson so wealthy as to command politics for a -generation, and then (if you will watch the process in the past--to -take a modern unfinished instance is of course misleading) _at last, and -soon, the name disappears again, and disappears for ever_. - -Whom have you representing to-day the few great Jewish fortunes of the -early Middle Ages in England? They were all ruined before the end of the -thirteenth century. Whom have you representing the later great Jewish -fortunes on the Rhine, the fortunes of the sixteenth century and the -early seventeenth? They have utterly gone. Who have you left -representing the considerable Jewish houses of Medieval Venice? of -Genoa? of Rome? - -The causes of this rapid fluctuation are many. They all attach to the -peculiar position, as well as to the peculiar character, of the Jew. We -find them partly in the passion for speculation which the Jewish -intelligence naturally harbours. We find them still more, I think, in -the instinctive opposition to the Jew which his alien surroundings -perpetually arouse. - -It is, however, important to remember this last point. From our point of -view the Jew, when he does get rich, seems to get much too rich and to -get rich much too quickly, and he exercises far too much power through -his wealth; for we think of him the whole time as an alien with no right -to any position. But the Jew sees it in a very different light. In his -point of view his effort to accumulate wealth is always heavily -handicapped. When he succeeds he only succeeds through his own tenacity -and the patriotic co-operation of his fellows, and he always holds his -new-found wealth on an insecure tenure. What looks to us like the -breakdown of a Jewish fortune through speculation, seems to the Jew the -fatal recurrent result of unending opposition. - -In connection with the illusion of a wealthy Jewish race, you have, of -course, the matter which I briefly mentioned above, the connection -between our wealthier, and therefore governing classes, and the Jewish -wealth of the moment. A great part of the illusion, as I have said, is -due to the fact that the gentry of every epoch come into contact with -the Jew _only_ as a rich man, and it is the capital modern vice of our -own gentry, their passion for mere wealth and their subservience to it, -which has largely accounted for this dangerous misunderstanding. - -Look around you in Western Europe to-day and see what people mean by -this story of Jewish wealth. See who the people are that allude -continually to it and spread the idea of it. They are the rich -Europeans, who, in their subservience to crude wealth, in their habit of -gauging everything by that wealth and of submitting to almost any -indignity for the purpose of obtaining more wealth, marry their -daughters to Jews, serve Jewish interests, and, while perpetually -sneering at the Jew behind his back, call him to his face by his most -intimate name and make the most of his hospitality. Which of them ever -knows a middle-class Jew, let alone a poor Jew? Why, most of them are -actually ignorant of the fact that this mass of poor Jews exists at all! -They serve the Jew when he is wealthy and only when he is wealthy. They -envy him basely as a wealthy man and only as a wealthy man. They -prostitute their dignity, they sell their fellow-Europeans, not from any -genuine affection for the Jewish race--indeed there is no class in the -community, closely intermixed with the Jews as they are, which feel the -friction more than the gentry--but simply from a thirst for money, which -they happen to find held in great masses by a few Jewish families. - -It is most noticeable that other aspects of Jewish activity remain -unused by the wealthy class, the gentry--and therefore by the State. -Whether it would be wise to use them or not is another matter. At any -rate, the motive for leaving them unused is the fact that they are not -connected with wealth. The Jewish intelligence which might so often have -served the policy of a Statesman is largely left unused. The -cosmopolitan position of the Jew when it is used is used for little more -than spying; and that profound force, the historical memory of the Jew, -is neglected almost altogether. With this neglect goes a natural and -evil result, the failure on the part of the European governing classes, -especially to-day, to safeguard the community against the troubles which -are bound to arise from the clashing of interests between the Jews and -the people among whom they dwell. - -It may sound paradoxical, but it is true, that if the Statesmen of -Europe, and the hereditary families of the European nations who still -take so much part in the conduct of those nations, had thought less of -the Jewish money power and more of the Jews as a whole they would have -benefited both parties in a very different fashion. We have seen the -artificial protection of the Jews of Eastern Europe because individual -Statesmen have been subservient to the commands of very rich individual -Jewish bankers. But the thing has been done blunderingly. It has served -only to anger the independent nationalities of the East, notably the -Poles, the Roumanians and the Hungarians who have experience of the -difficulties inseparable from an alien minority. Our politicians have -treated the whole affair externally and mechanically, merely obeying -orders without trying to understand. - -The ultimate result of such interference by our Western politicians is -unhappily certain. The last state of the Jews in Eastern Europe will be -worse than the first. Their sufferings will be greater than in the past, -and that because, instead of acting from attempted comprehension and -sympathetic comprehension of the Jewish difficulties the politicians, -who have acted as the servants of a few wealthy Jews, have merely obeyed -the orders of these rich men and have done so with the secret reluctance -that always accompanies self-surrender to a wage. - -Is it not apparent, as we look through history, that the permanent power -of the Jew or, at any rate, the celebrity of his nation is utterly -distinct from those chance accumulations of wealth which a few -individuals owe to the national passion for speculation and a -cosmopolitan position? - -One after another the striking Jewish names of history are the names of -Jews who have ardently pursued some moral or intellectual thesis; most -of them--I had nearly said _all_ of them--were poor men, and for the -most part men deliberately poor because they preferred, as it is in the -Jewish nature to prefer, the immediate work in hand to any other -consideration. - -It is these names that remain and are permanent and are the glory of the -Jewish race. - - * * * * * - -There is one aspect of this Jewish wealth which I hesitate whether to -put among the general or among the particular causes of the friction -between that nation and its hosts. - -It falls certainly among the general causes in the sense that it is -connected with the Jewish character as a whole and not with any special -method in that character's action. It is connected, I mean, with their -very nature, and they cannot change that nature. On the other hand, it -might be put among the particular causes on account of its quite modern -and probably ephemeral character: it is, as it were, a particular cause -of the friction proceeding from the general causes of character just -enumerated, and this cause of friction is the presence of Jewish -MONOPOLY. - -It is an exceedingly dangerous point in the present situation. I do not -think that the Jews have a sufficient appreciation of the risk they are -running by its development. There is already something like a Jewish -monopoly in high finance. There is a growing tendency to Jewish monopoly -over the stage for instance, the fruit trade in London, and to a great -extent the tobacco trade. There is the same element of Jewish monopoly -in the silver trade, and in the control of various other metals, notably -lead, nickel, quicksilver. What is most disquieting of all, this -tendency to monopoly is spreading like a disease. One province after -another falls under it and it acts as a most powerful irritant. It will -perhaps prove the immediate cause of that explosion against the Jews -which we all dread and which the best of us, I hope, are trying to -avert. - -It applies, of course, to a tiny fraction of the Jewish race as a -whole. One could put the Jews who control lead, nickel, mercury and the -rest into one small room: nor would that room contain very pleasant -specimens of their race. You could get the great Jewish bankers who -control international finance round one large dinner table, and I know -dinner tables which have seen nearly all of them at one time or another. -These monopolists, in strategic positions of universal control are an -insignificant handful of men out of the millions of Israel, just as the -great fortunes we have been discussing attach to an insignificant -proportion of that race. Nevertheless, this claim to an exercise of -monopoly brings hatred upon the Jews as a whole. - -The thing is deservedly hated because it is exceedingly unnatural and -exceedingly tyrannical. It would be tyrannical even for one of our own -people to hold us up in the supply of things essential to us. It is -intolerable in a people alien to us. When we come to discuss, in the -next chapter, the unfortunate use of secrecy by the Jews (the most -potent, perhaps, of the particular causes which have lead them into -their present peril) we shall better understand another odious feature -in this modern monopoly of control, which is the way in which it spreads -underground and out of sight leaving the world in general ignorant that -this, that and the other individual Jew is its master in the matter of -some essential thing which he controls. - -To put it plainly, these monopolies must be put an end to. - -Before the Great War there was only one of which Europe as a whole was -conscious, and that was the financial monopoly. Yet here the monopoly -was far less perfect than in the case of the metals. The Great War -brought thousands upon thousands of educated men (who took up public -duties as temporary officials) up against the staggering secret they had -never suspected--the complete control exercised over things absolutely -necessary to the nation's survival by half a dozen Jews, who were -completely indifferent as to whether we or the enemy should emerge alive -from the struggle. - -Incidentally, the wealth of these few and very wealthy Jews has been -scandalously increased through the war on this very account. And at the -moment in which I write the French press, which has a longer experience -in the free discussion of the Jewish question than any other, is -exposing the abominable increase in value of the Rothschild's lead -mines, an increase mainly due to the use of lead for the killing of men. - -But lead is only one of the monopolies, as I have said. A whole group -already exists and the extension of the system is going on as rapidly as -an epidemic. Not only must it cease before any solution of the Jewish -question can be attempted, but the process must be reversed. If the -various national Cabinets do not interfere to protect these monopolies, -then good-bye to any attempt at justice for the Jew. In the legitimate -anger against a few pitiful dozens among the worst specimens of the -nation, Israel as a whole will be sacrificed. - -There is in this formation of monopolies, as in the more reputable -activities of the nation, even in its more justly famous activities, -even in its glories, that element of racial character which is never -absent from any Jewish action. And that is why I have put the point, -modern and ephemeral as it is, among the general causes of trouble. - -The reason these general monopolies are formed by Jews is that the Jew -is international, tenacious and determined upon reaching the very end of -his task. He is not satisfied in any trade until that trade is, as far -as possible, under his complete control, and he has for the extension of -that control the support of his brethren throughout the world. He has at -the same time the international knowledge and international indifference -which further aid his efforts. - - * * * * * - -But even were the quite recent monopolies in metal and other trades -taken, as they ought to be taken, from these few alien masters of them, -there would remain that partial monopoly (it is not at all a complete -monopoly) which a few Jews have exercised not only to-day, but -recurrently throughout history, over the highest finance: that is, over -the credit of the nations, and therefore to-day, as never before, over -the whole field of the world's industry. - -Should that partial financial monopoly remain uncorrected it will -produce a sufficient hostility against the Jews to precipitate, of -itself, the next general attack upon them. - -It may be argued that this fear is groundless because the control has -now lasted for a long time. It has lasted a lifetime even in its present -hardly complete form: and it is secure because its operations are -removed from general observation, and because it is mixed up with the -interests of all the wealthier classes. - -I am afraid these arguments will not hold. Although the Jewish control -of finance is not a thing which touches the public at large, yet all -educated men down to a comparatively low stratum of society are fully -aware of it, and every man who is aware of it resents it. It is resented -almost as much by the mass of poor Jews as by the non-Jews, but in a -different way. - -Again, although this financial monopoly does not directly affect the -economic life of the private citizen, he is beginning to understand more -and more how it indirectly affects it. It affects him, for instance, -through his patriotism. He will not submit to be told that, in order to -suit the convenience of these alien bankers, he must forgo the rights of -victory and allow some enemy whom he has justly chastised to escape the -consequences of that chastisement. Still more urgently will he deny the -right of the Jewish bankers to interfere with the national reparation -due to him for damage wantonly done in the course of hostilities. - -Again, international finance does not live separate from private -activities. It touches at last a mass of individual enterprises, and -through those individual enterprises its action is questioned and -examined by a host of private citizens. - -Yet again, the Jews who thus control international finance are at work -in many other capacities. For instance, some of them stand behind those -great Industrial Insurance schemes which are so detestable to the mass -of the people. Action against these may arise any moment. If such action -comes one may be certain that the individual attacked will be remembered -in his capacity of international financier quite as much as in his -capacity of a battener upon the lapsed premiums of the poor. Sooner or -later the character of this monopoly, to which men of a lifetime ago -were indifferent through ignorance but of which to-day all the educated -part of the community is aware and deeply resents, will be appreciated -and equally resented at a lower level still. When society is -sufficiently filled with indignation against it, then the explosion will -come. If that explosion only affected the rich Jews immediately -concerned no one would much regret it. There would be little harm done. -But the trouble is that it will almost certainly affect the whole nation -to which those individuals belong. - -I may be told that to put an end to this state of affairs is impossible -so long as parliamentary government, with its profound corruption, -endures; that the only force capable of dealing with the plutocratic -evil of alien monopoly upon this scale is a king; and that a king we -have not, among modern nations. To which I answer that the parliamentary -system will not last for ever. It is already in active dissolution among -ourselves, and badly hit elsewhere. The king may not be so far off as -people think him to be. - -At any rate, in one way or another the thing will cease, and will -probably cease in violence. The danger is that if it ceases in violence -a vast number of innocent will be involved with the guilty. - - -THE SPECIAL CAUSES OF FRICTION - - - - -CHAPTER V - -THE SPECIAL CAUSES OF FRICTION - - -There are two special forces upon the Jewish side which nourish and -exasperate the inevitable friction between the Jewish race and its -hosts. It will be well to deal with these before passing to the -corresponding forces upon our side. For to find a remedy it is necessary -to diagnose the disease. - -The two main Jewish forces which exasperate and maintain the sense of -friction between the Jews and their hosts are first of all the Jewish -reliance upon secrecy, and, secondly, the Jewish expression of -superiority. - - -1. THE JEWISH RELIANCE UPON SECRECY - -It has unfortunately now become a habit for so many generations, that it -has almost passed into an instinct throughout the Jewish body, to rely -upon the weapon of secrecy. Secret societies, a language kept as far as -possible secret, the use of false names in order to hide secret -movements, secret relations between various parts of the Jewish body: -all these and other forms of secrecy have become the national method. It -is a method to be deplored, not because its indignity and falsehood -degrade the Jew--that is not our affair--but rather on account of the -ill-effects this policy produces on our mutual relations. It feeds and -intensifies the antagonism already excited by racial contrast. - -But before we go further it is essential to be just; for no one -understands anything if he attacks it unjustly. - -The Jewish habit of secrecy--the assumption of false names and the -pretence of non-Jewish origin in individuals, the concealment of -relationships and the rest of it--have presumably sprung from the -experience of the race. Let a man put himself in the place of the Jew -and he will see how sound the presumption is. A race scattered, -persecuted, often despised, always suspected and nearly always hated by -those among whom it moves, is constrained by something like physical -force to the use of secret methods. - -Take the particular trick of false names. It seems to us particularly -odious. We think when we show our contempt for those who use this -subterfuge that we are giving them no more than they deserve. It is a -meanness which we associate with criminals and vagabonds; a piece of -crawling and sneaking. We suspect its practisers of desiring to hide -something which would bring them into disgrace if it were known, or of -desiring to over-reach their fellows in commerce by a form of falsehood. - -But the Jew has other and better motives. As one of their community said -to me with great force, when I discussed the matter with him many years -ago at a City dinner, "When we work under our own names you abuse us as -Jews. When we work under _your_ names you abuse us as forgers." The Jew -has often felt himself so handicapped if he declared himself, that he -was half forced, or at any rate grievously tempted, to a piece of -baseness which was never a temptation for us. Surely all this carefully -arranged code of assumed patronymics (Stanley for Solomon, Curzon for -Cohen, Sinclair for Slezinger, Montague for Moses, Benson for Benjamin, -etc., etc.) had its root in that. - -The Jew can plead something further in extenuation of this practice. -Family names did not grow up naturally with them, as with us, in the -course of the Middle Ages. The Jew retained, as we long retained in the -middle and lower ranks of European society, the simple habit of -possessing one personal name and differentiating a man from his fellows -by introducing the name of his father. Thus a Jew in the sixteenth -century was Moses ben Solomon, just as the Cromwells' ancestor of the -same generation was Williams ap Williams. He had not what we call a -surname or family name. In the same way until varying dates, early in -France and England and other Western countries, much later in Wales, -Brittany, Poland and the Slav countries of the East, a man was known -only by his personal name, distinguished, if that were necessary, by -mentioning also the name of his father, or, in some cases, of his tribe. - -Properly speaking the Jews have no surnames, and they may say with -justice: "Since we were compelled to take surnames arbitrarily (which -was the case in the Germanies and sometimes elsewhere as well), you -cannot blame us if we attach no particular sanctity to the custom." If a -Jew of plain Jewish name was compelled by alien force to take the fancy -name of Flowerfield, he is surely free to change that fancy name, for -which he is not responsible, to any other he chooses. There was a good -reason for the Government to force a name upon him. Only thus could he -be registered and his actions traced. But forced it was, and therefore, -on him, not morally binding. - -All this is true, but there remains an element not to be accounted for -on any such pleas. There are in the experience of all of us, an -experience repeated indefinitely, men who have no excuse whatsoever for -a false name save that advantage of deceit. Men whose race is -universally known will unblushingly adopt a false name as a mask, and -after a year or two pretend to treat it as an insult if their original -and true name be used in its place. This is particularly the case with -the great financial families. Some, indeed, have the pride to maintain -the original patronymic and refuse to change it in any of their -descendants. But the great mass of them concealed their relations one -with another by adopting all manner of fantastic titles, and there can -be no object in such a proceeding save the object of deception. I admit -it is a form of protection, and especially do I admit that in its origin -it may have mainly derived from a necessity for self-protection. But I -maintain that to-day the practice does nothing but harm to the Jew. -There are other races which have suffered persecution, many of them, up -and down the world, and we do not find in them a universal habit of this -kind. - -Again, who can say that the bearing of a Jewish name to-day, or at any -rate in the immediate past, is or was a handicap in commerce where -Occidental nations were concerned? And as for the Eastern nations, the -Jews there are so sharply differentiated that a false name can be of no -service merely to hide the racial character of its bearer. There must be -another motive present. - -The same arguments apply for and against other forms of secrecy. A man -may plead that if secrecy in relationship were not maintained the -dislike of Jews would lead to false accusations. The Jew is highly -individual, especially in intellectual affairs. He takes his own line. -He expresses his opinions with singular courage. And such individual -opinions will often differ violently from those of men with whom he is -most closely connected. "Why," I can understand some distinguished -Jewish publicist in England saying, "should I be compromised by people -knowing that such-and-such a Bolshevist in Moscow or in New York is my -cousin or nephew? I am conservative in temperament; I have always served -faithfully the state in which I live; I heartily disapprove of these -people's views and actions. If their relationship with me were known I -should fall under the common ban. That would be unjust. Therefore I keep -the relationship secret." - -The plea is sound, but it does not cover the ground. It is not -sufficient to explain, for instance, the habit of hiding relationships -between men equally distinguished and equally approved in the different -societies in which they move. It does not explain why we must be left in -ignorance of the fact that a man whom we are treating as the best of -fellow-citizens should hide his connection with another man who is -treated with equal honour in another country. There are occasions where -national conflicts make the thing explicable. A Jew in England with a -brother in Germany and a father at Constantinople might well be excused -in 1915 for calling himself Montmorency. Yet we note that often where -there is most need to hide the connection, the connection is not hidden -at all. On the contrary, it is openly advertised. We all recollect the -name of one Jewish financier who was most unjustly treated during the -war. He had faithfully served this country and the breach of his -connection with it was (to my mind at least, and I think to most people -who can judge the matter) a very bad thing for Britain in the conflict. -Yet there was here no change of name and no attempt to hide the -connection between himself and his brother, who stood, in another -capital, for the financial policy of our enemies. - -Again, the Rothschilds, present in the various capitals of Europe, have -never pretended to hide their mutual relationships, and no one has -thought any the worse of them, nor has this open practice in any way -diminished their financial power. - -There must be more than necessity at work; I suggest that there is -something like instinct, or, at any rate, an inherited tradition so -strong that recourse to it seems natural. - -Now it cannot be too forcibly emphasized that secrecy in any of these -forms--working through secret societies, using false names, hiding of -relationships, denying Jewish origin--specially exasperates this, our -own race, among which the Jews are thrown in their dispersion. It is -invariably discovered, sooner or later, and whenever it is discovered -men have an angry feeling that they have been duped, even in cases where -the practice is most innocent and is no more than the following of -something like a ritual. - -I doubt whether the Jews have any idea how strongly this force works -against them. If a man were to say "my name is so-and-so; my father was -born at such-and-such a place in Galicia; my brother is still there in -such-and-such a business"--if he told us all that, he would not suffer -upon our appreciating later on that members of his family abroad were -connected with movements we disapproved: no, not even with a Government -in active hostility to our own. Everybody knows the international -position of the Jew. Everybody knows that he cannot avoid that position. -Everybody makes allowances for it. And I conceive that the abandonment -of this habit of secrecy is not only possible but would be very greatly -to the advantage of the whole race. - -Perhaps its most absurd form (not its most dangerous form) is the -secrecy maintained by distinguished men with regard to their Jewish -ancestors. They and their Jewish relations often suppress it altogether -or, at best, touch on it rarely and obscurely. Why should they act thus? -Take the case of two men at random out of hundreds whose names are -universally known and by most people respected, the name of Charles -Kingsley, the writer, and the name of Moss-Booth, the founder of the -Salvation Army. Here are two men who in very different fields played a -great part in English life and who both owed their genius and nearly all -their physical appearance to Jewish mothers. I should have thought it to -the advantage of the Jewish race and of the individuals concerned that -this fact should be widely known. The literary abilities of Charles -Kingsley, the organizing and other abilities of Booth are not lessened -in people's eyes, but, if anything, enhanced, by a knowledge of their -true lineage. Yet the mention of that lineage is treated as though it -were a sort of insult. I have heard it wrung out in some passionate plea -for the Jewish race as a proof that they are not devoid of abilities, -but never generally published. - -Surely it would be more sensible to emphasize in every possible case the -Jewish or partially Jewish origin of men who distinguished themselves, -and thus to show under what a debt Europeans stand to the Jewish blood. -To treat the matter as a sort of sacred labyrinth, as a mysterious -temple into which one may now and then be allowed to peep is ridiculous. -The Jews cannot have their cake and eat it too. If it is--surely it must -be--in their eyes a matter for pride to belong to blood which they hold -to be superior and to a tradition of such immense antiquity, then it -cannot be at the same time a matter of insult. Yet the convention is -desperately maintained by the Jews themselves. If a man tells me that he -hates the English, and in reply I say, "That's because you are an -Irishman," he does not fly at my throat. He takes it as a matter of -course that the history of the English government in Ireland excuses his -expression. So far from being insulted at being called an Irishman he -would be insulted if you said he was not an Irishman. And so it is with -many another nationality which has suffered oppression and persecution. -I can find no rational basis for a contrary policy in the case of the -Jews. Moreover the habit does this further harm: it makes men ascribe a -Jewish character to anything they dislike, and thus extends -undeservedly the odium against the race. - -A foreign movement against one's nation, an unpopular public figure, a -detested doctrine, are labelled "Jewish" and the field of hate, already -perilously wide, is broadened indefinitely. It is useless to say, "The -Jews do not admit the connection, the names are not Jewish, there is no -overt Jewish element." He answers, "Jews never do admit such connection; -Jews admittedly hide under false names; Jewish action never _is_ overt." -And--as things are, until they change--there is no denying what he says. -His judgment may be as wild as you will (I have heard Sinn Feiners -called Jews!), but, so long as this wretched habit of secrecy is -maintained, there is no correcting that judgment. A universal suspicion -is engendered and spreads. - -Meanwhile the same vice drags into publicity every ill-sounding Jewish -act and name and leaves in obscurity the honoured names and useful -public actions of Jewry. For a false name, like a forgery, advertises -itself. - -It is not always recognized in this connection that the Jewish "booms," -which are so fruitful a cause of exasperation, depend on this same -policy of concealment and on that account add to the volume of anger as -each new trick is discovered. - -Not that the objects of these world-wide campaigns are unworthy of -attention. The Jewish actor, or film-star, or writer or scientist -selected is usually talented; the victim of injustice whose case is -advertised on the big drum has often a genuine grievance. But that the -notice demanded is out of all proportion and that its dependence on -Jewish organization is always kept hidden. - -So much for the element of secret action. A great deal more might be -written upon it, but there are two reasons against enlarging thereon. -First, a full discussion would take up far too much of my space; -secondly, it would tend to add what I particularly wish to avoid in -these pages, I mean emphasis upon the errors of the Jew. It would -continue a quarrel, our whole object in which is to find peace. - - -2. THE EXPRESSION OF SUPERIORITY BY THE JEW - -This is a very different matter. The mere _sense_ of superiority is not -something in which any special policy can be recommended, because it is -there and cannot be remedied. It is part of the whole position. But it -is possible to restrain its expression. For that purpose it is of value -to define it, to put it upon record and to estimate its effect upon our -issue. - -The Jew individually feels himself superior to his non-Jewish -contemporary and neighbour of whatever race, and particularly of our -race; the Jew feels his nation immeasurably superior to any other human -community, and particularly to our modern national communities in -Europe. - -The frank statement of so simple and fundamental a truth is rarely made. -It will sound, I fear, shocking in many ears. To many others it will -sound not so much shocking as comic, and to many more stupefying. - -The idea that the Jew should think himself our superior is something so -incomprehensible to us that we forget the existence of the feeling. If -it be constantly reiterated, for the purpose of dealing with this great -political difficulty, it is perhaps reluctantly admitted, but still -held as sort of abnormal, bewildering truth. I contend that the -forgetfulness of that truth, the attempt to solve the problem without -that truth remaining constant and fixed in the mind of the statesman, is -in a very large measure the cause of our failure in the past; and that -the way the Jew openly acts upon it in gesture, tone, manner, social -assertion, is a very important factor in the quarrel between his race -and ours. - -Consider the attitude of statesmanship in the past towards this vital -conflict. In every such attitude I think the Jewish conviction of -superiority has been omitted. - -For the attitudes taken up by European statesmen in the past towards the -alien Jewish element in their midst have always been one of three -sorts:-- - -(1) Either they have acted as though there were no Jewish nation, as -though the Jew were merely a private citizen like any other who happened -to have peculiar opinions and customs of his own but who was not -substantially different from the men around him. - -(2) Or they have attempted to suppress, or to expel, or to destroy the -Jew with ignominy and violence. - -(3) Or, while recognizing the existence of the Jewish nation as -something separate from their own fellow-nationals whom they have to -administrate, the statesmen have tried to arrive at equilibrium by a -sort of pact in which Jewish separateness was recognized, _but under -conditions of disability_. - -Now in all these three methods there is absent all recognition of the -Jewish feeling of superiority. - -In the first it is obviously lacking because the whole idea of a Jewish -nation is absent. It is equally obviously lacking from the second -method, that of persecution: the persecutor instinctively acts as though -the Jew felt himself to be an inferior. In the third method it is also -absent, not in theory but in practice. For the statesmen who have acted -thus in the past have not attempted to give the Jews a _separate_ status -only, they have in point of fact nearly always given them an _inferior_ -status. By so doing they have exasperated the Jewish national sentiment. - -For instance, certain nations have treated Jews as a separate people, as -aliens, by forbidding them untrammelled residence, and enforcing -registration. But when it came to taxation or freedom from military -service, _then_ there was no special recognition of the Jew. - -There is indeed a fourth attitude which has occasionally appeared in -history when States have been in active decline or have fallen into the -hands of base and weak men, and that is the exaggerated flattery and -support of a few powerful wealthy Jews by administrators who were bribed -or cowed. We are suffering from that to-day. But these exceptional cases -(they have always led to national disaster) do not form a true category -of _Statesmanship_ in the matter. Nor is there even in those who thus -actually advantage a few Jews above their own fellow-citizens, and give -them special prominence and power, so much a recognition of the Jewish -sense of superiority as a secret hatred of their Jewish masters. - -Bitter as is everywhere the secret attack on the Jews by those who have -subjected themselves for gain or publicity, it is nowhere so bitter as -in the private speech of the politicians. - -It would seem in the presence of so many failures in policy, and all -these failures having in common the non-recognition of this Jewish -feeling, that success can never be obtained unless we fully allow for -it. I submit that there will never be peace between any Jewish alien -minority and the community within which it may happen to reside until -those who administrate that community fully accept, and studiously avoid -the exasperation of, this state of the Jewish mind. - -In statesmanship, as in every other form of human activity, exact -definition is of the first importance. We must distinguish at the outset -between this Jewish sense of superiority and any real superiority. The -statesman is not concerned with the rightness or wrongness of the Jewish -attitude. It may be a most absurd illusion, or it may be a most profound -vision. He has nothing to do with that. Having made up his mind that the -small and quite alien minority must be tolerated and must be allowed to -live as happily as possible in the midst of a community from which it so -profoundly differs, his next duty is to know thoroughly the nature of -the material upon which he is acting and with which he has to deal. - -He may smile at the Jewish sense of superiority; he may even be -privately indignant; but he must be quite sure that it is a permanent -part of the nation with which he has to settle. It will never be -removed. The Jew in the East End of London, the poorest of the poor, -feels himself the superior of the magistrate before whom he is hauled, -of the policeman who keeps order in the streets, and immensely the -superior of the simple-faced soldiers and sailors, whose trade is the -most typical of our own race. He even feels himself the superior of -those whom he better understands--the negotiators: the people who live -by cunning. The expression of our faces, our gesture, our manner; the -very fact that our minds, less acute, are also broader, confirms his -feeling. - -This fixed idea of superiority which appears in every phrase and -implication, is taken for granted by the Jew. It is felt, I say, by the -poorest and most oppressed, the least rich and the most unfortunate of -the Jewish people in our midst. Unfortunately--and this is the crux--it -proceeds to _unrestrained expression_. It is this which is so violently -resented. It is this which aggravates the quarrel. It is this which must -be kept in control if we are to have peace; not the sense of -superiority, that is ineradicable, but the expression of it. It appears, -as we all know, with extraordinary emphasis in the action and manner of -the few very wealthy Jews with whom the directing classes of the nation -are better acquainted. But whether he be a rich man suffering only from -alien and hostile surroundings, or a poor man suffering from all the -lowering forces of squalor, of destitution and of contempt, the Jew -feels himself the potential master of his hosts and shows it. He reposes -in the same confidence as was felt by Disraeli when he said: "The Jew -cannot be absorbed; it is not possible for a superior race to be -absorbed by an inferior." But unfortunately he does not only repose on -that foundation; he also _acts_ upon it, and that is intolerable. - -We must, I say, allow for this feeling in any settlement we make; we -have also to study its consequences. Otherwise we shall be baffled by -phenomena which would seem inexplicable. But we need not allow for--on -the contrary, we should actively condemn--an open attitude of Jewish -contempt for ourselves. - -Here are some consequences of this open expression of -superiority--consequences which we all discover to-day in the relations -between the Jewish people and ourselves and which are leading us into a -situation very dangerous for them and for us. - -First, you have that familiar handling of European things by the Jew, -which is continually stirring the wrath of the European and as -continually leaving the Jew in wonderment what possible harm he can have -done. Thus, the Jew will write of our religion, taking for granted that -it is folly, and will marvel that we are offended. He will appear in our -national discussions, not only giving advice, but attempting to direct -policy, and will be puzzled to discover that his indifference to -national feeling is annoying. He will postulate the Jewish temperament -as something which, if different from ours, must, whether we like it or -not, be thrust upon us. - -He acts in all these things as every one acts instinctively in the -presence of those whom they take for granted to be inferiors, and when -men talk of the "Jewish insolence," or the "Jewish sneer," they imply -that attitude. We are wrong if we take these things as calculated -insult. The action of the Jew, in so far as it proceeds from this sense -of superiority, is no more calculated and no more deliberately hostile -than are our own actions whenever we find ourselves in relations with -those whom we think inferior to ourselves. But we are right to point -them out, to resent them, to reprove them, and, if it became necessary, -to end them. - -The Jewish problem will never be solved unless we make allowances for -the sense of superiority, take it for granted as an unavoidable evil, -and restrain our indignation in its presence; but neither will it be -solved if we permit its more and more open expression. - -Another consequence of this attitude: The Jew, on account of it, makes -no effort to get into touch with the mass of the race in the midst of -which he may happen to be living. He is content to remain separate from -it, and thinks he cannot help remaining separate from them. And he shows -it. He consents to associate with the _élite_, with those who direct, -with those who have some special sort of function, but it seems to him a -waste of time to attempt communion with the rest. And he shows it. That -is what Renan meant when he said that the Jews were the least democratic -of all people. Renan, who was supported by Jewish money and lived, while -he was doing his best work, dependent on a Jewish publisher; Renan, who -was so fascinated by the history of Israel, and who decided himself to -become a scholar in all Hebraic things, understood the Jew not at all. -His judgments upon them are invariably superficial and to one side of -the truth; the judgments of a foreigner--an admiring foreigner but not a -sympathetic foreigner. And when he said that the Jews were not -democratic he was, instead of passing a judgment upon an intimate -political instinct of the Jewish people, simply noting an external -phenomenon. For the Jews are, as a fact, strongly democratic--no nation -more so--in their national relations among themselves; they only appear -undemocratic to us because they openly look down on us among whom they -live. - -Another form taken by that open expression of the sense of superiority -among the Jews: It lends to all their actions in our State a certain -assurance and solidity which vastly strengthens their power of -resistance, no doubt, but also provokes their misfortunes. The religious -interpreter of history might say that they had been specially endowed -with this sense by Providence because Providence intended them to -survive as a national unit miraculously, in the face of every -disability; to remain themselves for 2,000 years under conditions which -would have destroyed any other people in perhaps a century: and yet -intended to suffer. The rationalist will say that the expression of a -sense of superiority, and the power of resistance that accompanies it -are but different names for the same thing; that but for the presence of -that expression of superiority the resistance could not have succeeded, -but for the resistance there could have been no persecution; that there -was no design in the matter, only the chance presence of a particular -quality which has produced its necessary and logical effect. But -whichever be the true explanation, the historical fact remains, that -this sense of superiority produced an open and overweening expression of -it whenever the Jews have been free to give vent to their feelings, and -that while it has had, as one great consequence, the strengthening of -the identity, permanence, survival of the Jewish people, it has also -had, for another great consequence, their recurrent oppression following -on every period of freedom. - -There is one last thing to be said, which it is almost impossible to say -without the danger of giving pain and therefore of confusing the problem -and making the solution more difficult. But it must be said, because, if -we shirk it, the problem is confused the more. It is this: While it is -undoubtedly true, and will always be true, that a Jew feels himself the -superior of his hosts, it is also true that his hosts feel themselves -immeasurably superior to the Jew. We can only arrive at a just and -peaceable solution of our difficulties by remembering that the Jew, to -whom we have given special and alien status in the Commonwealth, is all -the while thinking of himself as our superior. But on his side the Jew -must recognize, however unpalatable to him the recognition may be, that -those among whom he is living and whose inferiority he takes for -granted, on _their_ side regard him as something much less than -themselves. - -That statement, I know, will be as stupefying to the Jew as its converse -is stupefying to us. It will seem as extraordinary, as incredible, and -all the rest of it; but it is true, and it is a permanent truth. Unless -the Jews recognize that truth the trouble will go on indefinitely. There -is no European so mean in fortune or so base in character as not to feel -himself altogether the superior of any Jew, however wealthy, however -powerful, and (I am afraid I must add) however good. True, virtue has a -superiority of its own which cannot be hidden, and the cruel, or the -treacherous, or the debauched European cannot but feel himself morally -inferior to a Jew who is just, self-governed, merciful, generous, and -the rest of it. But we know how it is with national feelings. The type -is stronger for us than the individual; and while we may recognize -certain superior characteristics in the individual, we are thinking all -the while of the race, of the communal form, and contrasting our own -with the alien form to the disadvantage of the latter. - -So difficult is it for the Jew to appreciate this factor in the problem -that his lack of appreciation has been almost as great a cause of -difficulty in the past as the same lack upon our side. We seem to him -insolent when, in our own eyes, we are merely acting normally as -superiors. - -What emotion does it not create, I wonder, in some Jewish merchant or -money-dealer who has purchased a high directing place in our plutocracy -when he discovers from the gesture, the tone, the expression of some -chance poor Englishman, perhaps no more than an embarrassed hack writer, -a clear feeling of superiority? Must it not seem to him mere insolence? -"What possible claim" (he will say within himself) "has this _goy_, and -a poor unsuccessful _goy_ at that, to treat _me_ as though I were less -than he! I, who am worth millions, who am ruling and doing what I will -with his own national leaders, who dispose of his State very much as I -choose, and who belong to that nation which is wholly above all others, -the Jewish people?" Everywhere the Jew discovers the consequences of -this feeling, even though that feeling be to him so incomprehensible -that he can hardly admit its existence. - -Well, whether he likes to admit it or not, it is there. Individual Jews -may be flattered for the sake of their wealth or because of the fear of -them, in which a commercial community stands. Such Jews as mistake the -current printed word which they read for the spoken words they never -hear may fall into the error of thinking that this sense of superiority -on our part did not exist. They must be warned, if ever the problem is -to be solved, that it _does_. - -In their case, just as in ours, a right solution can only be arrived at -by the frank admission that the feeling is there and by the fixed -knowledge that, whether the feeling be an illusion or represent a -reality, it will not change; but also by a repression of it in our -mutual relations. - -We may add to our summary of this subtle but profound cause of -disturbance the further truth that a paradox of the sort is to be found, -though perhaps less emphasized, in every other political problem. The -diplomat resident in a foreign capital has to consider not only his own -certitude that his hosts are inferior, but their certitude of their own -superiority to him and his. The general in the field may be certain of -his mastery over an opponent, but if that opponent is as yet undefeated -he will do ill to forget that he is matched by a confidence equal to his -own. Still more does the negotiator in commerce act upon this principle -and recognize it, or at least if he fails to do so, he invites disaster. -For when the commercial man is occupied in overreaching his neighbour, -his chances of success very largely depend upon his treating that -neighbour as though he really were what he believes himself to be. He -may be dealing with a stupid and vain man easily to be overmatched and -impoverished, but if he lets it appear that he regards his proposed -victim as a vain and stupid man, then he will miss his bargain. - -In general, there is no success over others, nor even (which is much -more necessary), any permanent arrangement possible with others, unless -we know, allow for, and act upon the self-judgment of others, however -wrong we may believe that self-judgment to be. - -It is clear that in this conflict between the Jew and, let us say, the -European (for it is between the Jew and the white Occidental race that -our present problem lies, though the same problem arises with all other -races among whom the Jew may find himself), both parties cannot be -right. A being superior to the race of man and looking on our petty -quarrels might be able to decide which of the two opponents were nearer -reality, and whether we are the better justified in our contempt of the -Jew or the Jew in his contempt of us. But in working out our own -solution without the aid of such guidance, there is no rule but for both -parties to take for granted what each regards as an illusion in the -other; to restrain its expression for the sake of reaching a settlement; -and in the settlement they arrive at, to admit as a factor necessarily -and permanently present what each still secretly regards as a folly, but -an incurable folly, in the other. - -The alternative to such self-restraint is a falling back into the old -circle of submission, consequent anger accompanied by shame and -violence, and these followed by remorse. - - -THE CAUSE OF FRICTION UPON OUR SIDE - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -THE CAUSE OF FRICTION UPON OUR SIDE - - -Having concluded a brief review of the causes of friction upon the -Jewish side, we must turn to the cause of friction upon our own. - -At first sight it might seem that the task was superfluous. Action and -reaction are equal and opposite. If you have shown why A irritates B, -you have also presumably shown why B irritates A. Or again, if you -regard an alien minority in a community as an irritant (which it nearly -always is and which it certainly is in the case of the Jews), you have, -it would seem, sufficiently defined the position and need not trouble to -examine what part the irritated play in the matter. What is parasitical -at the worst preys upon the general body, at the best disturbs it. The -general body would appear passive. It has no part in the business but to -react against the cause of the disturbance and if possible get rid of -it. As that cause is none of its making, one need not seek for any -responsibility on its side. - -The house is ours: the Jew is an intruder (an objector may say), and -there is an end of it. - -But the situation is not as simple as that. Quite apart from the fact -that the Jew will certainly not allow such a description of his -activity, there is the obvious truth that where you are dealing with -two _human_ factors, that is, with two factors which have a common -nature and therefore common duties, you are also dealing with two known -and analysable organic things. You are also dealing with two sets of -wills, and these wills we know to be free, in spite of sophists. A man -and a group of men can do well or ill, both absolutely, and relatively -to some particular question in hand; and no group of men can escape -responsibility in relation to any other group with which it is in -contact. It is certain that we play a part ourselves in this quarrel -between us and the Jews. It is a part which is in a measure inevitable, -because it proceeds in a measure from the mere contrast between two -racial characters. But there is a remaining part which can be remedied -by the action of the will. - -Though we cannot change that element which is inherent in our nature any -more than the Jews can change theirs, yet an understanding of it makes -all the difference; and we can certainly change those elements which are -inherent in our wills. - -The proof of this is that in the long story of the relations between the -two races, there have been, in various times and places, those -exceptional chapters of calm to which I have alluded on an earlier page, -and these could not have been maintained had not the causes of friction -been modified on either side, but especially upon ours. - -All that cause of friction which arises from the mere contrast of -character may be set down very briefly. It is included in what has just -been said on the general causes, the difference in nature between the -Jews and ourselves. If their form of courage, their form of generosity, -their form of loyalty is, as it is, of a different quality from ours; if -their defects show the same difference of quality or colour; if we -perpetually feel, as we do feel, the friction caused by this contrast, -so do they, presumably, feel a corresponding friction in their dealings -with us. We shall neither of us be able to change that state of affairs. -We must admit it, and we must try to understand its nature. - -Above all, we must not take it for granted that a difference from -ourselves is in itself an evil in another. That is a point to be -insisted upon. When we are dealing with inanimate nature, or with -unintelligent animate nature, we do not ascribe motive, for there is no -motive to ascribe. A man does not go about with bitterness in his heart -against wasps, though the purpose of the wasp is very different from the -purpose of the man and their interests clash. He does not call the wasp -wicked, nor, save as a relief to his feelings, give it moral names. He -does not condemn the wasp. Still less does he condemn all wasps, or -anything else in nature around him that works against his interest. But -when he has to deal with other human beings, man at once begins to -ascribe a motive. He must do so, because he knows that motive is the -spring of all human action, including his own. When that motive differs -from his, contrasts with his and is therefore in any degree inimical to -his, he is inclined to ascribe an evil motive. All that is a truism as -old as the hills. - -If you have not to live with those who thus differ from you there is no -great harm done, but if you have to accept them as part of your life, it -is a different matter. It is then essential to the order of the State -that this illusion of directly antagonistic motive should be watched and -restrained. - -But all this concerns rather our duty in the matter than the mere cause -of friction. - -The first cause of friction is that contrast which is the same whether -we describe it from the alien's point of view, as has just been done, or -from our own. - -The causes of friction which lie within the province of the will, and -which are, therefore, directly a matter for reform, are of another kind. -The first of them undoubtedly is our _disingenuousness_ in our dealings -with the Jew. - -This disingenuousness extends from our daily habit to our treatment of -history. It is more deep-rooted than most people are aware of, more -widespread than those who are aware of it like to admit. It affects our -relations with the Jews just as much when we are attempting to defend -their position in the State as when we attack them. Indeed, I think it -affects our relations more when we are trying to defend them than when -we attack them. The only two kinds of men who show perfect candour in -their dealings with the Jews are the completely ignorant dupe who can -hardly tell a Jew when he sees one and who accepts as a reality the old -fiction of there being no difference except a difference of religion -(which he has been taught to think unimportant) and the person called an -"Anti-Semite." - -Both these types certainly say what they think. That is why in their -heart of hearts the Jews are grateful to both, although both are -intellectually contemptible. The Jew feels, I think, when he meets -either of these types, "At any rate I know where I am." But the great -bulk of men, especially among the more cultivated, are grossly -disingenuous in all their dealings with the Jews. It is the great fault -of our side which corresponds to the fault of secrecy upon theirs. And -when you have allowed for routine, for the necessities of social -intercourse, for convention and the rest, it remains a deliberately -conceived moral evil. - -A man and his friend meet in the street a Jew whom they know; they -exchange ordinary civilities with him; they pass on. The moment his back -is turned each comments to his companion upon the Jewish character of -the man they have just left, and almost invariably to his disadvantage. - -Now to blame this way of going on does not imply that when you meet your -Jewish acquaintance you are to offend him by saying to his face the kind -of things you say behind his back; that would be a monstrous piece of -cynicism and, in practice, insane. We do not act thus in any relation of -life. But it does mean that in the attitude, the gesture, the tone of -the voice, we play a deliberately false part in our relations with Jews, -which we do not play in our relations with any other people. A peculiar -pretence, a pretence only practised with Jews, is elaborately -maintained. There is no allusion to or admission of our real attitude, -our sense of contrast. We therefore suffer an unnatural strain; and we -relieve of the strain immediately afterwards by an exaggeration of the -contrast we have pretended to ignore. It is blameworthy in a special -degree because it is peculiar to that one case. If we admitted the Jew -as a Jew, talked to him of the things that were uppermost in his mind -and in ours, and treated him as we treat any other foreigner in our -midst, there would have been no harm done. As it is the lie has done a -double harm--to him and to us. To us by an exasperation which is -entirely our own fault, to him by deceiving him as to his true position. - -The Jews who mix with the wealthiest classes to-day, especially in -London, have no true idea of their real position in the eyes of their -guests; and the fault is with their guests. - -I have cited an obvious daily example, but it is the least important, -for it is passing and shallow. This disingenuousness spreads to -relations more permanent. A man goes into business with a Jew, accepts -him as a partner, works with him constantly and yet nourishes in his -heart a disloyalty to that relationship. It is a phenomenon of constant -recurrence and it poisons the relations between the two races. If a man -is prepared to enter into one of these permanent relations with another -man who differs fundamentally from himself in tradition and human -character, he must face the consequences. One of those consequences, if -he is to remain an honest man, is the acceptation of the position with -all that it implies. He cannot have the advantage--as he hopes to have -it--of the Jewish sobriety, the Jewish tenacity, the Jewish lucidity of -thought, the Jewish international relationships, the Jewish opportunity -of advancement through the aid of his fellows, and at the same time -secretly indulge in a contempt and dislike for his companion, and -relieve that suppressed feeling in his absence. Yet that is what men are -doing daily throughout the business world. - -Listen to the conversation of such a man as, having thus engaged in -intimate commercial relationship with the Jew, falls upon misfortune. He -spends the rest of his life denouncing the Jews as a race and his own -companion in misfortune in particular. He has no right to do it. It is -undignified; it is puerile, but, worst of all, it is unjust. He -presumably knew what he was doing when he entered into what could not -but be a difficult relationship. The consequences of that relationship -he should accept whether they turn out well for him or ill. - -We find something perhaps even worse to note in the attitude of those -who are successful in their business through an alliance with the Jew. -For in this case gratitude should be added to justice, and that -gratitude is very rarely shown. On the contrary, the non-Jewish partner -is for ever in a mood of complaint about his share. He is perpetually in -a grievance that he has been overreached, or that he has been bullied, -or that he has been robbed, save in those very rare cases where the -success is so overwhelming, the fortunes so rapid, that there is no room -for a grudge. In almost every other case that I have come across there -is that element of recrimination--behind the Jew's back--even under -conditions of success. - -I know very well what can be said upon the other side. It can be said -that what I have called upon a former page the "ruthlessness" of the Jew -in commercial relations, as well as his tenacity and all the rest, make -the contest unequal; that in a partnership between Jew and non-Jew the -non-Jew is, as a fact, often overreached and is, as a fact, often left -(as the pretty vocabulary of modern commerce has it) "in the cart." But -pray why did the non-Jew enter into the alliance at all? Was it not -precisely in order that he should benefit, if he could, by those very -qualities which he later denounces? He expected that those qualities -which make for the success of the Jew in commerce would also benefit -himself. He knew that there must always be a certain amount of -competition, even within such an alliance. He backed himself to watch -his own interests under conditions which he knew perfectly well when he -entered into them. He has not a leg to stand upon in quarrelling with -the results of the relationship, for in so doing he is merely -quarrelling with his own judgment and, for the matter of that, his own -plot. - -If a man cannot tolerate the contrast between the Jewish race and our -own, or if he regards that race as possessing energies which will -invariably defeat him in the competition of commerce, then let him keep -away from a Jewish alliance altogether. It is the simplest plan. But to -immix himself with the Jewish commercial activity and then to grumble at -the results is despicable. - -All this is worse, of course, when one is dealing with relations even -closer than those of commerce. Those relations are numerous in the -modern world, and disingenuousness in them takes the worst possible -form. Men, especially of the wealthier classes of the gentry, will make -the closest friends of Jews with the avowed purpose of personal -advantage. They think the friendship will help them to great positions -in the State, or to the advancement of private fortune, or to fame. In -that calculation they are wise. For the Jew has to-day exceptional power -in all these things. They therefore have the Jew continually at their -tables, they stay continually under the Jew's roof. In all the -relations of life they are as intimate as friends can be. Yet they -relieve the strain which such an unnatural situation imposes by a -standing sneer at their Jewish friends in their absence. One may say of -such men (and they are to-day an increasing majority among our rich) -that the falsity of their situation has got on their nerves. It has -become a sort of disease with them; and I am very certain that when the -opportunity comes, when the public reaction against Jewish power rises, -clamorous, insistent and open, they will be among the first to take -their revenge. It is abominable, but it is true. - -And this truth applies not only to friendships, it even applies to -marriages. Marriage between Christian and Jew is, in that rank, an -affair of interest, and the bitterness the relation breeds is excessive. - -This disingenuousness, then--lack of candour on the part of our race in -its dealings with the Jew--a vice particularly rife among the wealthy -and middle classes (far less common among the poor), extends, as I have -said, to history. We dare not, or will not teach in our history books -the plain facts of the relations between our own race and the Jews. We -throw the story of these relations, which are among the half-dozen -leading factors of history, right into the background even when we do -mention it. In what they are taught of history the schoolboy and the -undergraduate come across no more than a line or two upon those -relations. The teacher cannot be quite silent upon the expulsion of the -Jews under Edward I or upon their return under Cromwell. A man cannot -read the history of the Roman Empire without hearing of the Jewish war. -A man cannot read the Constitutional History of England without hearing -of the special economic position of Jews under the Mediaeval Crown. But -the vastness of the subject, its permanent and insistent character -throughout two thousand years; its great episodes; its general -effect--all that is deliberately suppressed. - -How many people, for instance, of those who profess a good knowledge of -the Roman Empire, even in its details, are aware, let alone have written -upon the tremendous massacres and counter-massacres of Jews and -Europeans, the mass of edicts alternately protecting and persecuting -Jews; the economic position of the Jew, especially in the later empire; -the character of the dispersion? - -There took place in Cyprus and in the Libyan cities under Hadrian a -Jewish movement against the surrounding non-Jewish society far exceeding -in violence the late wreckage of Russia, which to-day fills all our -thoughts. The massacres were wholesale and so were the reprisals. The -Jews killed a quarter of a million of the people of Cyprus alone, and -the Roman authorities answered with a repression which was a pitiless -war. - -One might pile up instances indefinitely. The point is, that the average -educated man has never been allowed to hear of them. What a factor the -Jew was in that Roman State from which we all spring, how he survived -its violent antagonism to him and his antagonism to it; the special -privilege whereby he was excepted from a worship of its gods; his -handling of its finances--all the intimate parallel which it affords to -later times is left in silence. The average educated man who has been -taught, even in some fullness, his Roman History, leaves that study -with the impression that the Jews (if he had noticed them at all) are -but an insignificant detail in the story. - -So it is with history more recent and even contemporaneous. In the -history of the nineteenth century it is outrageous. The special -character of the Jew, his actions through the Secret Societies and in -the various revolutions of foreign States, his rapid acquisition of -power through finance, political and social, especially in this -country--all that is left out. It is an exact parallel to the -disingenuousness which we note in social relations. The same man who -shall have written a monograph upon some point of nineteenth century -history and left his readers in ignorance of the Jewish elements in the -story will regale you in private with a dozen anecdotes: such-and-such a -man was a Jew; such-and-such a man was half a Jew; another was -controlled in his policy by a Jewish mistress; the go-between in -such-and-such a negotiation was a Jew; the Jewish blood in such-and-such -a family came in thus and thus--And so forth: but not a word of it on -the printed page! - -This deliberate falsehood equally applies to contemporary record. The -newspaper reader is deceived--so far as it is still possible to deceive -him--with the most shameless lies. "Abraham Cohen, a Pole"; "M. -Mosevitch, a distinguished Roumanian"; "Mr. Schiff, and other -representative Americans"; "M. Bergson with his typically French -lucidity"; "Maximilian Harden, always courageous in his criticism of his -_own_ people" (his _own_ being the German) ... and the rest of the -rubbish. It is weakening, I admit, but it has not yet ceased. - -Now this form of falsehood corrodes, of course, the souls of those who -indulge in it. But that does not concern the matter of this book. Where -it comes in as a cause of friction between the two races, and a -removable cause of friction, is in the effect it has upon the Jewish -conception of their position in our society. It falsifies that -conception altogether. It produces in the Jew a false sense of security -and a completely distorted phantasm of the way in which he is really -received in our society. The more this disingenuousness is practised the -more the surprise which follows upon its discovery and the more -legitimate the bitterness and hatred which that surprise occasions in -those of whom we are the hosts. It is not only true of this country; it -is true of every other country in which the Jew has been harboured and -for a time protected. Invariably he has complained that his awakening -was rude, that he was bewildered by what seemed to him a novel and -inexplicable feeling against him; that he had thought he was among -friends and found himself suddenly among treacherous enemies. All this -would have been saved to others in the past, and will be saved to -ourselves in the near future, if this pestilent habit of falsehood were -eliminated. - -Disingenuousness is, on our side, the first main cause of the friction -between the two races. - -The second main cause of friction upon our side is the unintelligence of -our dealing with the Jews. That unintelligence is allied, of course, to -the disingenuousness of which I have spoken; but it is a separate thing -none the less, and we can learn from the Jews its opposite, for _their_ -dealings with _us_ are always intelligent. They know what they are -driving at in those relations, though they often misunderstand the -material with which they deal. But we, over and over again, would seem -not even to know what we are driving at. - -What could be more unintelligent, for instance, than the special forms -of courtesy with which the Jew is treated? I am not talking of the -elaborate, false friendship which I have just dealt with under the head -of disingenuousness, but of the genuine attempts at courtesy towards -this alien people--the courtesy expressed by those who have no intimate -relations with them, and do not desire to have intimate relations with -them. It is almost invariably, in those who commonly avoid the Jews, a -courtesy which expresses patronage on the surface of it. It may be -compared with the courtesy that rich men show to poor men--as offensive -a thing as there is in the world. - -And how unintelligent is our dealing with any particular Jewish problem; -for instance, the problem of Jewish immigration! We mask it under false -names, calling it "the alien question," "Russian immigration," "the -influx of undesirables from Eastern and Central Europe," and any number -of other timorous equivalents. The process is one of cowardly falsehood, -but the falsehood is not more remarkable than the stupidity, for no one -is taken in and least of all the Jews themselves. - -This unintelligence extends to many another field. How unintelligent are -the efforts of the writers who would, as it were, make amends to the -Jews for former persecution by putting imaginary Jew heroes into their -books. In this particular we offend less than did our fathers of the -Victorian period. Dickens' offence was grave. He disliked Jews -instinctively; when he wrote of a Jew according to his inclination he -made him out a criminal. Hearing that he must make amends for this -action, he introduced a Jew who is like nothing on earth--a sort of -compound of an Arab Sheik and a Family Bible picture from the Old -Testament, and the whole embroidered on an utterly non-Jewish--a purely -English character. - -How unintelligent are the various defences of the Jew by the non-Jew, -even with the best intentions! You will hear people tell you solemnly, -as a sort of revelation, that there are kindly, witty Jews, Jews who are -good prize-fighters or good fencers. I well remember one old gentleman -who tried hard to convince me (as though I needed convincing) that there -were Jews who had taste. He said to me, "I do not myself go into Jewish -houses, but my son does, and he assures me that much of the decoration -is in good taste." How unintelligent is the idea that because a man's -motives are not open and because he has not the same reasons for serving -the State that you have, _therefore_ he is to be perpetually under -suspicion! How still more unintelligent is the conception that, although -he is alien, yet you cannot use him in certain special services for the -State. - -This unintelligence is specially apparent in the treatment of the Jew in -his international relations. The Jew is a nomad, the non-Jew a man with -a fixed habitation. The Englishman, the Frenchman and the rest are -perpetually approaching the Jew as though he also had a fixed -habitation. We seem never to be able to get over the shock of surprise -when we learn that a particular Jew abroad is the cousin, or nephew, or -brother of another Jew with a different name in England, or with -another Jew with yet another name in Pinsk or San Francisco. Yet, -surely, this is of the very essence of the Jewish position. We ought to -take it for granted that the Jew is thus nomadic, international, spread -all over the world, migratory, as we take the same thing for granted in -birds of passage. To adopt the attitude which we almost invariably do -and to feel a shock of surprise when we discover what must in the nature -of things be the most regular feature in the civic situation of the Jew, -is to fall into that most stupid of all stupid errors, the reading of -oneself into others. - -I remember the horror and scandal with which men whispered their -discovery that a man with a German name, who had got into trouble a few -years ago, was the first cousin of a Cabinet Minister. Why not? They -seemed to be struck all of a heap by the dreadful revelation that the -names borne by Jews were not always their original names, that rich and -important men often have poor relations, and that poor relations often -get embarrassed. - -In terms of their own society the thing would have been simple enough. -They would have felt no surprise to hear that some man of our own race, -who had made a rapid fortune and purchased a political position, -suffered from a disreputable relative, also of our own race. But because -in the case of the Jew there were the two unusual elements of a foreign -name and distant origin, they were bewildered. They even thought it in -some way specially scandalous. They had not appreciated the material -with which they were dealing, and that is the mark of unintelligence. -But the cream of unintelligence, the form in which unintelligent -treatment of him most exasperates the Jew, is undoubtedly that typical, -that ceaseless case of the man who is perpetually crying out against -Israel, and purposing nothing--the man who nourishes a sterile -grievance; who has not even the clarity or vigour to attempt -suppression; who would be horrified at persecution, almost equally -horrified at any breach of convention, and yet continues to cry out -against a state of affairs which he does nothing to put right and for -which he has not even a theoretic solution. - -The last of the main causes of friction between the Jews and ourselves -is lack of charity, and that in the simplest form of refusing to go half -way to meet the Jew, and of refusing to put ourselves in the shoes of -the Jew so as to understand his position in our society and his attitude -towards it. It is a universal fault just as common in those who daily -associate with, live off, and fawn upon Jews as in those who keep aloof -from them. It never seems to occur to anyone on our side who has to deal -with the Jewish problem, to make the imaginative effort required. And -yet we have the parallel ready to our hands. The Jew feels among us, -only with far greater intensity, what we feel when we are resident in a -foreign country--a sense of exile, a sense of irritation against alien -things, merely because they are alien; a great desire for companionship -and for understanding, yet a great indifference to the fate of those -among whom he finds himself; an added attachment, not, indeed, to his -territorial home, for he has none, but to his nation. If we could -perpetually bear in mind that parallel, the friction on our side would -be greatly modified. - -There are many Jewish societies which ask nothing better than to have -occasional addresses from non-Jews. Those addresses are given, those -Societies are visited, but not nearly as much as they should be. - -There is a great Jewish literature--I mean a great mass of books dealing -specially with the Jew's position from the Jew's own point of view. It -is not read or known. I may be told that the fault of all this is -largely that of the Jews themselves on account of their use of secrecy. -I do not think the objection applies. With all his use of secrecy the -Jew is there present among us for us to approach, if we will, and to -understand as best we can. And I say that the approach is not made. - -It is an effort, of course. No one knows it better than I; for on more -than one occasion when I have addressed a Jewish audience I have found -myself the object of very severe language. But it is an effort which -every one ought to make who admits that there is a Jewish problem at -all, and it is an effort very rarely made. It is not only an effort -because it involves the crossing of a gulf, it is also an effort because -we find this alien thing in many ways repugnant to us. Yet people make -that effort for the purposes of the State continually where other races -are concerned. It is far more important that they should make it where -the Jews are concerned. For those other alien races, administrated for -the moment by officials of our own race, will not permanently be so -administered. The relations between them and us are for a brief time, -and they are relations that constantly change. The Jew is with us -always; and the type of contact between his race and ours will remain -much the same through an indefinitely long future as they have through -so very long a past. - - * * * * * - -Here, then, is the summary, as I see it, of the causes of friction -between the two races. - -First, a general cause, which lies in the contrasting nature of the two -and upon the irritant effect of that contrast. This cause is not to be -eliminated, though its effects may be modified. It is a profound -contrast and a sharp irritant constant in its activity. The essential is -to recognize its real nature, not to give to it general terms of faults -and vices, but to appreciate the difference of _quality_ involved: above -all, not to tell lies about it and pretend it is not present. - -Secondly, as to special causes of friction--I mean causes which on their -side, as on ours, can be, if not eliminated, at any rate modified--I -suggest that the most prominent are: 1. The sense of superiority which, -though it cannot be destroyed, can at least be checked in expression and -which, by a pretty irony, is equally strong upon both sides. 2. The use -of secrecy by the Jews themselves; partly as a weapon of defence, partly -as a method of action, always to be deplored, and of a nature -particularly exasperating to our temperament. 3. Upon our side, a -persistent disingenuousness in our treatment of this minority. -Unintelligence in their treatment: the whole made worse by an -indifference or lack of charity, a refusal to make the effort necessary -for meeting and understanding as well as we can the race which must -always be with us and which is yet so different from our own. - -Now these causes of friction permanently present tend to produce what I -have called the tragic cycle: welcome of a Jewish colony, then ill-ease, -followed by acute ill-ease, followed by persecution, exile and even -massacre. This followed, naturally, by a reaction and the taking up of -the process all over again. - -In our own time we have seen, quite lately, the succession of the second -to the first of these stages; we have passed from welcome to ill-ease. -That passage threatens a further passage from the second to the third; -from the third to the terrible conclusion. - -We feel quite secure to-day from the last extreme of this cycle. We are -certain it will never come to persecution: that is still inconceivable. -But it is not inconceivable everywhere: and no society is free from -change. Some now alive may live to see riots even in this quiet polity -and worse in newer or less settled states. - -Such a catastrophe is to be avoided by every effort in our power and a -solution to the problem presented must imperatively be sought. But in -passing we should note, for the consideration of those who may doubt the -acuteness of the problem and the immediate practical necessity for a -solution, the presence of a phenomenon which amply proves that it _is_ -acute and that the solution _is_ necessary. That phenomenon is the -presence to-day of a new type, the Anti-Semite, the man to whom all the -Jews are abhorrent. - -It is a phenomenon which has increased prodigiously; its rate of -increase is accelerating, and as a warning of the peril, as a proof of -its magnitude, I propose to examine that phenomenon closely in my next -chapter. - - -THE ANTI-SEMITE - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -THE ANTI-SEMITE - - -To understand any problem one must study not only its real factors as -they appear to a reasonable man who sees the whole affair steadily; one -must also understand the insanities and distortions the problem has -provoked, for they singularly illustrate its character and force. - -It is not enough to consider only the actual in any difficulty to be -solved, it is necessary also to consider the imaginary; because the -legend or illusion is a direct product of the truth and shows how the -truth has acted on other minds. - -Thus a caricature brings out what we unconsciously know to be present in -any personality, emphasizes it, and though false in its exaggeration, -forbids us to forget it in the future. Thus any extreme, no matter how -false its lack of proportion, is of the highest value to judgment. - -In a practical problem of politics there is another most weighty reason -for examining extreme and distorted opinion: which is, that in politics -we deal not only with real things but with the liking or disliking of -these things by living men: their exaggerated or ill-informed affection -or repulsion. All statesmanship lies in the apprehension of enthusiasm -and indifference. - -Now there are in this great political problem presented by the Jewish -race in our midst two extremes. One we have already studied: it is the -extreme folly of falsehood, of pretending that the problem is not there. - -That extreme was an almost universal folly in the immediate past, -especially in this country. It is now abandoned by all of our generation -save a few people of an official sort, and these will not long maintain -an attitude outworn and already ridiculous. - -But the other extreme remains to be studied. It is, in our society, -quite a recent phenomenon, though it has gained very great strength in -recent years and is increasing alarmingly. It is the extreme of hatred. -It is the extreme manifested by those who have but one motive in their -action towards the Jewish race, and that motive a mere desire for its -elimination. It implies that there is no peace possible between the two -races; no reasoned political solution. It relies upon nothing but -antagonism. It is already very strong, and its adherents believe -themselves to be on the eve of a sort of blundering triumph. - -Every one who desires to deal with this grave political matter -practically, that is, to establish a permanent policy, will be much more -concerned with the extreme here examined than with the other extreme, -which ignores the problem altogether. For this new extreme of active -hatred is flourishing; that other, older extreme no longer functions. - -The near future will have to deal, in practical politics, not only with -the problem presented by the Jews as an alien power within the State, -but (what will probably prove a more difficult matter) with the hater -of the Jew, who is claiming, and rapidly achieving, power on his side. -The type is as old as the problem; it is two thousand years old. But it -waxes and wanes. Its modern name of "Anti-Semite" is as ridiculous in -derivation as it is ludicrous in form. It is partly of German academic -origin and partly a newspaper name, vulgar as one would expect it to be -from such an origin, and also as falsely pedantic as one would expect, -but the exasperated mood of which it is a label is very real. - -I say the word "Anti-Semite" is vulgar and pedantic: that I think will -be universally admitted. It is also nonsensical. The antagonism to the -Jews has nothing to do with any supposed "Semitic" race--which probably -does not exist any more than do many other modern hypothetical -abstractions, and which, anyhow, does not come into the matter. The -Anti-Semite is not a man who hates the modern Arabs or the ancient -Carthaginians. He is a man who hates Jews. - -However, we must accept the word because it has become currency, and go -on to the more essential matter of discovering how those to whom it -applies are moved, what the result of their action would be if (or when) -they could act freely; and, most important of all, of what they are a -sign. - -The Anti-Semite is a man marked by two main characters. In the first -place he hates the Jews _in themselves_. His motive is not a hatred of -their presence in our society. His motive is not the hatred of -concealment, falsehood, hypocrisy, corruption and all the other -incidental evils of that false position. These things, indeed, irritate -him, but they are not his leading motive. His leading motive is a -hatred of the Jewish people. He is in intense reaction against this -alien thing which he perceives to have acquired so much power in his -society. The way in which it has exercised this power especially -exasperates him. But he will remain a hater of the Jewish nation when -they are despised, insignificant, and neglected, and he will remain a -hater of it even if there be then attached to its position no accidents -of secrecy, falsehood and financial corruption. The type increases -rapidly when Jews have power: it becomes almost universal when they -begin to abuse that power. It dwindles as that power declines. But it is -always the same and is an index of peril. - -The Anti-Semite is a man who _wants to get rid of the Jews_. He is -filled with an instinctive feeling in the matter. He detests the Jew as -a Jew, and would detest him wherever he found him. The evidences of such -a state of mind are familiar to us all. The Anti-Semite admires, for -instance, a work of art; on finding its author to be a Jew it becomes -distasteful to him though the work remains exactly what it was before. -The Anti-Semite will confuse the action of any particular Jew with his -general odium for the race. He will hardly admit high talents in his -adversaries, or if he admits them he will always see in their expression -something distorted and unsavoury. - -When an accusation is made against a Jew he cannot adopt the judicial -attitude any more than could that other extremist, the humbug who denies -the Jewish problem altogether. Just as that other person, now passing -out of our lives, would not admit a Jew to be guilty under the most -glaring evidence and was particularly unable to admit guilt in a Jew who -might be wealthy; just as he proclaimed the Jews as a whole impeccable, -so does the Anti-Semite approach every Jew with a presumption of his -probable guilt, so does he exaggerate this prejudice when he has to deal -with a wealthy Jew, and so does he consider the whole Jewish race in the -lump as probably guilty of pretty well any charge brought against it. - -The contrast was very well seen in the Dreyfus case, when the old type -of extremist was still strong. He would not look at the evidence against -Dreyfus, he would not, if he could help it, mention his race. All he -knew was that Dreyfus was and must in the nature of things be innocent -and that all the diverse men who testified against him were wicked -conspirators. The new type of extremist, then but rising and not yet -master, would not listen to the strong evidence in Dreyfus' favour, -refused to re-examine the case after the chief witness had been found -guilty of forgery, made up his mind that Dreyfus was necessarily guilty -and was convinced that all his supporters were dupes or knaves. - -The mere fact that the Jews exist, let alone that they are powerful, -poisons life for such a man. He is led by his lop-sided enthusiasm into -the most ridiculous errors. In this country every name of German origin -at once suggests a Jew to him. Every financial operation, especially if -it be of doubtful morality, must certainly have a Jew behind it; -wherever a number of partners, Jewish and non-Jewish, are engaged in -some bad work (as, for instance, in one of our innumerable Parliamentary -scandals), a Jew must always for this sort of person be the prime mover -and the evil genius of the whole. - -As is the case with every other mania, this mania rapidly obscures the -general vision of its victim. His prejudices soon lose proportion -altogether. He comes to see the Jew in everything and everywhere, and to -accept confidently propositions which he would himself see to be -contradictory, could he give a moment's quiet thought to the matter. - -Thus I have heard on all sides in the last few years these strange -assertions proceeding from the same source, yet obviously incompatible -one with the other: That modern scepticism was Jewish in its origin; -that modern superstition, our modern necromancy and crystal gazing and -all the rest of it, was Jewish in its origin; that the evils of -democracy are all Jewish in their origin; that the evil of tyrannical -government, in Prussia, for instance, was Jewish in its origin; that the -pagan perversions of bad modern art were Jewish in their origin; that -the puerility of bad church furniture was due to Jewish dealers; that -the Great War was the product of Jewish armament firms; that the -anti-patriotic appeals which weakened the allied armies came from Jewish -sources--and so on. It is indeed true that there is a Jewish quality in -all these diverse and contradictory things where a Jew mixes in them; -just as there is a Scotch, or French, or English quality when a Scot, a -Frenchman, or an Englishman is the agent. But to ascribe the whole -boiling to the Jew, and to make him the conscious origin of all, is a -contradiction in terms. - -The Anti-Semite is a man so absorbed in his subject that he at last -loses interest in any matter, unless he can give it some association -with his delusion, for delusion it is. - -In a sense, of course, this state of mind is a sort of compliment to the -Jewish nation. If such a preoccupation with them be not amicable it is -at least intense, and those against whom it is directed may well regard -it as a proof of their importance in the world. But that aspect of the -phenomenon is not consoling for the future of either of us--the Jew who -now nervously awaits attack, and we who desire to forestall and prevent -such attack. - -The Anti-Semite is very much more numerous and very much more powerful -than might be imagined from the reading of the daily press; for the -press is still, for the most part, under the convention of ignoring the -Jewish problem and under the terror of the financial results which might -follow from a discussion of it. His universal activity is not yet to be -read of in the great newspapers; but in conversation and in the practice -of daily life we hear of it everywhere. - -And here I may digress upon a modern feature which applies to all -political problems and therefore to this Jewish problem among others. -The great movements of our time have never _originated_ in the press of -the great cities. They rise and store up their energies in political -cliques, in popular gatherings, and spoken rumours long before they -appear in this main instrument for the spreading of news. That is -because the press of our great cities is controlled by very few men, -whose object is not the discussion of public affairs, still less the -giving of full information to their fellow-citizens, but the piling up -of private fortune. As these men are not, as a rule, educated men, nor -particularly concerned with the fortunes of the State, nor capable of -understanding from the past what the future may be, they will never take -up a great movement until it is forced upon them. On the contrary, they -will waste energy in getting up false excitement upon insignificant -matters where they feel safe, and even in using their instruments for -the advertisement of their own insignificant lives. In all this, the -modern press of our great cities differs very greatly from the press of -a lifetime ago. It was not always owned by educated men, but it was -conducted by highly educated men, who were given a free hand. It -therefore concerned itself with problems of real importance and it -debated upon either side real contrasts of opinion upon those matters. -This modern press of ours does none of these things; but precisely -because it is so reluctant to express real emotion it does, when the -emotion is forced upon it, let it out in a flood. Just as it would not -tell the truth when a thing was growing, so when it reaches an extreme -it will not exercise restraint. On the contrary, if the "stunt" be an -exciting one, it will push it (once it has made up its mind to talk of -it at all) in the most extreme form and to the last pitch of violence. - -We have seen that plainly enough in the monstrous expressions of foreign -policy during the last ten years, and we have seen it in the abominable -hounding of individuals to which that same press has lent itself. - -Now in the matter of Anti-Semitic feeling we shall have, I think, -exactly the same phenomenon repeated. That feeling is now ubiquitous. It -is spreading with an alarming rapidity, and the increase of its -intensity is even more remarkable than the increase in the numbers of -its adherents. Sooner or later--and fairly soon, I imagine--the press -will give it voice. When it _does_, it will give it voice, we may be -certain, in the most extreme, the most passionate, the most irrational -form; and when that happens, in a field where passion is already so -wild, God help its victims! - -The Anti-Semitic passion, largely based though it is on imaginary -things, has adopted one method of action highly practical. It is a -method of action closely in touch with reality, and productive of -formidable results. I mean _its compiling of documents_. It has here -noted, all over Europe and America, with exactitude, and continues to -put upon record, everything which can be said to the detriment of its -victims. - -It discovered at its origin, presented as a barrier against it, the -Jewish weapon of secrecy. The folly of the Jews in using such a weapon -was never better shown, for of all defences it is the easiest to break -down. The Anti-Semites countered at once by making every inquiry, by -collecting their information, by finding out and exposing the true names -hidden under the mask of false ones, by detecting and registering the -relationships between men who pretended ignorance one of the other; it -ferreted all through the ramifications of anonymous finance and -invariably caught the Jew who was behind the great industrial insurance -schemes, the Jew who was behind such and such a metal monopoly, the Jew -who was behind such and such a news agency, the Jew who financed such -and such a politician. That formidable library of exposure spreads -daily, and when the opportunity for general publication is given there -will be no answer to it. - -It is the greatest mistake in the world to regard the Anti-Semite in the -vast numerical strength he has now attained all over our civilization as -wholly unpractical and therefore negligible, as a man who cannot -construct a formidable plan of action simply because he has lost his -sense of values. While the movement was growing the method of meeting it -was always that of ridicule. It was a false method. The strength of -Anti-Semitism was and is based not only on intensity of feeling, but -also on industry, an industry very accurate in its methods. The -Anti-Semitic pamphlets, newspapers and books, which the great daily -press is so careful to boycott, form by now a mass of information upon -the whole Jewish problem which is already overwhelming and still -mounting up: and all of it hostile to the Jews. You will not find in it, -of course, any material for the Defendant's Brief, but as a _dossier_ -for the Prosecution it is astonishing in extent and accuracy and -correlation. - -Now it is to be remembered in this connection that the human mind is -influenced by documentation in a special manner. The exact citation of -demonstrable things with chapter and verse convinces as can no other -method, and the Anti-Semite is ready with such citation on a very large -scale indeed, at the first moment when a general publicity, now denied, -shall be granted to it. - - * * * * * - -Moreover, this reliance of the Jew upon the futility of the Anti-Semitic -propaganda omits one very important feature. The Anti-Semitic group is -built up of men differing greatly in experience, in judgment and policy. -And it is built up of strata differing greatly in the intensity of their -hatred. It includes many a man with administrative experience, many a -man of great business capacity, of acquired fortune, of talent in -affairs. It includes men with a thorough knowledge of European -diplomacy; it includes men (in great numbers) with the literary gift of -expression for persuading their fellows. Not only is this true, but, as -I have said, it includes a large "right wing" which, because they are -more restrained in expression than the rest, will exercise a greater -weight; men who are not at all blinded by their hatred, though hatred -has become their chief motive; men who retain full capacity for -organizing a plan of action and for carrying it out. It is true that -there is a definite line which divides the Anti-Semite from the rest of -those who are attempting to solve the Jewish problem. It is the line -dividing those whose motive is peace from those whose motive is -antagonism. It is the line dividing those whose object is action, -against the Jew, and those whose object is a settlement. But on the -Anti-Semitic side of that line--that is, among those whose determination -is to suppress and eliminate Jewish influence to the extreme of their -power--there are now very many more than the original enthusiasts who -created the movement. - -The Jews should further remember that to-day every one outside their own -community is potentially an Anti-Semite. Not every one, perhaps not even -yet a majority, at least in the directing and wealthier classes, is -other than friendly or indifferent to the Jews, but there has grown up -in every one not a Jew something of reaction against the Jewish power. -It requires but an accident to change this from the latent and slight -thing it is in most men to an angry passion. I have noticed that among -the most violent of Anti-Semites are those who had passed some -considerable portion of their early manhood in ignorance of the whole -problem. These come across a Jew unexpectedly in some relation hostile -to them--they lose money through some Jewish financial operation, or -they connect, for the first time, in middle age, several misfortunes of -theirs with a common element of Jewish action, or they find Jews mixed -up in some attack on their country: thenceforward they become and remain -unrepentant Anti-Semites. - -The dupe, when he discovers he has been duped, is dangerous, and there -is even a considerable category of those who have suffered nothing, even -by accident, at the hand of the Jew, yet who, when they discover what -the Jewish power is, feel they have been played with, and grow angry at -the trickery. - -It has been and will be with Anti-Semitism as with all movements. When -they begin they are ridiculed. As they grow they come to be feared and -boycotted; but of those that are successful it may be justly said that -the moment of success begins when they turn the corner and from a fad -become a fashion. - -It is still (doubtfully) the fashion to separate oneself from the -Anti-Semitic movement. You still hear men, when they write or speak upon -the Jewish problem, no matter with what hostility to the Jew, excuse -themselves as a rule at the beginning of their remarks by saying, "I am -no Anti-Semite." For some flavour of the old ridicule still attaches to -the name. But fashions change rapidly and the new fashion which comes in -to support a growing thing, when it does arrive, arrives in a flood. - -We can all of us remember the time when the talk of nationalization, the -old State Socialist talk, was the talk of a few faddists who were -everywhere ridiculed and despised. To-day it is the fashion; and the -practice of State control, State support, the universality of State -action, is such that it is those who oppose it who are now the faddists -and the cranks. - -We can all of us remember the day when, in the United States, a -prohibitionist was a faddist, and a very unpopular faddist at that. We -have seen fashion catch him up with a vengeance. - -We can all of us remember the day when the supporters of women's -suffrage in England were a very small group of faddists indeed: we know -what has happened there! - -The forces driving men towards the Anti-Semitic camp are far stronger -than the forces acting upon these old hobbies of women's suffrage, of -prohibition and the rest. They are personal, intimate forces arising -from the strongest racial instincts and the most bitter individual -memories of financial loss, subjection, national dishonour. - -For instance, any German to-day to whom you may talk of his great -disaster will answer by telling you that it is due to the Jews: that the -Jews are preying upon the fallen body of the State; that the Jews are -"rats in the Reich." For one man that blames the old military -authorities for the misfortunes following the war, twenty blame the -Jews, though these were the architects of the former German prosperity, -and among them were found a larger proportion of opponents of the war -than in any other section of the Emperor's subjects. That is but one -example; you will find it repeated in one form or another in almost -every other polity of the modern world. - -The Anti-Semite has become a strong political figure. It is a great and -dangerous error at this moment to think his policy is futile. It is a -policy of action, and a policy which may proceed from plan to execution -before we know it. - -There used to be quoted years ago--and I have myself quoted it with -approval--a famous question put by a close and reasonable observer of -public affairs upon the Continent, to the most prominent of Continental -Anti-Semites in that day. The question was this: "If you had unlimited -power in this matter, what would you do?" The implied answer was that -the Anti-Semite could do nothing. He could not make a law which would -segregate the Jews for they could escape that law by mixing with those -around them. He could not make a law exiling them; for, first, it would -be impossible to define them; secondly, even if that were possible, -those defined would not be received elsewhere. What could he do? The -implication was, I say, that he could do nothing; he was supposed, in -the presence of that question, to admit his futility. - -Unfortunately we now know that he _can_ do something. The Anti-Semite -can persecute, he can attack. With a sufficient force behind him he can -destroy. In much of this destruction he would have, in a present state -of feeling and in most countries, the mass of public opinion behind him. -He could begin with a widespread examination of Jewish wealth and its -origins and an equally widespread confiscation. He could use the dread -of such confiscation as a weapon for compelling the divulgence of Jewish -origins where a man desired to conceal them. He could do this not only -in the case of the wealthy men, but, through the terror of wealthy men, -over the whole field of the Jewish community. He could introduce -registration and with it a segregation of the Jews. Inspired as he would -be by no desire for a settlement agreeable to them, but solely for a -settlement agreeable to _himself_, he could aim at that harsh -settlement, and even though he might not reach his goal, it is not -pleasant to envisage what he might do on his way to it. - -But even though the Anti-Semite fail to acquire full power, there remain -attached to his great increase in numbers and intensity of feeling the -prime questions, "What is the _meaning_ of the thing? Why has it arisen? -Why is it spreading? What are the forces nourishing it?" - -These are the main questions which those who regret the presence of such -a passion in the body politic, which those who are alarmed about it, -which those who, like the Jews themselves, must, if they are to avoid a -catastrophe, defend themselves against it, would do well to answer. -There has not been as yet sufficient time to answer those questions -fully or to appreciate this great reaction in its entirety, but we can -already judge it in part. The Anti-Semitic movement is essentially a -reaction against the abnormal growth in Jewish power, and the new -strength of Anti-Semitism is largely due to the Jews themselves. - -When this angry enthusiasm re-arose in its modern form, first in -Germany, then spreading to France, next appearing, and now rapidly -growing, in England, it was novel and confined to small cliques. The -truths which it enunciated were then as unfamiliar as the false values -on which it also reposed. That universal policy of the Jews against -which it is part of my thesis to argue, a policy natural but none the -less erroneous, the policy of _secrecy_, the policy of _hiding_, at once -took advantage of what was absurd in the novelty of Anti-Semitism. The -Jew, in spite of his age-long experience of menace and active -hostility, in spite of his knowledge of what this sort of spirit had -effected in the past, did not come out into the open. He did not act -against the new attack with open indignation, still less with open -argument, as he should have done. He took advantage of its absurdity, at -its beginnings, in the eyes of the general public. He used all his -endeavours to make the word "Anti-Semitic" a label for something -hopelessly ridiculous, a subject for mere laughter, a matter which no -reasonable man should for a moment consider seriously. - -For something between a dozen and twenty years this policy was -successful. The method though less and less firmly established as time -went on, has not yet quite failed. None the less that policy was very -ill-advised. It was used not only to ridicule the Anti-Semite, but what -was quite illegitimate, quite irrational (and bound in the long run to -be fatal), it was used to prevent all discussion of the Jewish question, -though that question was increasing every day in practical importance -and clamouring to be decided. - -It was the instinctive policy with the mass of the Jewish nation, a -deliberate policy with most of its leaders, not only to use ridicule -against Anti-Semitism but to label as "Anti-Semitic" any discussion of -the Jewish problem at all, or, for that matter, any information even on -the Jewish problem. It was used to prevent, through ridicule, any -statement of any fact with regard to the Jewish race save a few -conventional compliments or a few conventional and harmless jests. - -If a man alluded to the presence of a Jewish financial power in any -region--for instance, in India--he was an Anti-Semite. If he interested -himself in the peculiar character of Jewish philosophical discussions, -especially in matters concerning religion, he was an Anti-Semite. If the -emigrations of the Jewish masses from country to country, the vast -modern invasion of the United States, for instance (which has been -organized and controlled like an army on the march), interested him as -an historian, he could not speak of it under pain of being called an -Anti-Semite. If he exposed a financial swindler who happened to be a -Jew, he was an Anti-Semite. If he exposed a group of Parliamentarians -taking money from the Jews, he was an Anti-Semite. If he did no more -than call a Jew a Jew, he was an Anti-Semite. The laughter which the -name used to provoke was most foolishly used to support nothing nobler -or more definitive than this wretched policy of concealment. Anyone with -judgment could have told the Jews, had the Jews cared to consult such an -one, that their pusillanimous policy was bound to fail. It was but a -postponement of the evil day. - -You cannot long confuse interest with hatred, the statement of plain and -important truths with mania, the discussion of fundamental questions -with silly enthusiasm, for the same reason that you cannot long confuse -truth with falsehood. Sooner or later people are bound to remark that -the defendant seems curiously anxious to avoid all investigation of his -case. The moment that is generally observed, the defence is on the way -to failure. - -I say it was a fatal policy; but it was deliberately undertaken by the -Jews and they are now suffering from its results. As a consequence you -have all over Europe a mass of plain men who so far from being scared -off from discussing the Jewish problem by this false ridicule are more -determined than ever to thrash it out in the open and to get it settled -upon rational and final lines. - -That would perhaps be no great harm in itself. It would merely mean that -a false policy had failed, and that proper frank and loyal discussion -would succeed all this hushing up and boycott. Unfortunately the false -policy had other and much worse consequences. It exasperated men who had -already begun to interest themselves in the political discussion and who -would not tolerate undeserved ridicule. It heaped up a world of -determined opposition to the Jews. It is not exactly that the -Anti-Semite has already won or even is as yet certainly on his way to -winning, but he now has his chance of winning. Whereas, some few years -ago, he had the tide against him, he is now, through the fault of the -Jews themselves, at its turn. He now finds himself on an extreme wing, -it is true, but _attached_ to a very large body which is already -strongly biassed against the Jews, dislikes their presence among us, and -is determined to act against them, not only where they still have great -power, but also where that power is visibly declining, and even where -they are in danger. - -It must not be forgotten, as we survey this growing menace, that a -policy which reaches no finality is not on that account futile. It must -not be forgotten that in the minds of many men (one might say in the -minds of most men) during periods of excitement, a policy of repression, -though always failing to reach finality, may still be continuous: it may -become a habit and may endure indefinitely in the vast suffering of its -victims. The Jews have seen that happen in many a small nationality -other than their own. They have seen, no doubt, that continued -repression acting in an atmosphere of equally continuous rebellion has -usually in the long run failed, but they must admit that the maintenance -of such repression, with all its accompaniments of moral and physical -torture, confiscation, exile and all the rest, has often been a policy -long drawn out. It has been drawn out in some cases for centuries. It is -not true that, because a policy does not aim at a complete settlement, -therefore it cannot be undertaken and vigorously pursued. It can. Time -and again a hostile force has attempted to eliminate opposition, or even -contrast, and to eliminate it by every instrument, including massacre -itself. Sometimes, very rarely, it has succeeded. Usually it has, in the -long run, failed. But in the great majority of cases it has at any rate -continued long after its failure was apparent. That is the danger which -menaces from the phenomenon I have examined in this chapter. It would be -madness in the Jews to neglect that phenomenon. It is now so strong in -numbers, intensity of conviction, and passion that it menaces their -whole immediate future in our civilization. Its ultimate causes we have -explored. Its immediate cause, the cause of its sudden development and -present startling growth, we have seen to be the Jewish action in -Russia, and to this, which I have already touched upon in my third -chapter, where I sketched the sequence of events leading up to the -present situation, I will next turn, in order to make a more detailed -examination of it. For undoubtedly it is the sudden appearance of Jewish -_Bolshevism_ that has brought things to their present crisis. - - -BOLSHEVISM - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -BOLSHEVISM - - -The Bolshevist explosion, which will appear in history I think as the -point of departure from which shall date the new attitude of the Western -nations towards the Jews, is not only a field in which we can study the -evil effect of secrecy, but one in which we can analyse all the various -forces which tend to bring Israel into such ceaseless conflict with the -society around it. - -It merits, therefore, a very special examination, both as an opportunity -for the study of our subject and as a turning-point of the first moment -in history. - -Why did a Jewish organization thus attempt to transform society? Why did -it use the methods which we know it used? Why was that particular venue -chosen? What aim had the actors in view? What measure of success did -they hope to achieve? By what method do they propose to extend their -influence? When we can answer those questions we shall have gone far to -discovering the almost fatal causes of conflict between this peculiar -nation and those among whom they move. - -The answers usually given to these questions by the avowed enemies of -the Jewish race are always inadequate and often false. When they -contain an element of truth (which they often do) that truth is quite -insufficient to account for the full phenomena. But the accretions of -falsehood and exaggeration render the whole thing inexplicable--indeed, -these explanations of the Russian revolution are very good specimens of -the way in which the European so misunderstands the Jew that he imputes -to him powers which neither he nor any other poor mortal can ever -exercise. - -Thus we are asked to believe that this political upheaval was part of -one highly-organized plot centuries old, the agents of which were -millions of human beings all pledged to the destruction of our society -and acting in complete discipline under a few leaders superhumanly wise! -The thing is nonsense on the face of it. Men have no capacity for acting -in this fashion. They are far too limited, far too diverse. - -Moreover, the motive is completely lacking. Why merely destroy and why, -if your object is merely to destroy, manifest such wide differences in -your aims? One may say justly that there is always a tendency to -reaction against alien surroundings, and in so far as that reaction is -intense and effective it is destructive of those surroundings. One may -point out that such reaction in the case of the Jews, as in the case of -all other alien bodies, is in the main unconscious and instinctive. All -that is true enough; but the conception of a vast age-long plot, -culminating in the contemporary Russian affair, will not hold water, any -more than will the corresponding hallucination which led men to believe -that the French revolution (a thing utterly different in kind from the -Russian) was the mere outward expression of a strictly disciplined -secret body. In the case of the French Revolution everything was put -down (by the forerunners of to-day's Anti-Semitic enthusiasts) to the -secret agency of The Order of Templars acting unweariedly through six -centuries, and finally bringing down the French monarchy. In the case, -of course, of the Bolshevist anarchy a still longer range is given to -the final result: for "Templars" read "Jews," and for "600" read "2,000" -years. It is all smoke. - -More serious is the statement that this combination of Jews for the -destruction of the old Russian society was an act of racial revenge. -There is a great element of truth in that. There is no doubt that the -greater part of the Jews who took over power in the Russian cities four -years ago felt an appetite for revenge against the old Russian State -comparable to that felt by any oppressed people against their -oppressors. Probably it was more intense even than any other example -that could be quoted. We are all witnesses to the way in which the -Russian people, religion, and government, and particularly the person -and office of the Emperor--were attacked and decried by the Jews in -Western Europe, of the way in which the Jews ceaselessly conspired -against the Russian State, and of the brutal repression to which they -were subject. When you release a force of hatred so violent it may run -to any length. That sudden release, that sudden opportunity for -satisfying the thirst for vengeance, must explain a very large part of -what followed. But even that does not account for the whole. It would -account for mere massacre and mere chaos. It would not account for the -attempts--rather pitiful attempts--at construction and for the -obviously designed system of direction which has continued on the same -lines since the Jews first assumed power and is still fully manifest -after nearly five years of that power. - -Still less is it sufficient to say that the Jew is everywhere the -organizer and leader of revolution and that we only see him at work in -Russia with greater vigour and thoroughness because the opportunity is -there greater. - -The Jew is not everywhere a revolutionary. He is everywhere discontented -with a society alien to him: that is natural and inevitable. But he does -not exercise his power invariably, or even ordinarily, towards the -oversetting of an established social order by which, incidentally, he -often largely benefits. - -You do not find the Jew in history perpetually leading the innumerable -revolts which citizens in the mass make against the privileged or the -superior conditions of the minority. He has sometimes benefited by these -movements in the past; more often suffered. We often find individual -Jews sympathizing with the revolutionary side, but we also find many -individual Jews sympathizing with the other. The Jew is not, in the -history of Europe, the prime agent of revolution: quite the contrary. -The great acts of violence, successful and unsuccessful, which have -marked our society from the agrarian troubles of pagan Rome to the -French Revolution, the land war in Ireland, the Chartist Movement in -London, or whatever modern movement you will, have appealed much more to -the fighting instincts and political traditions of _our_ race than they -have to the Jews. They are marked everywhere by an attitude towards -property and patriotism which are the very opposite of the Jews' -characteristics. The Revolutions of the past were for the better -distribution of property and for the betterment of the State. Often they -were openly undertaken because patriotism had been offended by defeat in -war and because the Nation was thought to be betrayed. Usually they were -jingo and always for distribution of wealth. - -It is the unique mark of the Russian revolution and of its attempted -extension elsewhere that it repudiates patriotism and the division of -property. In that, it differs from all others; and it is markedly, -obviously, _Jewish_. But why had the Jews a chance of action in Russia -which they lacked elsewhere? - -What were the special characters in the Russian opportunity which made -the Jew the creator of the whole movement? - -There are, I take it, three main factors present in this case peculiarly -suitable to the Jewish effort. - -In the first place, this revolution fell upon, and was directed towards, -a particular social phenomenon in which that profound instinct in the -European, the desire for settled property, had decayed. It fell upon the -state of affairs called _Industrial Capitalism_, the chief mark of which -is the destruction in the mass subjected to it (or, at any rate, the -atrophying) of that essential part of the European soul--ownership. The -Jew is, undoubtedly, unable to sympathize with us in that central core -of our civic instincts. He has never understood the European sense of -property and I doubt if he ever will. - -But in Russia _Industrial Capitalism_ was quite new. The resentment -against it was keen. The victims were the sons of peasants, or had -themselves been born peasants, so that this proletarian mass in the -Russian towns, though less than a tenth of the whole nation, was -peculiarly open to propaganda against its masters. And an attack -successfully conducted, on that weakest point of modern Capitalism, -might easily succeed and _then_ spread to neighbouring industrialized -centres in Poland, Germany, and so westward. - -Now the attack on this international phenomenon, an attack directed -against Industrial Capitalism, required an international force. It -needed men who had international experience and were ready with an -international formula. - -There are two, and only two, organized international forces in Europe -to-day with a soul and identity in them. One is the Catholic Church, and -the other is Jewry. But the Catholic Church, for reasons which I will -discuss in a moment, cannot and never will directly attack industrial -capitalism. It will undoubtedly attack that system in flank and -indirectly destroy it in the long run wherever the Faith has a strong -hold upon masses of people. But it will not and cannot directly attack -it. The Jew, on the other hand, is free to attack it precisely because -our sense of property means nothing to him, is to him something strange, -and even, I think, comic. Further, the Jew was present, he was on the -spot. The Church was not. - -Of the two international forces present, therefore, the Jews alone could -act. - -Here I must digress and say why the other great international force, the -Catholic Church, has not been able--and will never be able--to attack -Industrial Capitalism as a whole and directly, though, as I have said, -it acts indirectly as a solvent of this evil and will destroy it -wherever society remains Catholic. The Catholic Church, not only in its -abstract doctrine, but acting as the expression of our European -civilization, is profoundly attached to the conception of private -property. It makes the family the unit of the State and it perceives -that the freedom of the family is most secure where the family owns. It -perceives, as do all Europeans, instinctively or explicitly, that -property is the correlative of freedom, or, at any rate, of that only -kind of freedom which we Europeans care to have: that it is the -safeguard of spiritual health (the mark of which is humour), of breadth -and diversity in action, of elasticity in the State, of permanence in -institutions. Property, as widely distributed as possible, but sacred as -a principle, is an inevitable social accompaniment of Catholicism. - -Apart from this, it is also a definite feature of Catholic doctrine to -deny that private property is immoral. No Catholic can say that private -property is immoral without cutting himself off from the Communion of -the Church, any more than he can say that the authority in the State is -immoral. He cannot be a communist, in abstract morals any more than he -can be an anarchist. - -Now Industrial Capitalism is a disease of property. It is the monstrous -state of affairs in which a very few men derive their vast advantage -from the corresponding fact that most men whom they exploit do not own. - -But it remains true that the sheet-anchor of Capitalism is a sense of -ownership in the mass as well as in the privileged few. The only moral -force remaining to Industrial Capitalism, the only spiritual tie which -prevents its dissolution, is this admission by the European mind that -property is a right--even property in a diseased and exaggerated form. - -The whole of the operations of Industrial Capitalism rely upon the -sanctity of property and the sanctity of contract which develops from -the sanctity of property. And whenever society loses this sense, -industrial capitalism will fall into chaos. The Church cannot deny that -one moral principle. Its action will always be towards the dissolution -of the great accumulations promoted by capitalism. It always will work -indirectly for the establishment of well-divided property, an ideal -defined by the voice of its great modern Pope, Leo XIII, who explicitly -states it in his _Rerum Novarum_. But the Church can never take the -short cut of destroying Industrial Capitalism root and branch and at -once, by erecting against it the doctrine of Communism or (as many -people call diluted Communism) "Socialism." It never can do so in -theory, and still less will it ever do so in practice. A Catholic -society will always tend to be a society of owners: with all the -elements of co-operation, with the Guild, with masses of corporate -property attached to the State or connected with the city, with the -college, with the corporation. For without such corporate property in a -State, property is never well founded. - -The Jew has neither that political instinct in his national tradition -nor a religious doctrine supporting and expressing such an instinct. The -same thing in him which makes him a speculator and a nomad blinds him -to, and makes him actually contemptuous of, the European sense of -property. When therefore we have reached, through Industrial Capitalism, -or any other social disease, a state of affairs in which the practical -denial of property is possible because the mass of men have lost the -desire for it, and when the repudiation of property offers an immediate -solution for intolerable evils, then the Jew can appear at once as a -leader. - -One must find in such a movement an international leader because the -disease is international, and still more because the proposed cure of -that disease, through Communism, _must_ be international if it is to -succeed. A Communist society may stand apart from the general society of -owners in other countries, but if it is to succeed in competition with -them it must convert them to its own creed. - -The Jew took international action for granted. He took the narrow and -false economic view of property--that it was a mere institution to be -modified indefinitely, and, if necessary, abolished. He had an obvious -opportunity for leadership accorded to him when international action -against property was demanded. Again, our national sense, patriotism, -which is incomprehensible to the Jew save on the false analogy of his -own peculiar nomadic and tribal patriotism, is a check upon Communism, -and, indeed, against revolution of any kind. The process of thought in -the patriotic citizen--largely unconscious but none the less -efficacious--is somewhat as follows: - -"I cannot function save as a citizen of my nation, and, what is more, -that nation made me what I am. It is my creator in a sense and so has -authority over me. I must even give up my life in its defence if -necessary, because but for its existence I and those like me could not -be. My happiness, my freedom of individual action, my self-expression -are all bound up with the existence of the civic unit of which I am a -part. If something which appears to me good in the abstract, or which -apparently will procure for me a material good, involves danger to that -civic unit, I must forego the good, regarding the continued existence -and strength of my people as a greater good to which the lesser should -be sacrificed." - -That, I say roughly, is the expression of the patriotic instinct in the -European man. That is what he has felt for many and many a great State -in the past and for every polity to which he has ever belonged; that is -what he feels to-day for his country. - -The Jew has the same feeling, of course, for his Israel, but since that -nation is not a collection of human beings, inhabiting one place and -living by traditions rooted in its soil, since it has not a strong, -visible, external form, his patriotism is necessarily of a different -complexion. It has different connotations and our patriotism seems -negligible to him. - -The implied fallacies current in the modern industrial revolutionary -formulæ, in such phrases as "What does it matter to the working man -whether he is exploited by a German or an English master?" or, again, -"Why should the individual Tom Smith be sacrificed for an abstraction -called England?" or again, "Nationalism is the great obstacle to the -full development of humanity"--all that sort of thing, which we feel by -instinct and can, if it is necessary, prove by reason to be nonsense in -our case, sounds, in Jewish ears, as very good sense indeed. For in his -case these things involve no fallacies at all; they apply to _him_ -vividly and exactly. Why should the Jew be sacrificed for England? In -what way is England, or France, or Ireland, or any other nation -necessary to _him_? Again, is it not obvious in his eyes that these -terms, "France, Ireland, England, Russia," are but abstractions? The -_real_ thing in his eyes when he thinks of us, is the individual and his -certain needs, especially his physical and material needs; because upon -these there can be no doubt; upon these all are agreed; these are -visible and tangible. "England," "France," "Poland" are whimsies. - -It is true that if you were to put his special case to the Jew with -similar force and say, "No Jew should run any risk for Israel," "no Jew -should suffer any inconvenience by trying to help a fellow Jew in -distress," "the idea of Israel is a vague abstraction--all that counts -is the individual Jew and especially his physical requirements"; if you -said that sort of thing you would be offending the most profound -instincts of Jewish patriotism and you would, in fact, clash with the -overt and covert action of the Jews throughout the world. But the Jew -would answer that, as his was an international polity, the argument -applying to our national polity did not apply to him; that his feelings, -though analogous to ours, were of a different kind, and that, at any -rate, he cannot sacrifice a fine idea of his like Communism for our -provincial and local habit, called by us Europeans "the love of our -country." - -There is more than this in the business. Even those truths which we know -to be truths have little effect upon us, unless they enter into the -practice of our lives. There are, no doubt, a number of Jews who would -admit at once the truth of any nationalist statement made by a European. -When a Frenchman, or an Englishman, or a Russian says to him, "My first -duty is to my people; I must keep them strong as well as in being and I -must sacrifice my interests to theirs when it is necessary," there are -many Jews who would answer: "You are quite right. The theory is sound. -Man can only function as a part of a particular society," and so forth; -but it is one thing to recognize a truth and another thing to experience -it in one's bones, as it were, and these truths, even where he is -admitting them, are truths indifferent to the Jew. - -Therefore when, as in the particular case of Russia, a national feeling -stood in the way of an abstract ideal, it seemed the most natural thing -in the world to the Jew that the national obstacle should go to the wall -in order that _his_ ideal of Communism might triumph. - -There lay behind this great change in the Russian towns, and the capture -of what remains of Russian government by the Jewish Committees, a force -most positive. It was the sense of social justice, the indignation -against indefensible evils. - -That sense of social justice, that indignation against indefensible -modern evils, we all feel. There may be men among the wealthier classes -of Western Europe who are so ignorant of the past, or so stupid, that -they do honestly believe Industrial Capitalism to be an inevitable and -even perhaps a good thing. But such men must be very rare. Not only must -they be rare, but they cannot have any wide social experience. A man has -only got to live the life of the poor in the great industrial cities -for a day to see the enormity of the wrong that has to be righted. There -are, of course, not a few but many thousands of individuals who try to -find arguments for Industrial Capitalism, either because they benefit -themselves through the system and are the richer by it, or because they -are the hired servants of those who so benefit--and of this kind are the -writers in the capitalist press. But all these, who are hired advocates, -or advocates with a direct proprietary interest in the continuance of -the modern disease, may be neglected; for they are not in good faith. -They are not really arguing that the thing is good in itself, they are -only trying to find arguments as lawyers do for something which they -have to defend and which in their hearts they admit is evil; or to the -evil of which they are indifferent so long as it gives them a -disproportionate share of material enjoyment. - -We must add to these the sincere man who will admit the domination of -Industrial Capitalism because he honestly believes that, bad as it is, -it is _now_ become inevitable and that to tamper with it would bring the -whole State into anarchy. "Such as it is," he would say, "the structure -of our society now depends upon it. We may palliate its evils, we may -try very gradually to transform its worst features. But in its essence -it must remain as it is, or our last state will be worse than our -first." - -Of this kind are those who argue that any social experiment antagonistic -to Industrial Capitalism, if pushed sufficiently far, would result in -famine and chaos and even physical evils far worse than the physical -evils which the mass of men have to suffer in the great towns which -capitalism has produced. - -Apart from these categories, the masses of men, I say, to-day are -convinced that Industrial Capitalism is an evil, an evil of the grossest -sort; an evil of a sort unknown to the greater part of human history and -unknown to-day in the greater part of the human race; an evil which -those peasant societies, or societies of well-divided property -throughout Europe, are happy to have escaped; and an evil from which we, -who are caught in it, are trying to escape as best we may. - -In that modifying phrase "as best we may" lies the crux, for the great -mass of Europeans feel that any attack on Industrial Capitalism which -denies the nation its supreme place, or which impedes the superior task -of keeping the nation strong and wealthy, is barred; they also feel -instinctively that any attack which denies the general right of private -property and the value of that institution to the healthy conduct of our -affairs is also barred. The great mass of our race, when faced by the -problem of Industrial Capitalism, feel that it has to be solved in some -way that will neither destroy property nor the nation through which the -individual alone can function. - -But this, which is true of the great mass of our race, is not true of -the Jews. Therefore they were able, in the case of the Russian -Revolution, to go straight for their object, and that object was (apart -from the obvious object of revenge, of love of power, and the rest) the -destruction of an economic inequality. - -These Jews who have destroyed what we knew as Russia were undoubtedly -possessed of a political ideal: the ideal of Communism. No doubt many -individuals among them (all ultimately) would prefer the good of Israel -to the good of any Russian. No doubt the wreaking of vengeance upon -former oppressors was strong, as also the appetite for destroying a -general and a national sentiment alien to them and even repulsive to -them; but there remains, as a positive motive behind the whole affair, -the ideal of Communism. The Jews alone of the forces present were -capable of heartily entertaining that ideal, and were free of all -obstacles against the achievement of it--the obstacle of patriotism, the -obstacle of religion, the obstacle of the sense of property. - -These considerations, I take it, are what explains the Jewish character -of the upheaval in the East, with its destruction of the Russian nation, -its enormous experiments in social economy, its inevitable -impoverishment of the State as a whole, its enthusiastic support by the -minority which accepts its doctrine. - -Those very few men and women who have been witnesses of the Jewish -experiment in Russia (excluding those engaged in propaganda upon one -side or the other) give us a picture which is much what we should have -expected of the situation. - -It seems that the great mass of the nation has affirmed the instinct of -private property with the greatest vigour, and that some nine-tenths of -the Russians have settled down upon the land to which they always -claimed ownership and in which their sense of ownership is more fierce -than ever. In the towns the unnatural system--unnatural because it -opposes all our instincts as Europeans--works more and more slackly as -the original system of terror weakens. For it is clear that Communism -needs a despot, and the active rule of a despot is necessarily short: it -is a system incapable of transition and therefore of duration. - -The perfectly explicable but deplorable exercise of vengeance by the -Jews has been directed against what we euphemistically term the -governing directing classes, who have been massacred wholesale and whose -remnants are subjected to perpetual persecution. - -The productivity of the industrial masses has naturally sunk to a very -low level, because under Communism it can only work through something -like military discipline, and work done under those conditions is on a -much lower productive level than free work. - -But the real interest in the Jewish revolution in Russia, to which is -now permanently affixed the name of Bolshevist (which is nothing more -than the Russian for "whole-hogger"), lies in these two points: first, -the continued propaganda of Communism throughout the world (which -propaganda in organization and direction is in the hands of Jewish -agents); secondly, and much more important, the effect of the Jewish -revolution in producing hostility to the Jews throughout the world. - -I say this second fact is much more important because it is the more -real and the more enduring. You will never make a Communist of the -highly-civilized, tenacious, intelligent and humorous Occidental -European. You will no more make a Communist of him than you will make -him walk on all fours or permanently abjure the use of good liquor. You -may get middle-class faddists to accept Communism as a mere creed, and -of course you can easily get exasperated men, ground down by -capitalism, to accept _any_ theory, _any_ system, which promises them -relief. But you will not get Communism working in men who boast the old -European blood, in the descendants of those who created our past and its -monuments. They will certainly preserve their traditions and their -character. Though the peril must be combated, and is being successfully -combated everywhere, it is not a peril of great magnitude to the West. - -The other effect of the Jewish revolution in Russia--the peril into -which it has put the Jews themselves--_is_ permanent and _is_ of the -first magnitude. I know no way to meet it except to explain why that -revolution was almost necessarily a Jewish revolution, to emphasize the -sincerity of the Jews who have led it, to exculpate them as far as -possible, and, at any rate, to shield their unfortunate compatriots -abroad from the consequences of what was certainly a very bad piece of -tactics so far as the future of this people was concerned. - -We ought, I think, not to nourish a new and special hostility against -the Jew on account of what he has done in Russia, but, on the contrary, -to excuse him, especially because he is a Jew. We ought, as it seems to -me, to say: "He had reasons for action and excuse for action which men -of our race would not have had, and though we must prevent that action -from spreading, we must not allow what seemed quite natural under the -circumstances to the Jew to warp our attempted solution of the Jewish -problem. We ought to work for its solution as impartially and as soberly -as though the provocation of Bolshevism had never been given." - -That sounds an extreme thing to say, and I fear it will be ridiculed by -most of those who (as they tell us) have had their eyes opened by the -Bolshevist explosion and who are now confirmed enemies of the Jewish -people. But though it sound fantastic, I am convinced that it is a right -attitude. To lose one's judgment on a permanent problem through panic or -heat, to forget the elements of such a problem merely because it has -been presented to us suddenly in an acute form, is the negation of -reason. As well might a man who is dealing with the problem of fermented -liquor, and trying to get people to use it rationally, let his judgment -be overcome by a case of delirium tremens and rush thereupon into some -scheme of prohibition. The very test which distinguishes good -statesmanship from bad is the power to keep one's head under -provocations like these; to maintain a middle course and to aim at -whatever solution our reason tells us to be just under _normal_ -circumstances. We who saw the gravity of the Jewish problem long before -the recognition of it was general, and who studied it under calmer -conditions for many years, have a right to be heard now: now that the -tide is making against these people and that the fear of anarchy -threatens to turn men's heads. - -We were long blamed for attacking the Jews, we are already blamed for -defending them. It is a proof that our attitude is well grounded and -unaffected by fashion. - -The Bolshevist revolution will not last. Its Jewish character was -inevitable. It had a side to it of Jewish enthusiasm for a sort of -incorporeal justice, and, in any case, it ought not to be allowed to -deflect us from a conclusion which the much larger lines of history and -all general considerations of reason impose. - -Our conclusion, as I have said, is a recognition and protection of the -Jewish nation as something quite different from ourselves and yet -necessarily inhabiting our society. Such a full recognition leaves us -fore-armed against the tendency in the Jew (which we cannot avoid) to -forget our national feelings and to misconceive our sense of ownership. -It would render impossible the conspiracies and the vengeance which have -destroyed Russia, and I believe that had the former Russian Government -treated the Jews as I say they should be treated, it would be in power -to-day. - - -THE POSITION IN THE WORLD AS A WHOLE - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -THE POSITION IN THE WORLD AS A WHOLE - - -The danger of the Jewish nation in the world to-day may be summed up in -this phrase:-- - -"The Jews are obtaining control and we will not be controlled by them." - -That is the simplest formula, and the one which would be immediately -subscribed to by the whole mass of those outside the Jewish community -who are alive to the question at all. Being the simplest form of the -truth, it needs, when applied to a highly complex situation, detailed -modification. - -This modification proceeds from three sources:-- - -First, the extent of the Jewish control and the extent of the resentment -against that control vary very largely from one community to another. - -Secondly, the civic tradition of each community in its treatment of the -Jewish question also differs from that of every other, though these -various traditions fall into certain fairly well-defined groups. - -Thirdly, the position is modified according to the presence, in varying -degrees of strength in different communities, of certain international -forces even more powerful than the Jews themselves. The four principal -of the international forces are:-- - -(1) The Catholic Church; - -(2) Islam; - -(3) The forces of international Capitalism; and - -(4) The international reaction against it of the industrial proletariat. - -We must in the first line of this inquiry make an important premise. The -fact from which we proceed, namely, the uneasy feeling that the Jews are -getting control and the determination not to tolerate that control, will -be denied by the Jews themselves. It is denied sincerely--I have entered -upon too many discussions with them and heard too many of their -protestations to doubt that; and if the denial were valid, not only the -particular survey I propose in this chapter, but the whole of the -argument of this book, would fail. For if there is a Jewish question -to-day, and if it is present in the acute form in which we all know it -to be present, it is not due merely to the contrast and friction between -the Jews and their hosts, but especially to this feeling of domination. - -But the Jewish belief in this matter is not valid, sincerely as it is -held. To the great majority of Jews it will, of course, seem -common-sense. What has the unfortunate poor Jew in the slums of our -great cities to do with controlling the modern world? How in his eyes -can the phrase have any meaning at all? If you pass from him to the -comparatively small Jewish middle class, you would hear a denial almost -equally vigorous. The Jewish scientist will tell you that he is -concerned with his researches and laughs at the idea of interfering with -his neighbours; the Jewish historian that he is concerned with his -documents, that nothing is further from his thoughts than interfering -with people outside his trade; the little Jewish shopkeeper will tell -you that he is in active competition with his non-Jewish neighbours and -by no means always successful in that competition; the Jewish lawyer -will tell you that he is concerned with the system of law in which he -happens to be immersed--the Napoleonic Code, the English Common Law or -what not--and that any idea of his personally wanting to control the -vast non-Jewish majority among whom he lives is moonshine: and so it is. - -The great Jewish banker, though he is fully aware of his power, would -tell you that in his daily business he comes up against forces to which -he is subject, and has competitors who are at the best neutral, and more -commonly hostile, to Israel; and even the man who is to-day more -powerful--if that be possible--than the Jewish banker, I mean the Jewish -monopolist, and especially the Jewish monopolist in metal, though he -would be extremely annoyed to have the extent of his control exposed, -will feel that it is due to his superior abilities and in no way -designed for mastery. - -All these individual replies are true; but if you make of them a -composite and general reply, if you put it as a reply of all Israel to -all the world outside, crying, "I have no desire for supremacy; I never -act in such a fashion that my domination can be felt or shall increase; -the motive is not present, even subconsciously, among my people"--then -that general reply would be false. - -In point of fact the Jew has _collectively_ a power to-day, in the white -world, altogether excessive. It is not only an excessive power, it is -inevitably a _corporate_ power and, therefore, a semi-organized power. -It is not only excessive and in the main organized, it was, until the -recent reaction began, a rapidly increasing power--and most people -believe it to be still increasing. To that the whole world outside the -Jewish community will testify. - -The criterion by which we may judge whether any form of power is -irritant to those whom it affects is not the testimony of those who -exercise the power, but the testimony of those over whom it is -exercised. There never was a tyranny in the world, not even one of those -personal tyrannies (which have been so much more highly organized and so -much more direct than this power of the Jews), there never has been a -despotism in history, which would not tell you that it was accidental, -or necessary, or, in any case, innocent of any motive of oppression. And -history universally replies: "To judge _that_, you must ask those who -felt the pressure; not those who exercised it." - -Now those who feel the pressure in the matter we are now examining are -unanimous. They differ in the degree of their resentment from those to -whom the thing is so intolerable that they are already in active revolt -against it, to those who feel it merely as a distant though an -approaching discomfort. But everybody feels it in some degree. It is a -universal sensation running throughout the nerves of the modern world -and it is growing too fast in degree and extent to be ignored. - -I have already quoted the effect upon those hundreds of educated men -taken into the temporary Civil service during the late war, when they -found, holding the locked gate of one monopoly after another, the -international Jew. His control of finance needs no discussion. If the -individual banker or financier is not aware of it, the most of those -who are affected are acutely aware of it. Men exaggerate in giving it a -sort of conscious personality, but they certainly do not exaggerate when -they point to its effects. The Jew must remember, what it may be -difficult for him to accept and what is certainly true, that not only is -his domination very bitterly resented but that his presence in any -position of control whatsoever is odious to the race among which he -moves. Everybody feels that about any form of alien control, much more -do they feel it about that form which they instinctively know to be most -alien of all. Every one has noticed this control exercised in the form -of keeping silence upon what it was to the disadvantage of Israel to -have known; in the form of the advertising of what it was to the -advantage of Israel to have advertised; in the form of the giving and -withholding of credit; in the form of attack in the Press against -nations with whom Israel had a quarrel and the defence in the Press of -those (they have now almost disappeared) upon whom Israel, in the -immediate past, relied for defence. And everybody has discovered--what -is not unjust, indeed, what is inevitable, but what is none the less a -source of exasperation--the solidarity of the Jewish race where the -interests of any member of it were concerned.[1] - -But if the thing were felt everywhere as acutely and as consciously as -it is felt in special groups to-day--as it is felt, for instance, in one -particular section of English opinion already represented in the Press, -is felt in a wider section of French opinion, and in a still wider -section of Polish opinion--then the matter would be simple. We could -then say that an issue of the clearest kind had arisen, and forbid a -small alien minority to decide the destinies of those among whom it -lives and of whom it is not. The answer would be obvious, and the only -difficulty would be how the Jewish control might be lessened without -grievous injustice to innocent individuals. - -But the thing is not so felt. It is modified, as I have said, by the -varying degrees of intensity in which it is recognized and by the other -international forces which come into play. - -If we consider the varying political traditions and the varying -international forces, if we examine the world's national groups, we -shall find something like this: In the vast body of Russia a position -most paradoxical. For years the Jew was everywhere openly attacked and -hated in those parts of the Russian Empire where he was allowed to live -in large numbers. These were nowhere within Russia proper but upon the -western outskirts of that empire, within what was once the old Polish -kingdom and largely within what is now the restored Republic of Poland. -But the Russian traditional antagonism to the Jew changed in a few weeks -of chaos to something not opposite but novel and different. The Russian -allowed a prodigious revolution to be made by the Jews, he accepted the -loot of that revolution which the Jew secured to him; he has submitted -wholly in the towns, partly in the country, to a tyranny exercised by -Jews ever since that complete reversal of his national history, now four -years old. - -The external political power of what was once the Russian Empire has -disappeared. The Jews have killed it. But the great mass of Russian -humanity remains strongly affected by this curious change. Where popular -instinct works untrammelled the old and violent passionate antagonism -between the Russian and the Jew survives. You see it in the hotch potch -of the Ukraine, the inhabitants of which, in spite of all theories, are -of Russian race and tradition, and the central town of which is the -sacred region of Russia as a member of Christendom. There, for all the -Jewish Committees with large towns under their complete control, there -have been repeated revolts. But in the greater part of European Russia -at least, and in much of what was once the Asiatic Empire, the Jews hold -what is left of the Executive government. - -So far as we can judge from the very imperfect accounts which reach us -(for nowhere is the weapon of secrecy more ruthlessly used), the mass of -the Russians, that is, the peasantry, are in two minds. To the action of -the Jewish despotism in the town they are indifferent, but to his early -attempts against themselves they were bitterly opposed. They have -suffered at his hands and they thought him a tyrant. But the Jew seems -to have dropped this interference and the Russian soil to have settled -down as a peasant proprietary. On the other hand, it was a revolution -guided by those same Jewish Committees which secured the peasant in the -possession of his land. The Russian peasant has always regarded the land -as his own. He had, I understand, regarded that odd, pedantic measure, -"The Liberation of the Serfs," as only another name for the robbing him -of his land; and when the organization of Russian society dissolved in -the strain of war, he poured over the great estates and took back what -he thought was his own. - -For the strange Jewish conception of Communism, a million miles removed -from our European racial instincts and our high civilized traditions, -the Russian peasant could have nothing but a bewildered contempt. None -the less he was conscious that the Jewish revolution had permitted him, -if not to take the land (he did that himself), at least to hold it; and -the revolution is indistinguishable from the Jewish control of the -towns. - -Within the towns, again (our information is most imperfect and I can -only piece together what eye-witnesses have told me), although the Jew -is, of course, individually hated, yet his control does stand for -certain things which the mass of the people still support. He organized -the resentment of the poor against the rich. He erected before their -eyes the pleasing spectacle of a social revenge. He carried out, fairly -consistently, his Communist programme, one aspect at least of which is -practical enough; for the man that works with his hands finds that he is -as well, or better, fed out of the meagre common stock, than those who -were once his masters. - -In general I think it true to say that the Jewish control over -Christians, if, in a way, stronger in what was once the Russian Empire -than anywhere else, is also there least resented. I do not say it would -not be resented if it were to excite action again against the peasants, -but we cannot forget that the peasants were eager to fight for the new -Russian regime because they identified it with their new property in -land. The situation is absurd enough. Men in hundreds of thousands -willing to fight for Communist masters because by so doing they believe -they can secure themselves in an absolute form of property! But that is -what the "red" army was. - -In that belt of nations, vague in boundary, which used to constitute the -Marches of the East and which now stand between what was once the -Russian Empire and the Germanies, the position would seem to be this. - -There are in these countries everywhere a very large proportion of Jews. -The largest by far are in Lithuania and Galicia, where, of whole towns, -from a third to a half and sometimes up to two-thirds, of the population -are Jewish. Very large also is the proportion within the admitted -frontiers of modern Poland; very large in Roumania, and considerable in -Hungary. - -In all these countries the Jewish problem is something quite different -from what it is farther West. The Jews are in these countries admittedly -a separate nation. Even as I write I hear the complaint, sounding -strange in our Western ears, proffered by the Polish Jews who have been -appealing to the West against what they claim to be the oppressive -practice of writing them down as Poles! In Roumania for two generations -it has been the fixed principle of the State, now latent, now overt, but -always acted upon in social practice, that the Jew is not a Roumanian at -all and cannot be one. Of course he cannot be one really, any more than -he can be an Englishman, or a Frenchman, or an Irishman. (Fancy a Jew an -Irishman!) But I mean, not even one by fiction or by convention. In -Poland the greater part of these people have a different language and -all of them have a different social custom and a different life from the -world around them. In Hungary, where the numerical pressure of the Jew -is less, there is, of course, a most lively memory of the attempted -revolution under Cohen in 1918, the massacres of Hungarians, the setting -up of an ephemeral Bolshevism and the necessity of its suppression. In -Bohemia the pressure is far less and in the Balkan States south of the -Danube and the Drave. It is only present as a pressure of numbers in the -group of States which lie between the Baltic and the Black Sea South and -North and between the Russian people and the German people East and -West. - -When we come to Occidental Europe, in which must be included, though it -is hardly a true part of it, Germany beyond the Elbe; when we come to -the Scandinavian countries, to France, Britain, Italy, Spain, -Switzerland and the Low Countries, the problem changes. The numerical -proportion of Jews sinks enormously. Fairly large in one or two Dutch -towns, it is almost insignificant in Scandinavia, and though we have had -into the great English towns and to some extent into the northern French -towns (particularly Paris) a considerable recent influx of Jews, yet the -total number of these people in the West remains far, far smaller than -the great masses of the East of Europe. The same is still more true of -Italy, and, in spite of the absorption of a great deal of Jewish blood -in the past, of Spain. - -But while the numerical proportion of Jews in these western countries is -much smaller, and while therefore the peril of Jewish domination is -very different in _form_ from what it is farther East, it is clearly -marked. It is exercised primarily through finance; next through the -sceptical Universities, the anonymous Press and the corrupt Parliaments, -and, lastly, in a more general form, by the presence of institutions -which greatly favour the rise of the Jew in competition with his hosts; -each favours international knowledge; each favours anonymity; each still -favours the old Liberal nonsense which called itself "toleration" and -was really an indifference to that most fundamental of all social -motives--religion--save, of course, where an exception is made to permit -attack upon the Catholic Church. - -Under influence of this sort, both sincere and hypocritical, both -generous and mean, the Jew acquired in all the larger communities, and -especially in France, Italy, Germany and England, a power out of all -proportion to his numbers, and I may add, without, I hope, offending any -Jewish reader, out of proportion to his abilities; certainly out of -proportion to any right of his to interfere in our affairs. It was a Jew -who produced the divorce laws in France, the Jew who nourished -anti-clericalism everywhere in that country and also in Italy; the Jew -who called in the forces of Occidental nations to protect his -compatriots in the East, and the Jew whose spirit has so largely -permeated the Universities and the Press. - -Ireland is an exception. In Ireland the Jew (outside the little -industrial corner in the north-east) is nobody. And here it must be -remarked that the migrations of the Jew which give him numbers here for -a time and afterwards numbers elsewhere, in places where previously he -had not been known; which give him influence here for a time, and sees -it followed by the decline of that influence, do not seem to obey any -law which we can trace, and are certainly not the product of any -conscious action. It is one of the strangest phenomena in history, this -odd, spasmodic flood movement of the Jewish race. Is it concerned with -commerce? That is one element undoubtedly; that is what explains the -exploitation of England by Jews after the Conquest, of Spain in the -later Middle Ages, of the Valley of the Rhine; but then, why not other -commercial centres as an attraction? Venice was not one, though the Jew -was well tolerated there; nor was Paris after the early Middle Ages, and -while some of the Dutch towns formed such centres of attraction the -Belgian towns did not. - -Was it asylum? That would account, of course, for the great influx of -Jews into mediaeval Poland, but then why not into eighteenth century -England? Why not until very late in the nineteenth century? England, -which gave the Jews a more complete civic position than he could find -anywhere else in the world, was not invaded by them. Why these very -recent influxes into the United States, which has for now a century and -a half been perfectly open by its Constitution, and was by all its civic -tradition an ideal asylum for the Jews? Until quite recent times the Jew -was hardly known there, and to this day he is not known outside a few -great cities. - -No. There would seem to be no law, or at least no discoverable law, for -this mysterious movement, the ebb and flow of Israel--but that is a -digression. To return to the national situations. - -If we leave the Old World and turn to the United States, we find a -novel condition of affairs still in process of development and very -puzzling to the foreign observer. I do not pretend to analyse it -completely in a few lines, nor even accurately, for I am dependent upon -the observation of others, and the United States are so utterly -different from us that we have difficulty in following their -contemporary history; but something of this sort would seem to be -passing there. - - * * * * * - -In the United States the Jews were present, till the last few years, in -numbers even smaller in proportion to the population than their numbers -in France, England and Italy, far smaller than their numbers in what was -formerly the German Empire. In the agricultural part of America, which -is still, I believe, one half of the population, the Jew was almost -unknown. You find him here and there, as a lawyer or a storekeeper, but -that world was not familiar with him any more than our English -country-sides are familiar with him to-day. With the growth of the great -industrial towns, of course, the Jew came, but he was still no "feature -in the landscape." There was a certain social prejudice against him -among the wealthier classes in the East, and--this is very -important--_the truth was always told about him_. There was in America -no convention--the Jew was always recognized as a Jew and there was -never any of the nonsense we had over here of pretending that he was -something else. - -Of that phenomenon of which the history of Europe is full, which is so -marked in the eastern counties to-day and which is beginning to rise in -the West, there is nothing traceable in the early and middle nineteenth -century, nor even till the close of it, in the United States. - -Then came the change. It is a change which has taken place in the -lifetime of men much younger than myself. It is a change, I am told, -most marked since I last visited the United States more than twenty -years ago. A regular and organized Jewish emigration began to pour in, -especially from the Baltic. It flooded New York, where it now forms -probably a third of the population; it created Ghettoes in most of the -large Northern industrial towns, and all the phenomena we associate in -Europe with these movements began to show themselves. There was the -growth of the financial monopoly and of monopolies in particular trades. -There was the clamour for toleration in the form of "neutralizing" -religious teaching in schools; there was the appearance of the Jewish -revolutionary and of the Jewish critic in every tradition of Christian -life. The Jews went also--as they usually do--to the heart of things, -and the Executive was attacked. The last and apparently the most -unpopular of the presidents, Mr. Wilson, seems to have been wholly in -their hands. Anonymity in the Press came, of course. A very marked -example of it is a journal called _The New Republic_, which, though it -has but a small proportion of Jewish writers upon it, and though its -capital is (I believe) not Jewish, is yet to all intents and purposes -the organ of the Jewish intellectuals, always joins in the boycott of -any news unfavourable to European Jews, always joins in the clamour for -anything favourable to them, and in general adheres to the Jewish side, -like the _Humanité_ in Paris, or, let us say, _The New Statesman_ in -England. - -But the novel presence in the United States of this phenomenon with -which in the west of Europe we have now been familiar for a long time, -provides a more direct and a very different kind of reaction from what -it has among us. This reaction against Jewish powers was not (to use a -Stock Exchange metaphor) "sticky." There was no hesitation; there were -no uneasy patches of silence. The Jewish question was discussed from the -moment it was first felt and to-day it is discussed beyond all others. -Of political topics I have found it the first in the conversation of the -Americans who have visited Europe since the War and with whom I have -discussed the affairs of their country. It ranges, as that reaction -always does, from the wildest Anti-Semitism to strong and open defence -of the Jewish position, not only by Jews but by the very small minority -of their admirers outside the Jewish community, especially among the -wealthy. The characteristic of the whole thing in the United States is -that it is only just beginning. It is capable of becoming one of those -sudden growths of which the past history of the Republic has made us -familiar, and indeed it is too early yet to judge, even on the largest -lines, what forms it may not take. It is enough to say that there is -behind the reaction against the Jew in that country a growing intensity -of feeling with which we, as yet, in Western Europe, for all the advance -we have made in the matter, are unfamiliar. If a test be required, -contrast the silence about the Jews in '96, during Bryan's great attack -upon the gold standard, with the work of Mr. Ford and all that he stands -for to-day! - -The rest of the world is either of Islam or heathen. In the heathen -world, so far, the Jew has little place. He has a strong grip on India, -of course, but only through the British Raj, not through the native -population; and in China, except as a quasi-European merchant, he has no -power at all; neither has he over the strong and organized nationality -of Japan. - -Such are the degrees, very roughly, of the problem; such the differences -of its quality in the various national groups to-day. Of these the two -most interesting states of the problem by far, because they are changing -with the greatest rapidity, are found in France, in England and in the -United States. - -I have said that the second modifying condition was the difference of -civic traditions of the various nations. Here again you have a -differentiation from East to West. But within it a differentiation, -ultimately due to religion, from North to South. In Russia there was -never any tradition of keeping silence upon the Jew, or of respecting -the Jew at all. He was, until the recent revolution, the national enemy, -and there was the end of it. Similarly in Poland, Roumania and the -vaguer populations of their borders, and even in the old Hungary, the -Jew was talked of openly as belonging to a separate nationality and, on -the whole, a hostile one. - -But as one got west another spirit emerged, another tradition. It was -"the thing" to treat the Jew as a citizen. This fashion was weaker in -the Germanies than in the Low Countries, France, or England; it was -everywhere present west of the Elbe. - -It was a tradition flowing from two sources: the commercial and -protestant England of the seventeenth century, the sceptical France of -the eighteenth. The Jew (according to this spirit) merited special -protection and special respect. He must be protected and respected even -in his passion for secrecy; so that at last the mere mention of his -existence in the cultivated and directing classes of the west became -something of an oddity. - -From this spirit proceeded the Liberal fiction or convention which I -dealt with in the second chapter of this book. It was clinched, it was -given permanent form, by the enthusiasm and severe doctrine of the -French Republicans, which arose at a moment when Israel was regarded as -a religion and its national quality was forgotten. Since all religion -was thought to be dying, since, further, an enthusiasm had arisen -against almost any religion which exercised civic power (notably the -Catholic Church), this Jewish religion, formerly regarded as inimical to -the State, or at any rate separate from it, was naturally accorded a -special privilege. That strange system arose, the death of which we are -now watching after its brief life of somewhat more than a century, -whereby the Jew was permitted to wear the mask of nationalities other -than his own, and to function everywhere as though he were a citizen, -not of Israel, but of the nation in which he chanced to find himself. - -Against this attitude arose at last the powerful plea of nationalism. In -England, as we shall see in the next chapter, this plea was less strong -than elsewhere, because the interests of international Jewish finance -and of British commerce were for so long nearly identical. In Italy, -where the Jew was naturally closely connected with the nationalist -movement on account of its antagonism to the Papacy, national feeling -clashed little with the anomaly of the Jew. But in France, especially -after the defeat of 1870, the contrast became stronger and stronger, -just as it is strengthening to-day in Germany after the defeat of 1918. - -It was that clash between the "city" of Israel and the other "cities" in -which we Europeans function, to which allusion has been made on a former -page. It would be very convenient, no doubt, to the "City" of Israel if -all other "cities" disappeared and left an open field for Jewish -operations. But they do not propose to disappear; and though our -devotion to them may seem inexplicable to the Jew, he must accept it as -a permanent force; for the patriotism of the European will not weaken. - -In the United States this Liberal tradition or convention, this -conception that the Jew must be treated as a full citizen, was far -stronger even than it was in the West of Europe. It was in the very soul -of the Constitution, and, what is more important, in the very soul of -the people. For such a spirit was nourished not only in doctrine but in -practice by the appearance, in vast quantities, of immigrants from many -different countries, all of whom were absorbed in and merged by the -American spirit. If ever there was a field in which the false conception -that a Jew could be a Jew and at the same time the full citizen of -another nation, that field was the United States of America. Yet it is -there that the problem is now reaching its most acute form; and the -reason is that side by side with this strong civic tradition there goes -a complete freedom of speech and a very active public opinion. The -reality became too much for theory and the Jew was recognized as -something apart. He will never fall into the background again. - -There remain to be considered the international forces which modify this -general truth that the quarrel with the Jew is a quarrel with his -increasing control over our affairs. - -Those international forces are Religion--Islam and the Catholic -Church--the force of Modern Capitalism, and the Reaction against that -force of the Industrial Proletariat, the Reaction summed up in the term -Socialism. All four are international. - -The position of the Jew in Islam can be simply defined. In Islam he is -treated with less method and therefore with less continued oppression -than in Christendom, but always and permanently as something base and -inferior, save in a few rare moments when he has the favour of -particular rulers or is necessary to some special society, or is admired -in a moment of intellectual brilliance. - -Normally the Jew in Islam is an outcast. I know very well that the game -is played of pretending that Islam is in some way kinder to him than we -are. It is but a game: the playing of one party against another--of -Islam against Christendom--by Israel, which is of neither. In Islam his -superior position in Christendom is equally famed. History is too strong -for such pretences. All the history of Islam, all the social spirit of -Islam, to which there are countless witnesses to-day, give the same -verdict about the general treatment of the Jew in that society. - -So it was in independent Islam. But Islam, politically controlled -to-day by the Western Christian powers, is another matter. Under that -unstable state of affairs (no one can say how long it will last; the -conflict between Islam and Christendom seems eternal and the rise and -fall of that tide is indefinitely successive) the problem takes on quite -another shape. France and England appear in Islam as the artificial -supporters of the Jew. - -Until quite lately it was the French who bore the worst odium of this in -the eyes of the Mohammedans. Under the French the Jews in North Africa -were often given a special, a superior position, which was an insult to -every Mohammedan and which is still an insult to him. It is the weakest -point of the French regime. In Algeria the Ghetto Jew may vote. The Arab -may not. Even in Morocco, where things have been done more wisely than -in Algiers, the difficulty is felt. How are you to treat a Jew -differently in Morocco from the way in which he is treated in France? He -is common to the two countries. If you treat him as if he were French, -and therefore a member of the governing power, what of the pride of -those lords of the Atlas and of Fez? - -In the vastly larger field of Mohammedan control exercised by Britain, -which, directly and indirectly, is ten times that of France, there was -until lately less of this friction; but the tables have been turned, and -to-day it is Britain which stands to the Mohammedan as the thruster-in -of the Jew. It began with the support of Jewish finance in Egypt; it -went on with the extended control over Indian commerce by Jews; it -continued in the control of Indian currency by Jews. It has ended in the -grotesque appointment to the Indian Viceroyalty and the extraordinary -experiment of Palestine. - -To-day, at the moment in which I write, there is no doubt on the matter -whatsoever: From Rabat on the Atlantic to the Bay of Bengal, the Western -Powers are regarded as the agents of a Jewish intrusion which is -intolerable to Islam. And whereas the chief blame lay, until quite a few -years ago, upon the French, to-day it lies upon the British Government. - - * * * * * - -The rôle of the Catholic Church in the debate between the Jews and -Christendom is the most discussed, the worst understood, of any point -connected with the general problem. But it is capable of simple -definition. Wherever the Catholic Church is powerful, and in proportion -as it is powerful, the traditional principles of the civilization of -which it is the soul and guardian will always be upheld. One of these -principles is the sharp distinction between the Jew and ourselves. The -Rationalist would say that this distinction was racial, and that it only -found religious expression on account of its racial reality. His -opponent would say that the origin of the quarrel was mainly religious; -that it was a difference in religious tradition which formed the -contrast between the Jew and Christendom. The former can cite as -evidence the violent original contrast between the Roman Empire and the -Jew, the latter the truth that religion, philosophy, is the formative -force in every human society. - -But whichever theory you adopt, the fact is there. The Catholic Church -is the conservator of an age-long European tradition, and that tradition -will never compromise with the fiction that a Jew can be other than a -Jew. Wherever the Catholic Church has power, and in proportion to its -power, the Jewish problem will be recognized to the full. - -On the other hand, there never has been and never will be, or can be, -admission by Catholic morals of warfare against the Jew. Those morals -are plain. That doctrine has been defined over and over again and acted -upon throughout history. If indirect hostilities are opened against the -majority by a minority in its midst, they may be repressed and punished. -Still more important, insincere and pretended conversion, used as a -cloak, may be repressed and punished. But though a community has the -right to determine its own life, and (if it think it possible) even to -eliminate (with justice, not with cruelty, violence or injustice in any -form) an alien, a hostile minority; yet that minority has its own right -to live, if not there, then elsewhere. It has its right--once it is -rooted and traditional--to its own convictions, to its own tradition. If -you allow it to live among you, you must allow it to live its own life -save where that life threatens yours. The Catholic Church will always -maintain reality, including the reality of that sharp distinction -between the Jew and his hosts. - -The opponent of the Catholic Church will tend, other things being equal, -to support the Jew, because, under that distinction, the Jew may find -himself ill at ease. The whole Protestant tradition of the North was for -more than 300 years favourable to the Jew, partly indeed on account of -its reliance upon the Jewish Scriptures, its absorption in the inspired -Jewish folk-lore, but more because the alliance with the Jew was an -alliance against the Catholic Church. Strong traces of that spirit -still remain. What has warred against it has been the sheer necessity -in every country, Catholic or Protestant, Liberal or anti-Liberal, to -preserve society against what each began to feel as a disruptive and an -alien domination. - -There remain the two novel forces--Modern Capitalism, and, protesting -against it, its victim, the Modern Industrial Proletariat. - -A few years ago anyone would have said that the opposition to the Jew -was an opposition to capitalism alone; the Jew was the representative of -capitalism, and Jewish finance was the particular aspect of Jewish power -in which that power was universally hated. But we have seen all that -change. To-day the strongest force against the Jew is on the other side. -It is mainly aroused, not by the fear of capitalist forces, but by the -fear of revolutionary forces. - -I make bold to say that when the feeling against the Jew comes to the -point of action, the Jew will necessarily, and in self-defence, fall -back upon the leadership of the proletariat against industrial -capitalism. He will--he must, from mere instinct, quite apart from -calculation--use the line of cleavage which divides a society hostile to -him. He will rely on the line of cleavage driven by the vast modern -quarrel between the few possessors in the modern industrial world and -their victims, the exploited millions. - -So put, the opportunity of the Jew, if he be driven to extremities to -raise an army in his defence, seems a great opportunity enough. It would -seem easy for him to deflect all animosity against himself into -animosity against the rich--safeguarding, of course (as he has done in -Russia), the Jewish rich. But we must remember three formidable -conditions which weaken that opportunity. - -The first condition is this: The industrial millions are still quite a -small minority and will probably in the future be an even smaller -minority of the civilized white world. The war dealt them a heavy blow. -The fact that the industrial proletariat is a town population, and -therefore less and less productive, is another cause of weakness; their -decline in health another. The fact that industrial capitalism depends -upon the machine being kept going, and that its serfs are less and less -willing to keep the machine going, is another. - -Secondly, the area (and that is important) occupied by industrial -capitalism is but a very small area of the surface of the civilized -world. - -Thirdly, the revolt of the Industrial Proletariat, if the Jews provoke -it, will be short-lived. Either it will be defeated, or after destroying -its masters it will, under Jewish leadership, destroy its own powers of -production, as in Russia. - -When the fury is exhausted, in a very short time the Jewish problem will -reappear. - -The proletarian battle may rage intensely, but it will be far from -universal, and will not be sufficient, I think, to distract mankind from -that other cross-problem of Jew and non-Jew, to which his attention is -being more and more steadily directed. - -FOOTNOTE: - -[1] Except, of course, an outlawed member. The case of Dr. Levy turned -out of this country by his compatriots in the Government for having -written unfavourably of the Moscow Jews will be fresh in every one's -memory. - - -THE POSITION OF THE JEWS IN ENGLAND - - - - -CHAPTER X - -THE PRESENT RELATION BETWEEN THE ENGLISH STATE AND THE JEWS - - -The various nations of Europe have every one of them, in the course of -their long histories, passed through successive phases towards the Jew -which I have called the tragic cycle. Each has in turn welcomed, -tolerated, persecuted, attempted to exile--often actually -exiled--welcomed again, and so forth. The two chief examples of extremes -in action, are, as I have also pointed out in an earlier part of this -book, Spain and England. Spaniards, and in particular the Spaniards of -the Kingdom of Castile, went through every phase of this cycle in its -fullest form. England passed through even greater extremes, for England -was the only country which absolutely got rid of the Jews for hundreds -of years, and England is the only country which has, even for a brief -period, entered into something like an alliance with them. - -Though it is the present position of the British State--that is, the -position of official British politics towards the Jew--with which we are -concerned, it may be of service to introduce the matter by a word upon -past relations. - -The Jewish element in this island, whatever it may have been during the -Roman occupation, was of small account during the Dark Ages. Things -changed at their close in the eleventh century. The Jew is the camp -follower of each new economic movement among us and that is why one -finds him in the wake of the Norman Conquest. Throughout the economic -development which it began appears the secondary rôle of the Jew. Every -one knows the mediaeval rule of Jewish Status. It was established here -as everywhere else in Christendom. The Jew was the King's; that is, -under the special protection of the State. If he were the subject of -popular attack, that attack was an attack on the King's peculiar, and -liable to speedy repression. The individual attacker was punished with -special severity because the danger of mass-movement is always great -where the populace is free to act in masses as it was throughout the -middle ages, and the necessity for preventing individual attacks from -spreading was correspondingly great. Now and then the popular feeling -got out of hand and the monarch had to deal with numbers which he could -not control; but as a rule the Jew, especially the rich Jew, enjoyed a -privileged position, both in Northern France and throughout England. The -Jew of the early Middle Ages in England was normally a well-to-do man -and often an exceedingly rich man. Then, as now, a small number of Jews -were much the richest men of their time. - -He had most of the finances in his hands, and this immense privilege -(which he has lost), that he alone was allowed to practise usury. Here -we must pause a moment to define usury. - -Usury then (as now) signified the receiving of interest upon -unproductive loans. It is a practice which all moralists and all -philosophers have condemned and which the Church in particular condemns. -If you lend money to a man for a productive purpose: if, for instance, -he is to buy a ship and trade with the money you advance, or to buy a -farm and grow produce, then, of course, you are perfectly free to -stipulate for a portion of the profit. But if you lend the money for a -purpose not directly productive, as, for instance, to a man in grave -necessity, or in lieu of charity, or to build such a building as a -church, which will not produce a rent, or if in any other fashion you -lend money to one who (to your knowledge) will not spend it in some -reproductive agency, then it is immoral to demand interest. - -Now an exception was made in mediaeval Christendom in favour of the Jew. -He was allowed to lend money at interest, even in the most grievous -cases of necessity, and for services as unproductive as religion or war. -The only stipulation was that the moneys saved from this lucrative -practice returned to the Crown (in theory) upon the death of the -licensee. In practice no doubt a very large part remained with the -accumulator, who during his lifetime was enjoying the income he had -acquired by usury, who could give it to his heirs while still living, -and could use opportunities for secret investment, or pass it to the -custody of others throughout international Jewry. But liquid sums left -by him, the product of his usury, returned to the Crown upon his death. -This was a great advantage to the Crown, not only in protecting the Jew -from the native hostility of his alien hosts (and particularly of the -populace), but in giving him that great privilege--a monopoly. - -The rate of interest was enormous. It varied from nearly 50 per cent to -over 80 per cent. When Jews lent money on security the King was party to -the safe custody of the security, and their privilege extended so far -that they were exempt from the common law, and a case between an -Englishman and his Jewish creditor could only be tried by a mixed jury -in which the Jew's own compatriots were present in equal numbers with -the English. - -All during the Angevin period Jewish financial domination continued, up -to the end of the twelfth century and even into the beginning of the -thirteenth. But with the first half of the thirteenth century, for some -reason of which I have never seen a sufficient historical analysis and -of which, perhaps, the full causes have been lost, the Jewish power -began to decline very rapidly, so far as England was concerned. - -And here it may be noted that the misfortunes of the Jews in any country -never begin until their financial position is shaken. As long as they -are the financial masters of the Government they are protected; but woe -to them when they begin to lose their financial power! Then there is no -longer any reason for supporting them either on the part of the -governing classes in general or of the Executive in particular. Popular -passion is let loose and disaster follows. - -At any rate, the thirteenth century saw in England a rapid decline of -Jewish financial power and at the same time a rapid rise of official -animosity towards them. They got poorer and poorer as the century -proceeded. Their activities were at the same time more and more -restricted. They had lent money largely upon land and yet, in the public -interest, were at last forbidden to foreclose upon it. The final step -came when their special licence to practise usury was withdrawn by -Edward I in the earlier part of his reign; and at last, in 1290, after -increasing severities, they were all expelled the country under penalty -of death. - -The unhappy people, already reduced by two generations of falling -fortune, were hurried out of the country, carrying, by permission, their -money and movables. They were protected, indeed, at the ports by the -royal officers, who even paid the passage of the indigent among them; -but they were plundered at sea and some even murdered. The murderers -were punished, but the memory of the persecution remained in the Jews' -mind and England became a natural object of their hate. The Jewish -community expelled by the English was surprisingly small, not 17,000, -and suggests the historical truth that in the Middle Ages, and indeed -until quite modern times, the Jewish community in Northern France and -England was a community of people in the main well-to-do. It so remained -until quite modern times. - -There followed three and a half centuries and more during which England -was the one example in Europe of a State that would not tolerate the -Jews upon any terms whatsoever. There certainly remained throughout this -time, or at any rate visited the island, not a few of what the Jews -themselves called "Crypto-Jews," that is, Jews who outwardly deny their -nationality and practise our religion for the purpose of private gain. -These, when they could defeat the law successfully, remained within the -British seas. But their effect was slight; and the English people during -the whole of their great military advance in France, during the whole -period when their language and culture was forming, during the whole -great national episode of the Tudors and of the Reformation, formed the -one great exception out of all Europe in that the Jew remained unknown -to them and was rigorously excluded from their Commonwealth. - -They returned, as everybody knows, under Cromwell. Their numbers, and -still more their wealth, increased at the end of the seventeenth century -and concomitantly with this, partly as an effect of it (but here we must -not exaggerate), a number of novel financial features appeared in the -English State each of which shows the increased power of the Jews. The -institution of the Bank, of the National Debt, of speculation in -Exchange and in the fluctuation of stock. - -But the real causes of that alliance between the English and the Jews -which is seen in the late seventeenth century, which quickened -throughout the eighteenth and became so very marked in the nineteenth -century, was the cosmopolitan position of England as the leading -commercial State. This it was which led to something like identity -between the interests of Israel and the interests of Britain, an -identity which has lasted so long that now, when divergence is beginning -to appear, it still seems odd and novel to the older generation that -there should be any Jewish action which is not favourable to England. -They cannot understand what the new indifference to Jewish interests, -let alone the new hostility to them, can mean. - -There were, of course, many other causes contributory to the peculiar -position which the Jew came to enjoy in modern England, a position which -he has not yet lost in external circumstance, though it is so badly -shaken morally. There was the fact that England was the Protestant power -of the West. - -This religious motive played a great part. Between the Catholic Church -and the Synagogue there had been hostility from the first century. In so -far as it was possible to take sides in that quarrel it was natural for -the Protestant power to take sides against the Catholic tradition and -therefore in favour of the Jews. Again, the English were not only -Protestant, their middle classes were steeped in the reading of the Old -Testament. The Jews seemed to them the heroes of an epic and the shrines -of a religion. You will find strong relics of this attitude in -Provincial England to this day. One should add a certain national -distaste for violence, which feeling was exasperated by hearing of the -Jewish persecution abroad. One should also further add the pride which -modern Englishmen take in the feeling that their country is an asylum -for the oppressed. - -Meanwhile there was not, until quite lately, any considerable body of -poor Jews in the country to excite the animosity of the populace. That -was an important negative factor in bringing the Jew within the -boundaries of the English State. But with all these factors fully -considered, it remains true that the main cause of the accidental Jewish -position in England was the cosmopolitan character of English commerce -and the essentially commercial character of the English State. As -English export and English shipping began to cover the globe, the -English financial system covered it as well. London became after -Waterloo the money market and the clearing house of the world. The -interests of the Jew as a financial dealer and the interests of this -great commercial polity approximated more and more. One may say that by -the last third of the nineteenth century they had become virtually -identical. - -Every new economic enterprise of the British State appealed to the -Jewish genius for commerce and especially for negotiation in its most -abstract form--finance. Conversely, every Jewish enterprise, every new -conception of the Jew in his cosmopolitan activities (until these became -revolutionary) appealed to the English merchant and banker. - -The two things dovetailed one into the other and fitted exactly, and all -subsidiary activities fitted in as well. The Jewish news agencies of the -nineteenth century favoured England in all her policy, political as well -as commercial; they opposed those of her rivals and especially those of -her enemies. The Jewish knowledge of the East was at the service of -England. His international penetration of the European governments was -also at her service--so was his secret information. With the -consolidation of the Indian Empire after the Mutiny the Jews were again -an ally from their traditional hatred of the Russian people, which -hatred has led them in our time to wreak so awful a vengeance upon their -former oppressors. The Jew might almost be called a British agent upon -the Continent of Europe, and still more in the Near and Far East, where -the economic power of England extended even more rapidly than her -political power. - -And the Jew pointed to the English State as that one in which all that -his nation required of the _goyim_ was to be found. He here enjoyed a -situation the like of which he could not hope to enjoy in any other -country of the world. All antagonism to him had died down. He was -admitted to every institution in the State, a prominent member of his -nation became chief officer of the English Executive, and, an influence -more subtle and penetrating, marriages began to take place, wholesale, -between what had once been the aristocratic territorial families of this -country and the Jewish commercial fortunes. - -After two generations of this, with the opening of the twentieth century -those of the great territorial English families in which there was no -Jewish blood were the exception. In nearly all of them was the strain -more or less marked, in some of them so strong that though the name was -still an English name and the traditions those of a purely English -lineage of the long past, the physique and character had become wholly -Jewish and the members of the family were taken for Jews whenever they -travelled in countries where the gentry had not yet suffered or enjoyed -this admixture. - -Specially Jewish institutions, such as Freemasonry (which the Jews had -inaugurated as a sort of bridge between themselves and their hosts in -the seventeenth century), were particularly strong in Britain, and there -arose a political tradition, active, and ultimately to prove of great -importance, whereby the British State was tacitly accepted by foreign -governments as the official protector of the Jews in other countries. It -was Britain which was expected to interfere, within the measure of her -power, whenever a persecution of the Jews took place in the East of -Christendom: to support the Jewish financial energies throughout the -world, and to receive in return the benefit of that connection. - -We shall have a most imperfect picture of the causes which gradually -made the Jews regard this country as their centre of action if we omit -one essential point. - -England was secure. - -During the whole period which saw the rise of the Jews to eminence in -this island and their ultimate alliance with its political and -commercial system, English society enjoyed a profound peace. Save for -the petty incidents of the '15 and '45 (the first of no effect south of -the border, the second ephemeral and confined to the North), no -hostilities took place upon English soil between the rebellion of -Monmouth under James II and the bombarding of London by the Germans from -the air during the late war. There has been (save for some quite -insignificant local riots) complete security for property and especially -for large property. There have been since the middle of the eighteenth -century no confiscations, and of commercial fortunes none since the -middle of the seventeenth: no invasion, no civil war, and therefore no -loot: no personal danger from violence. - -Such conditions formed an environment ideal for the permanent -establishment and rooting of Jewish power, and for the organization of a -Jewish base. - -The political situation reflected itself, as it always does, in -literature. The Jew began to appear in English fiction as an exalted -character, quite specially removed to his advantage from the mass of -mankind. He is already a hero in Sir Walter Scott, but the full -development was much later. You could still have a Jewish villain as -late as _Oliver Twist_, but with writers as different as Charles Reade -and George Eliot we reach a time where the Jew is impeccable. The worst -any writer dares do at the end of the process is to be silent. The best -is to flatter the Jewish type out of all knowledge. This singular -interlude was in part due to the divorce between literature and popular -feeling in the middle and latter part of the nineteenth century; at -least, it was permitted by that divorce. But the active cause of it was -the reflection of the Jew's political position upon the mind of the -educated class as expressed in its literary art. - -At the same time a parallel movement appeared on the historical side of -literature. A convention arose that in the clash between the Jews and -the English of the Middle Ages the Jews were invariably right and the -English invariably wrong. Where the struggle was between the Jew and the -non-Jew abroad, the historian exceeded all bounds. The European hostile -to the Jew was a senseless monster, and the Jew hostile to the European -was a holy victim. - -The whole story of Europe and of this country, in so far as it was -affected by this very considerable factor, was distorted through -suppression, and false emphasis and quite exceptional lying. - -The general reader of history neither knew what part the Jewish -question had played nor the claims that could be advanced for his own -race in the conflict. And as historians live by copying one another, the -legend was established in every school and college. - -At the end of the process the Jews, in proportion to their numbers, held -a power in this country beyond anything that has been seen in any other -of the world. Poland at the end of the Middle Ages, when that country -was most nearly comparable to Britain for the harbouring and support of -the Jewish people, is the only parallel, and that a remote one. - -Every English Government had (and has) its quota of Jews. They had -entered the diplomatic service and the House of Lords; they swarmed in -the House of Commons, in the Universities, in all the Government offices -save the Foreign Office (and even there representatives of the Jewish -nation have recently entered); they were exceedingly powerful in the -Press: they were all-powerful in the City. No custom unsympathetic to -their race, from the duel to popular clamour, survived. They could boast -that England was not only the country where no distinction whatever was -made in practice, let alone in law, between the Jew and the native, but -that England was the only country where the Jew was always well -received, where his natural defects counted least and where his natural -abilities had most scope. - -Such a state of affairs could not last. It was not natural. It was not -consonant with hidden but deep popular tradition or with popular -appetites; it corresponded only to the mood of one European community in -its wealthier classes. A divergence between the cosmopolitan financial -interests of the Jew and the particular national interests of Britain -was bound to come. War on a large scale, though it did not imperil the -country itself, was a warning of change. It appeared with the South -African campaign before the end of the century. The position of the Jew -was altered. Some dissatisfaction with his power began to stir. It was -already muttering and beginning to show itself with the rise of -commercial and maritime competition in the new German Empire which, in -its turn, had become led, upon all its commercial side, by Jews. There -was bound, I say, to be a reaction and a permanent one. While it was yet -taking place, in the heat of the Great War, before it had reached the -official world, that one of the English politicians who was best fitted -to speak for the Jews, who was most intimate with them through manifold -ties of friendship and hospitality, Mr. Arthur Balfour, was chosen to -make the famous pronouncement in favour of Zionism. It came within a -month of the great crisis of the war. Its object was to divide the -general influence of the Jews throughout the world, which had hitherto -been upon the whole opposed to the cause of the Allies, because, like -every other neutral, the Jews were more and more convinced, as the -campaigns dragged on, that the Central Empires were certain of victory. - -Though this was the motive, the effect was to tie the British state yet -closer to the fortunes of Israel, for here was England pledged to -support, to defend, to act as a special protector over, the peculiar -interests of the Jews, just where those interests would most challenge -the whole of Christendom and of Islam, just where it would be most -acutely difficult to confirm Jewish claims. - -The declaration in favour of Zionism, the solemn pledge of the forces of -the British State to an exceptional support of the Jew in a matter -wholly to his benefit and not in any way to that of England, coming -though it did after the climax of Jewish power had been reached and -passed, was the last stage of that long process of alliance between the -British commercial policy and its ruling classes on the one hand and the -Jews upon the other. - -Already, as I have said, that alliance was morally shaken. The great -influx of poor Jews had shaken it. The mere effect of time, the -inevitable revolt of the human conscience against an unnatural pretence -and an obvious fiction, was bound to come, and was overdue. But although -the alliance was already shaken, the English State remained officially -closely interlocked with Jewry, and its last action, the demand for the -establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine, was, as has so often -happened in the story of human development, at once the term and the -turning-point of a process which had reached its conclusion; for it will -be remarked throughout history that any force is most expressive, its -manifestation of power most crude and most emphatic, in the perilous -interval _after_ its real strength has begun to decline and _before_ its -first open defeat. - -But the problems presented by this experiment in Palestine merit a -separate examination. To this I will now turn. - - -ZIONISM - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -ZIONISM - - -The question of Zionism has been discussed from every possible aspect -save one, and that one is the only factor which relates to the thesis of -this book. - -It has been argued, as a purely Jewish matter; there has been debate -upon its justice or injustice among the Jews themselves, as to its -advantage or disadvantage to their race; debate among the various -non-Jewish forces concerned as to the advantage or disadvantage it would -be to them; debate upon the rights and wrongs of the native population -among which the Jews might find a home; debate as to whether that home -should be in Palestine or elsewhere--and so on. - -All these discussions avoid the ultimate issue. Some of them, of course, -are of evident importance within the Jewish community, but so far as the -essential problem we are discussing in this book is concerned, they do -not apply. The one question which is at issue from the point of view of -our thesis is this:-- - -_Whether the Zionist experiment will tend to increase or to relax the -strain created by the presence of the Jew in the midst of a non-Jewish -world._ - -That, and that only, is our concern, and from that point of view we may -examine the theory of Zionism which has now emerged into an attempted -practice. - -First let us consider its necessary general implications: the -implications which Zionism involves, no matter where or how the -experiment were tried. - -The Zionist theory is that Israel would benefit if of its many millions -(some twelve millions, counting those of the partly Jewish fringe, who -are sufficiently Jewish to make one with the race) a core--say a -tenth--were to have a fixed territorial "city," a country of their own, -a habitation. This country, wherever it might be chosen, should be, as -far as possible, a purely Jewish State: "as Jewish," one of its -exponents has said, "as England is English." - -Now, suppose the place chosen were (to-day we may say "had been") an -empty or almost undeveloped country, and supposing the Jews had found -that their own people could bear the expense of reaching that place with -sufficient capital, and of colonizing it in large numbers. Supposing a -small State of a million to a million and a half inhabitants to be thus -formed, to be wholly Jewish in character, and independent in the fullest -sense. The question immediately arises: _Would the Jews throughout the -world be:--_ - -(a) _permitted to regard themselves as citizens of that State?_ - -(b) _regarded in any case as citizens of that State, whether they willed -or no, and registered as such, with or without the consent of the -registered person?_ - -If not, what would be the status of the Jew outside this territorial -unit, which he had chosen to be much more than a symbol of his national -unity--its actual seat and establishment? - -That is the question which, so far as I have watched the discussion, -everybody hesitates to face; yet that is the question which will have to -be faced sooner or later as the main political crux of the whole affair. - -Observe that there is no question of establishing a State wherein the -whole or even the great mass of the Jewish people shall reside. No one -would repudiate such an idea more vigorously than the chief pioneers of -Zionism. The great mass of Jews would, of course, ridicule it as -impracticable and refuse it as extremely undesirable. They live and they -desire to live following their present interests in the nations among -whom they are dispersed. They live and they desire to live the -semi-nomadic life, the international life, which has become theirs by -every tradition, and which one might now almost call instinctive in -them. Also the greater part of them desire to pursue those careers which -go with such a life, especially the careers of negotiation and of -intermediary work. They not only feel the advantage of such a position, -they also feel a need and appetite for such a condition. - -Whatever form Zionism might have taken before it appeared in its present -experimental form, whatever was said of the theory in the past, _this -point_ was always capital: - -The Jews as a nation would remain as they were, moving among all the -peoples. The new Zion was to be no more than a fixed rallying point, an -established but small territorial nationhood, which should do no more -than proclaim their unity. It follows, therefore, necessarily, that the -great mass of Jews, outside the territorial settlement, would have, -after such a settlement had been formed, to obtain a definition of -their political character. What is that definition to be? - -I think myself the Jews would answer: "It is to be precisely what it is -to-day, or, rather, what it has been in the Occidental nations during -the past generation." That is, the Jew is to be regarded as the full -national in the nation in which he happens to be for the time. Nothing -shall debar him from any position whatever in that nation. He shall be -regarded in exactly the same light as all the other citizens, and, -conversely, he shall obtain no privilege. In countries where there is -conscription, for instance, he shall be a conscript like anybody else; -where a nation in which he happens to find himself goes to war, he shall -be compelled to risk his life for it like any other citizen. If he -happens a year or two before the war to have settled in the enemy's -country, then he shall be equally compelled to fight for the enemy -against his former country. He shall in every respect be regarded, by a -legal fiction, as identical with the community in which he happens to be -settled for the moment, _but at the same time he is to have some special -relation with the Jewish State_. - -He and he alone is to be (certainly in practice and, of right, in legal -decisions) eligible for admission to that city, for office in it. His -opinion is to count in the conduct of that State, wherever he may -personally be placed in the world. He is to regard himself--indeed that -is inevitable from the definition of the new State--as personally allied -to it, if not a member of it. He cannot dissociate himself from its -fortunes nor be indifferent to its success or failure. He must in effect -be _loyal_ to it. He owes it allegiance of a moral kind. He will -necessarily be in much the same position as are men of Irish descent in -the Colonies, in England, and in the United States, to the surviving and -now increasing remnant of their race which has clung to its native land. -But in the particular case of the Jew this allegiance will not diminish -with time. It will remain ever vivacious. The race, as its individual -components pass from one country to another, will make one body, -generation after generation, with the fixed polity settled in the New -Zion. That certainly is the ideal, as I hear it expressed on every side -in conversation and in writing by the Jews who support it. - -Well, if the ideal is left in that condition (and it is admitted to be -in practice in that condition), it will result in a grievous prejudice -to the Jewish people, and will be a source of more permanent evil to -them than any other policy they could have undertaken. It will emphasize -that very point of dual allegiance which it must be their object to -soften if the Jewish problem is to be solved. - -The existence of a Zionist State will bring into relief the separate -character of the Jew. The Jewish nation will no longer be able to depend -for one of its defences upon the indifference or the ignorance still -widely present among its hosts. Whereas before the experiment was -attempted, many of those hosts could forget the difference between him -and them, many had no experience of it and many remarked it without its -affecting their attitude towards the Jew; after the experiment has been -put in practice there must necessarily be a change. - -To give a concrete instance, no one could in his anger say to a Jew, -"You disturb our repose; you are an alien element in our community; you -must leave it." For if he meant that, he was at the same time condemning -his victim to universal exile. But once an established national State -exists, once you have in the world a considerable number--say a million -and a half Jews--who are not the nationals of any other nation, but are -the citizens of a Jewish nation with a known locality, an organized -State, _then_ the suggestion of exile changes its meaning. The opponent -of the Jew is now able to say: "Go back to your own country," and you -may be very certain that he _will_ say that unless some other solution -than the legal fiction of full citizenship in one country and of moral -allegiance to another is dropped. - -The presence of the new Zion will do for the Jewish people what a frame -does for a picture. It will not be universal to them; it will not cover -the whole field of Jewish activity. It will be but a fraction of the -whole. But it will inevitably emphasize the separation, the individual -and alien character of the whole. It will concentrate attention upon all -those things which the nineteenth century--in what I have called "the -Liberal solution"--carefully put in the background and tried to forget. -It will militate against an honest solution which would recognize the -completely distinct character of the Jew and yet refuse to subject them -to any indignity or suffering on that account. - -There is more than this. The various nations, taken as a whole--the -Roumanians as a whole, the Poles as a whole, the French, the Italians, -the English as a whole--take up very different attitudes at any one time -toward Israel, and in each the attitude varies from generation to -generation; there is always, at any one time of history, including our -own time, a certain number of national units which are openly hostile to -the Jew, regretting his presence among them, restricting his activities -and determined, above all, to separate him, by a sharp legal definition -if possible, at any rate by universal social practice, from the rest of -the community. - -Now these hostile peoples cannot possibly be prevented from using the -weapon put into their hands by the existence of a new Zion, with the -implications I have just defined. It is difficult enough even now for -the countries where Jewish finance controls the politicians (and these -are still the most powerful countries) to restrain the anti-Jewish -feelings in the lesser nations. It is only done by elaborate rules which -are imperfectly obeyed and which are felt in these smaller nations to be -imposed by alien interference with their domestic rights. The protection -by the French, English and American Governments of what are called by a -euphemism "national minorities"--which means, of course, everywhere the -Jews--is a perilous affair, and one which can only be carried out most -imperfectly even as it is. But the one foundation for that task, the one -argument which its promoters appeal to, is the fact that the "national -minority"--that is, the Jews present in a hostile community--can plead -universal exile. - -If you turn them out in order to suppress them, they can only leave for -another country. They have none of their own to go to. Or again, if your -treatment of the Jews is harsher than that of your neighbour, you are -virtually directing a Jewish emigration over your neighbour's borders, -and to that your neighbour has a right to object. But once an -independent Jewish seat is established, this argument falls to the -ground. It is no reply _then_ to tell these nations that the new Jewish -State cannot contain the whole Jewish race. It will answer that it is -not concerned with the whole Jewish race but only with its own section -of that race. - -Further, it will of course always be to the interest of those who desire -to be rid of the Jewish element in their midst to argue that the Jewish -State could be more peopled and that there is plenty of room for more -citizens. Again, those hostile to the Jews in their midst can say: "Very -well. Since there is no room for the whole mass of our Jews in your new -State, we will not deal with the whole mass; allow us to suggest that -such and such individuals shall leave our State, where they are not -wanted, and shall go to their own." And they would pick out the Jews -whose exile would most weaken the Jewish community in their midst. - -In the present state of affairs, with the Cabinets of Rome, Washington, -London and Paris still heavily influenced by Jewish finance, they have, -for the moment, a military force behind them sufficient to impose their -orders in some measure upon the reluctant nations of Eastern Europe and -in some measure to create an artificial protection for the Jews there. -Even if this protection were to last another generation (which is -unlikely), the presence of Zionism, interpreted in the sense I have just -quoted, would be enough to undermine its work. On any change in the -situation, in case of any conflict between these Western powers, or of -any change by one or more of them in its attitude towards the Jews, -Zionism, thus interpreted, would be the ruin of the Jews in the Centre -and East of Europe. The danger is of such great practical importance -that it ought to be the very first matter for discussion. It is only our -acquired habit of falsehood and secrecy upon the Jewish problem which -has thrust it in the background. In the nature of things it must come to -the front, and it would be far better to have the lines of some solution -laid down before it becomes insistent. - -What are those lines to be? - -Their general character is clear enough. - -Whether it be of advantage or no to have a purely Jewish State (I mean -whether it be of advantage to Israel or no) may be safely left to the -Jews themselves to discuss. But one thing is certain: if they decide in -favour of its continuance, then they must decide also in favour of some -form of recognition for the purely Jewish nationality of the Jews -_outside_ that State. - -Thus only will the situation become open and therefore innocuous. If -they try under the new conditions to maintain the old fiction that a Jew -is at the same time a Jew and yet not a Jew, that he can be at the same -time a Jew and an Englishman, or a Jew and a Russian, or a Jew and an -Italian, they will be trying to maintain it under conditions quite other -than those of the past, and under conditions where the falsehood will -break down in practice. - -Suppose you were to make such recognition partly voluntary, and leave it -to the Jew wherever he might be to claim or not to claim his nationality -as a Jew; to be regarded, if he so willed, as a national of the Jewish -nation in Zion, or as a national of the people among whom he happened -to be living for the moment. You may say that under this purely -voluntary system (which would, I suppose, be more just) very few would -choose for Zion. The great majority would like to go on under the old -fiction. That is certainly true of the West; but would it be true of the -East? Would it be true of either East or West in a moment of -persecution? I think it would not. Even if it be true of the East -to-day, it certainly would not be true of any body of Jews suffering -there, in the future, any degree of molestation. - -But apart from that: Supposing but a small minority availed themselves -of this voluntary form of recognition, supposing only a small minority -to claim Jewish nationality as defined in the terms of the Zionist -State, there would still be the contrast between those who had thus -publicly proclaimed themselves nationals of Zion and those who hung -back. In other words, short of a general admitted maintenance of the old -fiction (of which Zionism more than any other force must accelerate the -breakdown), you must have, through Zionism, an accelerated tendency to -treating Jews throughout the world as being, whether without the New -Zionist State or within it, a separate people. And they are a separate -people, they cannot be other. My whole plea is that this truth should be -recognized and acted upon; for if it is shirked or denied it will take -its revenge. Reality always takes its revenge upon unreal pretence. - -There remains in connection with Zionism another consideration which is -also of importance, though of a very different kind. Is the new Jewish -State to rely upon its own military strength and its own police--though -perhaps guaranteed (for what that may be worth) by international -agreement--or is it to be a protected State occupied, defended and -policed by the strength and fighting qualities of some other kind of -men, not Jews--Englishmen, Frenchmen or what not? - -As we know, the particular solution attempted, the particular Zionism of -which the experiment is now being made in Palestine, plumps for the -_second_ solution. The protection of Jews from natives is to be -undertaken by a garrison of Englishmen. It plumps for this solution -under conditions as adverse as they well can be. The present experiment -is, as we noted at the end of the last chapter, not an independent -Jewish State, national, guaranteed, standing in its own strength; but a -_protected_ State; and that State protected by one nation: Great -Britain. The new Zion does not depend for its internal peace, for its -establishment against highly hostile forces, for the ex-propriation of -the local landowners, for the keeping of the peace between local -elements highly hostile to itself, upon Jewish soldiers and Jewish -courage. It depends upon British soldiers, British organization and -British sacrifice. Those who have promoted the Zionist experiment have -deliberately chosen the very worst moment for such a folly. - -Granted that whoever was to be the Protector he must be a friendly -Protector, no worse solution could have been devised. A little nation is -always morally guaranteed in its independence, if only by the balance of -the greater nations. The violation of the neutrality of Belgium offers -nothing of a rule; on the contrary, it was an odious exception. And an -exception it would have been just as much if the neutrality had not -been officially guaranteed under Prussia's own hand. The smaller -nations, of which the modern world is full, will have, we may be very -certain, a long lease of life. The larger nations envy but applaud their -security and happiness. They will not be allowed to disappear. The same, -I think, would be true of the Jewish national seat, could it be -established, inhabited wholly or mainly by men of the Jewish race, -religion and culture; presenting to the world the same aspect as does, -for instance, Denmark to-day. But to depend for its establishment upon -the superior power, upon the military and financial sacrifice, of -another and totally different people, is a challenge and a provocation. -It is the building of the pyramid upwards from its apex. It is an -experiment in the most unstable of unstable equilibriums. - -The matter is, of course, being discussed everywhere from the point of -view of Great Britain, and nowhere more eagerly than among those who -have to do the policing and the armed protection. But we are not here -concerned with the ill effects such a situation must have on Great -Britain--effects so ill that the experiment as a merely British -Protectorate is bound to break down--we are rather concerned with the -effect it may have upon the Jews themselves. No great nation will -sacrifice its foreign policy, will admit a point of acute weakness, -simply to please the Jews. Sooner or later such a nation is bound to -say: "_We_ cannot sacrifice our interests to yours. Look after -yourselves." And that is where the peril to the Jews of this system, a -protectorate, comes in. - -If there were any reason to suppose a natural alliance between the -British Army and the Jews; if we could imagine British officers and men -taking a natural pleasure in ousting the Arab and making way for the -Jew, it would be another matter. If there were something in the nature -of things which made that alliance permanent and stable, if the Jews -were a fully accepted part of the British Commonwealth as are, for -instance, the Scots or the Welsh, some permanent arrangement might be -possible. But they are nothing of the sort. The position is wholly -unnatural. It cannot last. And if it cannot last with the British -connection, how should it last with any other? How shall the transition -be made from a British Protectorate to another protectorate? Or how, -seeing what violent hatreds have already been roused by the mere -beginnings of the experiment, shall the conflict which makes the -protectorate necessary be avoided? - -So far the dislike of the position, which is very far-reaching, and -already very deep in England, is a passive dislike. No English soldier -has yet been killed; there has been but little necessity, as yet, to -repress the Arab and create hostility, though even what little necessity -there has been was odious to the troops concerned. But things cannot -remain in that state. The conflict is inevitable. When the conflict -comes the feeling which has hitherto been passive will become active. -People will not tolerate the loss of sons and brothers in a quarrel -which is none of theirs, which cannot possibly strengthen the British -State; which, if anything, must weaken it; which is felt to be -precarious and ephemeral, and which will be undertaken against those -with whom British sympathy naturally lies, and in favour of those with -whom the average soldier and citizen--unlike the professional -politician--has no ties and no sympathy. - -The matter can be very plainly put thus: - -If a Zionist experiment is necessary, or advisable, then let it be made -in such a fashion that it can be dependent upon Jewish police and a -Jewish army alone. Let it not rely upon a foreign protectorate, which -will not last long, which is a weakness to the directing power, and -which creates a false position. - -If it be answered that the Jews are not capable of producing such an -army or such a police, that they would inevitably be defeated and -oppressed by the hostile and more warlike majority among whom they would -find themselves, then let them make the experiment elsewhere. But it is -certain that the present form of the new Protectorate is the most -perilous form which could have been chosen for it, so far as the Jews -themselves are concerned. I appeal confidently to the near future to -confirm this judgment. - -From one most poignant aspect of the matter which we all have in mind I -deliberately abstain--I mean the effect of the experiment upon Christian -and Mohammedan feelings throughout the world of an attempt to establish -Jewish control over the Holy Places. I abstain because of the emotions -aroused by it, which are violent and universal, and are of the sort I -have deliberately determined, as my Preface has informed the reader, to -keep out of this essay. Things indeed are not yet at the point of open -quarrel in this most perilous of all the results of Zionism. We must -trust for a solution before it is too late, but that solution will not -be reached if we select for discussion matters upon which there can be -no agreement, and on which there is now aroused the most passionate -feeling. - -Still, though I abstain from discussing that point, I would beg the -Jewish readers of this my book to bear it in mind. If they believe the -religious emotions to be dead in the modern world, or even to be -lessening, they may find themselves terribly disillusioned. - -I also refrain from making comment here--I have made it strongly enough -elsewhere--upon the strange selection made by the Jews for their first -ruler of the Arabs and Christians in Palestine. I will do no more than -to say that a desire to shield the less worthy specimens of one's race -is natural and even praiseworthy. One may even take a certain glory in -that one is able to protect them from outsiders. But to give them too -great a prominence is a mistake, and it is indeed deplorable that of the -whole world of Jews--from crowds of Jews eminent in administration, and -political science, known for their upright dealing and blameless -careers--Mr. Balfour's Jewish advisers (whoever they were) should have -pitched on the author of the Marconi contract and the spokesman of the -famous declaration in the House of Commons that no politician had -touched Marconi shares. - - * * * * * - - -OUR DUTY - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -OUR DUTY - - -The solution which I propose, which I believe could be made stable, and -which I further believe is the only stable one, demands a greater, a -more necessary effort upon our side than upon that of our guests. - -It is the average man who must do his duty in the matter, and it is upon -him that the responsibility will fall, if we take up once again that -wretched sequence of ill-ease, persecution, reaction, which has marked -so many centuries. - -We are the vast majority, we are the organism within which this small -minority moves. We are, or could be if we chose, the makers of our own -laws, and we are certainly the makers of our own political moods. - -I know it is the custom to throw all the responsibility upon the other -side, to be perpetually devising instruments for their guidance which -soon become instruments for their oppression, and in general to imagine -a problem wherein the part of the European is purely negative and all -the work has to be done by the Jewish stranger. - -That attitude is not only false but grossly undignified. When men accuse -some one weaker than themselves of interference with, and even of -acquiring power over, them they condemn themselves. It is in the main -our fault if an equilibrium has so rarely been reached in all these -sixty generations of debate. For however alien, however irritant the -foreign body be, it is we who have in our hands the solvent of that -irritant and of relieving the strain which it causes. - -Here let me recall at the risk of repetition (for repetition is -necessary to lucidity in such arguments) the logical process with which -I opened this essay. I say that the vast majority, the fixed race -through which in fluid and nomadic form Israel goes moving from century -to century, is not free to discharge its responsibility by any one of -those attempted solutions which I have condemned. No man, I trust, will -have the cynicism to say that mere persecution, let alone its horrible -extreme, is or should be a solution. No man can predict the same of -exile either. No man can discharge our responsibility by pretending that -any solution arrived at must be for our good alone and may disregard -that of those who live among us. - -It is a statement one hears frequently enough that the masters of house -have alone to decide what shall be done under their roof: that the -interloper, the alien element, has no standing and no right to complain -of whatever measures may be taken for the protection of the household. -The thing so put sounds plausible. It is essentially false. It is -comparable to the argument applied to private property--that because -private property is a right, and that because a man "may do what he -likes with his own," therefore he may use it to the manifest hurt of -others. Moreover, the analogy is false; for when a man is talking of -"the master of the house" having the right in his household to decide -its own way of living and of treating its guests, he is considering a -very small unit in a great community; his household in the whole nation: -a little body which, if it discharge or in any other way deal with -something alien to itself, will inflict no great injury upon that -foreign body, since there is all the world for it to turn to outside. -But in the relations between the Jew and Christendom, or the Jew and -Islam, the parallel fails. It is precisely because there is no "outside" -to which the exile can turn that a duty is imposed on us. - -It is true indeed that when a small and alien minority assumes to -dictate the policy of the rest, to regard its own advantages alone and -subordinate to those advantages the life of all, the claim is grotesque -and must be disallowed. But we should remember upon the other side that -it is only by exaggerating its claim that a minority can live at all. It -is only by fierce insistence upon its right to survive that its survival -is guaranteed. We can arrive at justice in this matter by the process of -putting ourselves in the shoes of those in relation to whom we propose -to act. - -Put yourself in the shoes of the Jew and ask how this doctrine of "doing -what one likes with one's own" and being "the master of one's own -household" would look to you. - -A public example which very rightly made a stir a few months before this -book was published, may serve as text. A learned and distinguished Jew, -Dr. Oscar Levy, a man who was an asset to any community, was turned out -of the country under circumstances which many of my readers will recall. -He pleaded with perfect justice that as a Jew such an exile left him -homeless; that the original country of which he was nominally a citizen -(under the broken-down fiction that Jews can be Germans, or Austrians, -or what not, and cease to be themselves) would not have him; that his -interests, his livelihood had attached him to this country; he had never -hidden his true nationality nor changed his name, nor used any of those -subterfuges which, even when excusable, are dangerous and contemptible -in so many of his compatriots. There was no conceivable reason why such -rigour should be used against this man, save indeed that he was a Jew. - -Put yourself in his shoes and see how the thing looks. There is no -nation to which you could have returned: there is no society to receive -you as a member of it. You are not permitted to remain in the atmosphere -with which you have grown familiar, in the surroundings which have -become those of your later life, and your consonance with which it is -too late for you to change. Could there be a grosser cruelty or a -grosser injustice? It is the very core of the whole problem that -_somewhere_ the Jew must be harboured, and therefore to some one of us -the question must be put, "Will you harbour him, and if so upon what -terms?" If each man answer, "No, I will not," then all collectively -become oppressors. It is no answer to say, "These men are not of us, and -therefore they may conspire against us," or "Their interests are -divergent from ours and therefore may and do clash with ours." All that -is granted. That is merely stating the problem, not solving it. What do -we say in daily life of men who merely state their grievances, harp upon -them, and make no effort to put them right? What do we think of men who -perpetually complain of something naturally weaker than themselves, make -no effort to understand its necessities and attempt only to rid -themselves of the nuisance without considering reciprocal duty and -mutual relations? The same should we think of those who so act towards -the Jewish community in our midst which, for all its domination and -exaggerated modern power, is ultimately at our mercy, far weaker than we -are in numbers and situation. Without further elaboration of what should -be an obvious political and moral principle, let us consider our part in -the task. - -It consists, I conceive, in two very different determinations: two very -different but allied lines of conduct to which we must pledge ourselves. -The first, until recently the most difficult, is the determination to -speak of the Jewish people as openly, as continuously, with as much -interest, with as close an examination as we speak of any other foreign -body with which we are brought in contact. - -The second, which will perhaps be the more difficult duty to practise in -the future, will be to avoid, in the individual public recognition of -those with whom we must live, all futile anger and all mere reaction. I -mean by mere reaction, blind reaction. The instinctive thrusting back -against a thing which presses on us, the uncalculated and animal return -blow, the consequences of which, either to ourselves or to others, are -not weighed when it is delivered; the futile complaint, the futile rage, -the futile cruelty. - -Unless those two duties are undertaken together, unless the -determination to practise both be of equal weight, the solution I -propose will fail. To discuss the problem presented by the presence of -the Jewish people, to talk of them as one would of any other, openly and -frankly, to interest oneself in their history and in their present -doings: all this is only to aggravate the trouble if we use that open -dealing for the purpose of doing them a hurt, or if, in the course of -it, we allow ourselves (merely from irritation or contrast, from the -sense which all must have of opposition to things alien) to react -against them without consideration of the immediate and ultimate -consequences not only to themselves but to us. - -Conversely, the determination to regard their interests and to avoid -every possible occasion of conflict, to hold a just measure with them, -is quite useless if we falsify the whole relation by secrecy and false -convention. - -The moment that comes in, there comes in with it a secret -dissatisfaction with oneself and with the whole situation. The position -is falsified, the seed of animosity greatly stimulated, the danger of -mutual contempt made inevitable. - -Now let us look at these two branches of what we have to do in the -matter, and see what difficulties lie in the way. - -In the way of frankly recognizing, examining, taking an open interest in -the Jewish minority in our midst there lie three very powerful -obstacles. First the inherited convention of polite society; secondly, -and much the most powerful, fear; and thirdly, the very reputable desire -to avoid offence. - -The first of these, the fear of convention, has many roots--the -necessity for harmony in a leisured life, that is, the desire to avoid -friction even at the expense of truth, the mere momentum of a quiet -habit, the fear of misunderstanding which may come from one side casting -ridicule upon the other, which may offend the person whom we have -misunderstood, or make us ridiculous in his eyes and those of our -audience. - -There is also, of course, as a cause, more powerful than any other, the -force which lies behind all convention, the force which makes a man take -off his hat in a church, which forbids his walking without boots in the -street on the driest day, that is, the pressure of general practice. But -the thing to realize is that in this form--I mean as distinct from any -feeling of fear or of charity--the thing is a convention and a -convention only. Difficult as it is to break with conventions, unless -_this_ convention is broken once and for all, the Jewish problem remains -with us unsolved and growing in acuteness and peril. - -You can meet an Irishman and discuss with him the conditions of his -nation. You can ask an Italian when he was last in Italy, or -congratulate a Frenchman upon his acquisition of your tongue or tell him -that it is difficult for him to understand your own customs: but a -convention arose under the Liberal fiction--to which I have devoted so -much space in the earlier part of this book--that to do any of these -very natural things in the case of a Jew is monstrous. Your audience is -shocked if you ask some learned Jew at a public table a question upon -his national literature or history. It is a solecism to refer to his -nationality at all, save perhaps now and then in terms of foolish -praise--in nine times out of ten praise not to the point and not -desired by its recipient. And even praise must be approached most -gingerly. You may not ask a Jew in London, however keen your desire for -information, whether he had cousins in Lithuania or Galicia who have -told him of the conditions of those distressed countries. You may not -ask him when his family came to England, nor, if he be a recent arrival, -what he thinks of the country. The whole thing is _taboo_. - -More than this: you must, you are expected (or were until quite recently -expected) to emphasize in a most extravagant manner the complete -identity of your Jewish guest with the people among whom he lives. I do -not take offence if some chance acquaintance, noting my French name, -talks to me about France, and is interested in my experience as a -conscript long ago in that country. Mr. Redmond did not feel himself -insulted when those he met in London discussed Irish matters with him, -from the most acute difficulty in politics, to the most general allusion -to the Abbey Theatre. The editor of an Italian review visiting England -is not shocked if you ask him when he left Florence, nor are those -around you horrified at the ill-breeding of your question. But in the -matter of the Jew there stands this convention cutting you off from any -such straightforward and simple way of dealing with a fellow-being. That -convention, I say, must be broken down if we are to get any results at -all and to establish a permanent peace. - -The thing was not, of course, entirely irrational in origin. No custom -is. It was to be excused upon several grounds. - -First, there was the fact that many people were known to cherish so -strong an hostility to Jews that to emphasize the Jewish character of -anyone present might awaken that hostility. - -Then there was the peculiar rapid transition both of Jewish movements -and of Jewish fortunes. In the case I have suggested, of asking a London -Jew whether he had relatives in Galicia or Lithuania, you might be -stumbling upon relations much poorer than himself in the East End of -London; or, again, you might seem to be emphasizing the nomadic -character of the race and thereby also emphasizing the contrast between -it and our own. - -But much the strongest excuse for the convention was the well-founded -idea that its exercise pleased the Jews themselves. Men avoided direct -mention of Jewish nationality because it was felt that such direct -mention was almost an insult. It was a thing which the Jew in whose -presence you found yourself desired to have kept in the background; and -though we might not understand why he desired it, yet we respected his -desire as we do that of anyone with whom we wish to preserve harmonious -relations. Most men, for instance, are indifferent upon, say, the matter -of smoking. Most men are quite at their ease when they are asked whether -they smoke or not, and if they do, whether they prefer this or that -brand of tobacco. But now and then one comes across a man who, from some -accident of training (as, for instance, a man whose mother brought him -up to think smoking a mortal sin), does not like to have it alluded to. - -I myself know the case of a man of the highest culture and of -considerable social position to whom you may not say anything about pigs -either in connection with farming or in connection with food; for his -sympathies are Mohammedan. In these exceptional cases, when we know of -our guest's particular desire, we yield to it for the sake of harmony -and of right living. So is it in this matter of the former convention -against alluding to Jewish nationality or Jewish interests in any form. -Whether the Jews were wise or not to cherish that convention, as they -undoubtedly did, does not concern this part of my argument. I am talking -of our duty and not of theirs. But I say that unless the convention is -softened and at last dissolved, nothing can be done. Both parties should -know that it only does harm. It renders stilted and absurd all our -relations; it fosters that suspicion of secrecy which I have insisted -upon as the chief irritant in those relations, and it creates a feeling -of exception, of oddity, which is the very worst service that could be -rendered to the Jews themselves. - -Some little time ago the convention went so far that even a mention, a -neutral--nay, a laudatory mention, of anything Jewish in a general -company led to an immediate awkwardness. Men looked over their -shoulders, women gave downward glances right and left. A sort of hunt -began, to see whether anyone present could possibly in any remote -connection be offended by the monstrous deed. If a man said, "What a -poet Heine was and how thoroughly Jewish is his irony!" and said it in a -room full of people, the adjective "Jewish" acted like a pistol -shot--could anything be more absurd! Yet so it was. - -But the point I make is not against the absurdity of this convention but -against its peril. It is an obstacle to all right handling of what is -becoming daily a more and more insistent and acute difficulty. - -It is obvious that the getting rid of such a convention is not to be -effected by violent methods, nor immediately. But our duty is to -accelerate its decline and, within reason, to enlarge every opportunity -for treating the Jewish nationality precisely as one treats any other. I -mean precisely as one treats any other in conversation or in writing. We -all know the insane type which loves to break convention merely because -it is a convention, and we shall certainly have to be on our guard -against this sort of person in the near future, as this particular -convention begins to break down. But without encouraging such -eccentricities there is ample room for an increasing ease in the -recognition of what after all we know to be reality, a reality which -requires open discussion for the good of us all. The danger is lest even -this merely conventional obstacle should by too long a resistance dam up -forces which tend to break it down and therefore lest, when it is pulled -down, we should admit the other extreme of licence, with its opportunity -for insult and damage. That is what has happened in the case of other -much more reasonable Victorian conventions, and we must not have it -happen in the case of the convention which for so long forbade us to -admit that a Jew was a Jew or to take any open interest, when he was -present, in the things which he himself thinks the most interesting of -all. - -And if anyone shall answer that convention is necessary, lest on its -decline open hostility should follow, I can only say that this is to -despair of any equitable solution at all. But my whole thesis in this -book is that such a solution need not yet be despaired of. - -There is one more thing to be said in this matter of the old _taboo_. -However long it may linger in the small educated class, it has gone for -ever among the populace, and it is the popular instinct we shall have -mainly to deal with in the difficult times ahead of us. - -The populace in this country talks upon Jewish matters with a frankness -which would astonish the drawing-rooms, and has so talked upon them for -a generation past--ever since the great novel influx of poor Jews began -to pour into our towns. It not only talks thus openly to and of Jews -upon its own level, but it is thoroughly alive to the presence and power -of Jews in government. Those who think that a continuance of the -convention can put off the necessity for a solution would be -disillusioned if they would spend a few days east of Aldgate, and mix -with their fellow-citizens there. - -Allied to this obstacle of convention is the very real obstacle of -charity. - -Now we are here dealing not with a positive charity but with a negative -one and with a form of charity uncommonly like slackness. - -The man who honestly thinks that any allusion to Jewish races in -contemporary art, history or letters in the presence of a Jew is -offensive and therefore to be avoided, from goodness of heart, _and who -also practises the same virtue where any other foreigner is concerned_ -is rare indeed. There are such men, for men of exceptional goodness -coupled with exceptional stupidity are to be found. But the excuse of -charity as it is generally put forward is not wholly ingenuous. Where it -is ingenuous our reply to-day must be that even at the risk of -occasional ill-ease, the danger of offence must be risked; for unless we -risk it there is increasing peril of a much greater offence against -justice. For whatever reason open discussion is burked, even for the -reason of charity, we only put off the evil day, and charity so used may -be compared to the charity which refuses to take action in any other -critical problem of increasing gravity. The charity which hesitates to -control the supplies of a spendthrift, or to wage a defensive war in a -just cause, or to defend an oppressed man at the risk of quarrelling -with his oppressor, is a charity misdirected. - -But, as I have said, with much the greater part of men who plead this -motive the plea is, if they would only examine their own consciences, -found to be false. And the test of its falsity will be apparent when the -convention slackens. When it is no longer conventional to avoid all -mention of Jews, how many will remain silent merely from the love of -their fellow-men? One might go further and say that when the convention -has gone, any need for this kind of charity will go with it. There is an -exception, of course, in the case of the man whose dislike of Jews is so -violent that he fears himself if he gives any rein to his tongue. That -mania is exceptional; but where it is found certainly its victim will do -well to keep silence. If a man cannot mention the Hebrew alphabet -without a sneer, or the economics of Ricardo without betraying his ill -feeling for Ricardo's lineage, then certainly he had better hold his -tongue when Jews are there. So, too, a Frenchman who raves against the -English had far better not discuss the British Constitution or the -genius of Newton in any society where an Englishman may be present. - -There remains the chief obstacle--that of fear. - -There is no doubt that the strongest force still restraining an -expression of hostility to the Jew is fear. - -In a sense, of course, there is a "fear" of breaking convention--but -that is fear only in metaphor. I mean not this, but the very real dread -of consequences: the feeling that an expression of hostility to Jewish -power may bring definite evils on the individual guilty of it, and a -panic lest those evils should fall upon him. How strong this feeling is, -anyone can testify who has explored, as I have, this most insistent of -modern political ills; and doubtless the greater part of my non-Jewish -readers will recall examples to the point. - -It is a fear of two consequences, social and economic, and even of both -combined. Men dread lest hostility to the Jew Domination should bring -them into the grip of some unknown but suspected world-wide power--some -would call it a conspiracy--which can destroy the individual who shall -be so rash as to challenge it. Some perhaps have gone to the length--the -insane length--of reading the word "destroy" in its literal sense and of -fearing for their lives. Such an illusion is laughable. But very many -more are affected by the reasonable conception that they will have -against them, if they provoke it, an intelligent, combined action which -they cannot meet because there is no organization upon their side: -because it is international; because there is behind it a great -intensity of feeling; because through finance it controls the political -machines of all the nations, because it is all-powerful in the -Press--and so forth. - -They dread, I say, the social consequences. They also (and that with -more definition and more sense) dread the economic consequences. They -recognize (they also exaggerate) the grip of the Jew over finance. They -conceive that if they speak they will be dragged down, their enterprises -ruined, their credit dissolved. And that is the most powerful instrument -which can be brought to bear. When supernatural motives disappear the -strongest motive remaining after appetite is avarice; and avarice is -more universal than appetite and more continuous. Nor is it only avarice -which is at work here, but also the respectable desire for security. -There are to-day innumerable men who would express publicly on Jews what -they continually express in private, but who conceal their feelings for -fear that their salaries may be lost or their modest enterprises -wrecked, their investments lowered, and their position ruined. Above -them are a lesser number, equally convinced that their large fortunes -would be in peril were they so to act. - -The characteristic of all this feeling is two-fold. In the first place, -as would seem to be the case with convention, though in a much greater -degree, it dams up and enormously increases the latent force of anger -against Jewish power both real and imaginary. It is like the piling up -of a head of water when a river valley is obstructed, or like the -introducing of resistance into an electric current. The suppression of -resentment, though that suppression is the act of the men who themselves -feel the resentment and not directly of their opponents, is a fierce -irritant and accounts for the high pressure at which attack escapes when -once it is loosened. - -I speak only of hostility and of attack, for it is in these least -rational examples that the strength of the thing is to be found. But it -applies also to mere discussion. There is hardly anyone to-day who does -not desire to discuss as an urgent political problem the present -position, the present power, the present disabilities, the present -claims of Israel. But for one that will openly discuss these things -there are ten who, in varying degrees, forbid themselves so plain a -freedom of speech in dread of what consequences might follow. It has, -like all panic, a ridiculous element. It is informed by the most absurd -illusions; it suffers from grotesque imaginings and phantasms. In some -this dread of the Jewish power has very plainly passed the line which -divides the stable from the unstable mind and even the sane from the -insane. But it is none the less a formidable element in our problem. -This obstacle, much more than that of convention, bears a character of -rigidity. It works for a certain time, then it breaks down and releases -a flood. - -That is why the first expressions of hostility in our time were so -exaggerated and ill-proportioned. That is why so many of them were -plainly mad. This very character of exaggeration, this very wildness in -proportion, rendered those against whom the attack was delivered more -contemptuous of it than they should have been. - -The forerunners of the present movement--I mean, of the movement hostile -to Israel--were not calculated to excite the respect of their opponent -or even to carry with them the men on their own side. They lacked that -"common" sense which is the first quality of leadership. For the power -of leadership implies a soul in common with those who are led. The -enthusiast can lead permanently, but the extravagant man never for long. - -I say that these first attacks were on that account despised: they were -unduly despised by those whom they menaced. - -There lay in reserve behind all the exaggeration and wildness a great -bulk of very different opinion; the opinion of men normal in their -appreciation of values and of proportion, not given to "seeing things," -fully in touch with reality; men who know that they have hitherto only -been silent through the action of fear, who despise themselves on that -account and who are the more ready to act. For the sense of fear not -only degrades but angers: at least in our race. The European who admits -to himself that he has restrained an instinct not from religion, nor -from a general sense of right, but from cowardice, is always angry with -himself and awaits the moment when he can take his own revenge upon his -own past and clear himself of reproach in his own eyes. - -Herein lies the peril to Israel of such a state of affairs. But with -that I am not here concerned. I am only concerned with its effect upon -ourselves. So long as we degrade ourselves, so long as we humiliate -ourselves by our own cowardice, so long as we shirk all reasonable -discussion, let alone all expression of hostility because we dread the -consequences at the hands of our opponents, so long there are present in -rising intensity two evil things: first, the postponement of the right -solution; secondly, the turning of a reasoned policy into mere hatred -with all the consequences that flow from such evil emotion. - -The longer we maintain whatever remains of that barrier to free speech -(happily it is already crumbling) the longer do we produce the two fatal -results of postponing justice and of creating enmity. The destruction of -that barrier, the ridding of ourselves of fear in the matter, is, as is -always the case in the exercising of this unmanly thing, a matter for -individual effort. As the proverb goes, "Some one must bell the cat," -which is another way of saying that if each man waits upon his -neighbour, things will only grow worse and worse. - -It is for each in his place, before it is too late, to approach the -Jewish problem and to discuss it openly; to preface that discussion by a -frank interest and a general expression upon all those things in the -minority which directly concern its relations with the majority; to deal -with the Jewish nation exactly as one would with any other. - -It used to be a dictum in those who pleaded a lifetime ago for the open -criticism of Scripture, that "the Bible should be approached like any -other book."[2] The result is not of good augury to my present argument -and I rather dread the parallel; but since the phrase is well known I -will use it as a model. It is time, I say, to be rid of treating the -Jewish nation as something closed, mysterious and secret. Let us treat -it "like any other nation." It is no wonder if men, moved by nothing but -a blind hatred, feel some hesitation upon the consequence of that -hatred. But I am convinced that if we on our side get rid of this absurd -modern fear, take the Jew in his right proportions, rid our mind of -exaggeration in his regard--especially of the conception of some inhuman -ability capable of conducting a plot of diabolical ingenuity and -magnitude--we shall be met from the other side. - -The Jews are not the only force which is international nor the only -international force the dread of which has disturbed men's judgments. -They are not the only international force which has some degree of -organization and cohesion. If you desire to vent your active dislike of -the Scotch or of the Irish you must be prepared for a certain amount of -Scotch or Irish hostility. You will come across something of an -organization and suffer accordingly; but if you cherish the conception -of a vast subterranean force, Scotch or Irish, watching you with a -malignant power and capable of your destruction, you are, I think, out -of the real world. - -If you desire to vent your active dislike of the Catholic Church you -will find ubiquitous opposition. But if you conclude from this that you -are at grips with a monster then you are out of touch with reality. - -So it is, surely, with this dread of the Jewish power, which has sullied -so many men's minds, postponed the right discussion of the problem and -nourished ill-ease everywhere. If we simply act as though that dread -were despicable like any other dread, and turned to perfectly open -discussion of the whole affair, even to an open expression of hostility -where hostility is deserved, we shall be the better for it. In any case -it is our duty to ourselves as well as to the State to get rid of fear -in the business, for until we are rid of it no advance towards a -solution can be made. - -FOOTNOTE: - -[2] I beg leave to introduce an anecdote. An undergraduate once said to -Dr. Jowett, the Master of Balliol, "I take up the Gospels and treat them -as an ordinary book." The Master answered: "Did you not find them a very -extraordinary book?" So it will prove, I think, with the fascination of -Israel. - - -THEIR DUTY - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - -THEIR DUTY - - -Where positive causes have been found for an evil it is obvious that the -cure of that evil consists in the removal of the causes, in so far as -they can be removed. - -In the particular case of the friction between the Jewish community and -their hosts the causes of that friction are the foolish and dangerous -habit of secrecy and the irritating expression of superiority. The -causes the Jew can remove if he will. The matter is in his own hands: we -can do nothing: he can do everything. - -But beyond this negative duty which is incumbent upon the Jews if they -would achieve a peaceful issue of the perils which menace their future, -there is a positive action also incumbent upon them. They must foster, -they must even propose, institutions which will the better mark them off -from a society not their own and restore to them the dignity of a -nation. I shall in the last chapter of this book contend that the policy -leading to a solution must repose not upon direct laws of our own -imagining, not upon reactions which will almost certainly prove -oppressive, and almost certainly be evaded, but upon a general spirit -recognizing the separate nationality of the Jews. But though this is -true of every Christian Western State in which they find themselves, it -is not true of their own nation. They on their side may well come -forward with propositions which they have the capacity for making, -because they will know how to frame them (as we cannot) after a fashion -consistent with their own dignity and their own tradition. There is a -beginning of such things already present in the Jewish schools, the -Jewish guardians and the considerable separate organization which the -Jews have openly set up for their community in this country. These -beginnings have but to be extended. - -Those who are openly hostile to Jews will say that any proposals coming -from their side will conceal a trap. "This people" (they say) "will -always suggest things which will seem innocent enough and apparently do -no more than define their position plainly for the future; but we shall -find ourselves caught in an obligation and the Jews more our masters -than ever. They will," say these objectors, "remain as they are to-day, -and while they claim every privilege as a separate community, they will -also insist upon the full citizenship which is incompatible with this -attitude. We shall find that, whatever institutions we ask them to -frame, those institutions will work not only in their favour but also -heavily against us." - -I doubt it. The special Jewish institutions already at work have no such -effect. On the contrary, they already relieve the strain. One of those -institutions, for instance, is the Jewish press: the newspapers -specially devoted to Jewish interests and acting as spokesmen for Jewish -ideas. They are not always as polite as they might be. I have had myself -at times to lodge a complaint against the way in which they have -treated sincere efforts for the settlement of our difficulties and an -honest attempt at finding a way out. They have left a handle to their -enemies sometimes by too insistent or, as those enemies would call it, -too arrogant a claim, and they do write now and then as though we, the -vast majority, had no rights and the only thing worth considering was -the advancement of their own people. - -But, after all, it would be absurd to expect anything else. A small -minority vigorously fighting its own hand must exaggerate its claim; an -organism defending itself against very heavy pressure from without -cannot but appear aggressive, and I shall always maintain that the -presence of an openly Jewish institution speaking for Jewish interests, -no matter how insistently, is an excellent thing. It presents a healthy -contrast with the converse attempt to present Jewish arguments under the -cover of neutrality, and to spread Jewish ideas anonymously through what -are very far from being neutral agents. - -If I be asked what institutions I have in mind I can only repeat that it -is for the Jews themselves to make the first proposal, but I suggest an -extension of the system, which is already present in embryo, whereby -disputes between Jews shall be arbitrated before a Jewish tribunal. Not -only its extension but its confirmation at the request of the Jews -themselves, might be a good thing. It would also not be a bad thing -if--some time hence when things were ripe for the change--disputes -between Jews and non-Jews could be tried in Courts where the special -character of such disputes, the distinctive difference between them and -disputes between the fellow-citizens of the country in which they live, -should come before tribunals of a mixed character. To attempt this -to-day would, of course, be a very new departure in procedure, indeed a -revolutionary one; and there is no prospect of it for a long while; but -with the growing number among us, and the growing influence, of Jews it -will, I think, when it does come at last, be of advantage to both -parties. It would be fatal if it were imposed upon them. It would not be -accepted. It would not work. But if it were suggested by the Jewish -community spontaneously, and started and developed by them, it would -succeed. And it would add a great deal to the relief already experienced -for the functioning of the other institutions I have mentioned. - -There is little more to be said under this head. Apart from the duty of -open dealing and this specific policy of fostering separate institutions -we have no claim to press. - -All the main part of the mutual Duty is on _our_ side. Therefore have I -given it the space it seems to deserve and confined to no more than -these few lines correlative suggestions for those who, after all, are -not responsible to us for their actions and may properly resent the -airing of _our_ views on the domestic details of their alien -organization. - - -VARIOUS THEORIES - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - -VARIOUS THEORIES - - -Before approaching my conclusion it may be well to review certain -subsidiary theories which I have not hitherto touched in my discussion, -because they stand apart from its argument. - -There is a whole group of historical and other theories upon the -position of the Jews which either imply that there is no problem, or if -there is one that it cannot be solved, or even that if there is a -problem it is of a sort that does not need solution, because that -solution would be of no practical value. - -There come in the first place those theories upon the international -position of the Jews which are frankly non-rational, and which vary from -those which may be defended with some show of reason from the history of -the past, to those which are wholly imaginary. None of these, even -though some one of them should be true, can find much place here because -none lends itself to discussion. - -Thus there is the conception of a curse; the conception that Israel -must, until its conversion, suffer a perpetual pilgrimage and perpetual -hostility. It is a statement bound up with that other popular prophecy -that in the last days Israel will be reconciled with the Universal -Church. Those who have these ideas at the back of their minds (they are -more numerous than modern thought would like to admit), at heart despair -of any solution, and would not attempt to urge it with any hope of -success. They say, "The thing is fated and must continue." But even -they, I think, must admit that just as philosophy admits a paradox of -determination and free will, so political effort must admit a paradox of -foreseen failures and our duty, in spite of them, to aim at a political -good. - -Whether it be indeed true or not, that reconciliation is impossible and -that in the long run the quarrel must drag itself out, it is certainly -profoundly immoral to look on at the spectacle with no attempt to -ameliorate its evils. - -There is again the theory (which I mention in passing and leave to its -adherents) that the British and the Jews are in some way mysteriously -allied by Providence, so that any solution which does not give the -fullest satisfaction to Israel (no matter at what cost to poor Japhet) -is treason. These people mystically regard Britain as the handmaid of -Jewry, and there is a section of them who further regard their -fellow-countrymen as the ten lost tribes. I have in my library some -specimens of their literature. - -There is an opposite and, to me, detestable theory (but I must mention -it because it exists), that the antagonism hitherto found perpetually, -whether latent or active, between this people and the world about them -is the use of the one as a necessary and divine oppressor of the other. -To those who hold such a theory I can only reply that two can play at -that game, and it certainly absolves those whom they would oppress from -any obligation whatever of seeking a solution on their side. If a man -thinks he can do harm to Israel wantonly, without suffering the -reproaches of his own conscience, he is in error; and I confess that -were I free (as I am not in a book of discussion and argument) to -indulge in mere affirmation I should be inclined to say that those who -set out with this remarkable object in view will catch a Tartar. - -There is the opposite theory that a special and Divine protection is -still exercised, not only for the preservation of the Jews but for -judgment upon their enemies. _That_ theory, I think, lies at the back of -many a Jewish action in history and of much Jewish policy to-day. -Non-rational, religious in origin, it is, I fancy, to very many of the -race which has suffered so much, a consolation and a support. - -Now all these non-rational theories (I use the word without any bad -connotation: the non-rational--what is often inaccurately called the -mystical--attitude towards any problem may well be more practical than -the rational approach to it) I leave on one side as improper to rational -discussion. - -I have heard it maintained, again, by both parties to this debate, that -the presence of an alien force, migratory, intense, full of tradition, -experience and cohesion, was essential to the height and the activity of -our own civilization. - -These are not content to discover individual instances of Jewish -excellence in the mass around them, or to extend the renown of -individual Jewish genius. They are rather concerned with the general -proposition that _some_ such flux is necessary to the full action of a -high and diverse culture. They tell us that but for the Jew the -civilization of Europe would have grown torpid, would have settled into -a fixed groove, incapable of change and of creative progress. The Jew, -by this theory, is regarded as a sort of activating principle, who, -whether as an irritant at the worst, or an inspiration at the best, -keeps all our European life agog, and is necessary to its continuous -business. These also incline to see the Jew at the origin of every great -movement in European thought. They see him indirectly producing the vast -transformation of the Roman Empire from a pagan, not indeed to a Jew but -to a Christian, that is (in their eyes) to an Oriental mood. They see -the Jew at the root of the great revolutionary philosophy which springs -from the eleventh century and reaches its culmination in the great -scholastics of the thirteenth. They insist upon the name of Averroës -(Ibn Roshd), the philosopher of the twelfth century, the Kadi of -Cordova: the exponent of Aristotle, the expositor--whom the Jews -preserved: upon the great Moses ben Maimon, our Maimonides. These also -put Nicolas de Lyra at the root of the Reformation: "_Si Lyra non -lyrasset Luther non saltasset._" But I may remind them that the Jewish -character of this man is at least doubtful, that he was of the religious -Orders of Christendom. - -These also will certainly and with some reason ascribe to Jewish -influence the great economic revolution of the seventeenth century, -which has been followed by so vast an extension of wealth and of -population, though hardly of human happiness. - -Now for all this there is certainly something to be said as an aspect of -historical truth. How far it may be extended to cover, as its exponents -would make it cover, the whole historical field, may be debated, but I -would ask my readers to consider what change we should have seen in the -development of Europe if by some magical instrument Jewish influence -had been upon some one date removed. It is a theory fascinating, in a -way applicable, and arresting. It is, at any rate, not nonsense. - -It is particularly true that something in the continuous exercise of -analysis by the Jewish intelligence perpetually moves European -intelligence to action--The great disputations of the Early Middle Ages -were, largely, either directly disputations with Jews or disputations -provoked by the intellectual attitude of the Jew; and the Jew, in the -famous name of Spinoza, stands at the origin of that merely natural, -that Lucretian interpretation of the world which continued through -Descartes to its great expansion in the present day. You find that -element in economics as you do in philosophy, in political science as -you do in economics; and, talking of economics, it must not be forgotten -that the greatest name at the foundation of modern economic science is -the name of a Jew, Ricardo, while the most prominent name in the -development of its most prominent direct application is also a Jewish -name--the name of Karl Marx. - -It is not without significance that any one of these names recalls, side -by side with its Jewish origin, an aloofness from the general community -of the Jews. That community, I think it is fair to say, abandoned -Spinoza; Ricardo and, I believe, Karl Marx were alien to the national -religion, and the latter married out of his people and exercised his -enormous influence extraneously to the blood from which his family -sprang. For though it is true that the _direction_, the _staff_ of -Communism is Jewish, yet its convinced adherents are in the mass of our -blood. - -And in that connection I am reminded of another theory or fact -attaching to the history of Israel, which is that the intellectual -independence of the Jew has been as marked throughout the ages as his -solidarity. There are many, I know, of that nation who regard such -exceptions as vagaries and almost condemn them as traitors; yet they are -no small asset to the reputation of their people and their names, -however much they may be repudiated by their compatriots, shed lustre -upon the whole body from which they sprang. These include (let it be -remembered) not only the "sceptical" philosophers, not only the -materialists, but also those extraordinary exceptions who have lent the -vigour, the tenacity and the lustre of the Jewish intellect to the -service of the Catholic Church. I make bold to say that in no one of the -Faith has there been more devotion than in those who, like Ratisbonne -(and he was but one among many), have put such qualities at the service -of what they have discovered to be alone divine. A cynic might add St. -Paul, but, for that matter, the whole origin of the Church was -intermixed with the intense individual efforts of such men. - -In this connection also every wise man will admit that there is no -greater error than to exaggerate the consciousness of Jewish action -whether the error proceed from those who admire or who detest it. To -hear their modern opponents talk one might imagine that the Jewish -people formed a small club of which every member knew every other while -each worked in the unison of a disciplined body. That aberration I have -dealt with more than once upon former pages. The truth is that no nation -on earth presents so many surprising exceptions to its general action -as does this nation, and that no nation on earth, when it moves in one -general direction, as it often does, is actuated by a common motive less -conscious. We who stand outside the Jewish body may mark its cohesion, -and will mark it, I hope, to its honour; but its own members complain -rather of its lack of cohesion. I have heard them complain--I know not -how often--of the way in which the wealthier Jews left their society for -that of an alien body, sneered at the general body of Israel, and -remained indifferent to the common cry of the race. It is this -unconsciousness in action, this frequent replacement of motive by -instinct which accounts for what all observers have noticed, especially -in times of persecution. I mean the bewilderment of the oppressed at the -action of their oppressors. - -I remember once listening to a most eloquent speech delivered in the -course of a debate in which, with that long recollection which is -characteristic of his people, an Israelite passionately declaimed the -gratitude of that people to St. Bernard who saved their remnant upon the -Rhine from the popular fury. I remember also how another in a debate -(for I have attended many such up and down the country and have heard -from as many aspects as possible what the Jewish attitude towards us is) -stated simply, in reply to my description of the Jewish financial -position in this country after the Conquest: "Your cathedral and your -abbeys and even your castles were built with _our_ money." The phrase -was significant of the way in which what the English community of the -time regarded as a tolerated abuse, those fortunes which _they_ never -thought of as Jewish at all, but as moneys temporarily unjustly wrung -from the people at large, were regarded in contemporary Jewry as private -property legitimately acquired, held in full possession. - -I could wish in this connection that some learned Jew would produce a -History of Europe from the point of view of his people: a short -textbook, I mean, intended for our consumption; to show us ourselves -from a standpoint very different from our own. It may be that such a -book exists. I am certain it would be more useful than those indirect -attacks (for they are attacks) upon the Christian tradition which -pretend to a spirit of impartiality but are none the less hostile to -that tradition in every line. I would much rather read the story of -Europe as it was seen by a practising Jewish scholar than a so-called -impartial and agnostic account which grotesquely represents the Church -as something external to the body of Europe and even inimical to it. - -In this connection also we should have (what now we lack), and that is a -conspectus of the Jewish action over Christendom and Islam combined. We -are aware of the tolerance, or rather favour, displayed to their Jewish -subjects by the Mohammedans of Spain. It was neither universal nor -continuous. What we do not sufficiently hear, what we have to piece -together from chance allusions, is the connection between the Moorish -Jews, before and during the Reconquista, and their fellows to the north. - -Before I leave these cursory and sporadic notes on what I have called -the "theories" upon our problem, I should mention one which would -unhappily seem to have acquired widespread support to-day and which is -surely the least satisfactory of all--even less satisfactory than the -now dying fiction which pretended that the Jewish nation was not present -in our midst, but consisted only of a mass of individuals already -absorbed by their alien surroundings. I mean the theory that it is -possible to continue in a sort of simmering atmosphere of partial -repression, with the Jew treated as something alien and hostile, yet his -presence unceasingly tolerated. That would seem to be the imperfect -conclusion implied, if not stated, in a hundred modern pamphlets and -discussions, the authors of which repudiate the name of Anti-Semite -though they sympathize apparently with action even less logical than the -politics of the Anti-Semite. There is no such equilibrium possible, even -if its establishment were as moral as it is in fact immoral. If a frank -solution be not found, nothing firm can be established. All we shall be -establishing will be a violent and successive fluctuation. It is -impossible to maintain an attitude permanently hostile to one's -neighbour, yet count on that hostility remaining permanently repressed. -You fall inevitably along the slope of such a tendency into those -excesses which it should be our whole object to condemn, to foresee and -to prevent. - -You cannot continue, as so many modern men seem, from their -conversation, to wish, with political equality on the one side and a -living spirit of enmity upon the other. You cannot get peace by giving a -mere legal definition to the status of a minority, which is also -necessarily your neighbour, and refusing a social action consonant with -the legal definition. If you try to do that you are trying to do two -things, one of which will destroy the other. No one can doubt which -will be victorious in a conflict between a living sentient motive and a -mere definition in public law. - -One attitude towards the question which I have heard fairly often in the -mouths of Jews and seen in their writings is something like this: "Our -affairs have nothing to do with people outside our nation. This -discussion of what you call 'the Jewish problem' is an impertinence upon -your part. There is a Jewish problem indeed, but it is a domestic -problem, and we request you (with some asperity) to mind your own -business." - -If this attitude were sound, the search for what I have called a -solution, though it might satisfy the intelligence, would be a breach of -civic morals. In the same way it would be a breach of civic morals for -me to work out a solution for the quarrel between Mr. Jones and his -mother-in-law, neither of whom I have ever met and with whom I have no -relations, and then to press this solution upon the contending parties. -But the flaw in this attitude is that the problem is essentially one -involving two parties, the Jews and the non-Jews. The problem we are -attempting to solve is a problem expressed in terms of both. Some would -even say that there is hardly a domestic question within the Jewish -nation which does not have its reaction upon society outside it, and -which it is not the business of that society outside to inquire into. -That would be pressing things rather far. But the main problem is -intimately concerned with both parties and as much with the one as with -the other. It is true, indeed, that the consequences of a false -solution, or of shirking the solution altogether, would be more acute -for the Jew than for us; but we should both suffer, and even on our -side the suffering would be grievous. - -Even if there were no question of suffering in the ordinary sense of the -term, there would still be the question of justice. The Jews who resent -a statement of the problem and an attempt at solving it are not doing -their own people any good and are at the same time denying us the right -of putting our own affairs in order, which denial is, of course, -intolerable: for the position of the Jews in our great States and in -Islamic society is something which those States and that society have to -determine. They cannot leave it in the air. To some conclusion they -_must_ come, and soon, and on the nature of that conclusion depends -their peace. - -Two theories, proceeding from very different states of mind, the -opposite each of the other, but each exclusive of any solution, spring -from the root idea that there is something inexorably malignant in the -relations between the Jew and his surroundings. In the one form this -takes the shape of affirming that the unfortunate Jew is invariably -ill-treated by his wicked hosts and always will be so ill-treated. In -the other it takes the form of saying that the wicked Jew will always be -conspiring and trying to hurt his good, kind hosts and always will be so -conspiring. In either case it is no good trying to find a solution, for -it is affirmed that the quarrel is in the nature of things. People will -say to one, "Why attempt to change something which cannot be changed? -Why talk of your material as something other than what it is? Cats will -always quarrel with dogs, and if you want to avoid a quarrel the only -thing to do is to keep the dogs and cats of your household apart." - -It is precisely because I do not believe either form of this idea to be -true that I have sought for a solution. I do not believe either form of -doctrine to be true because the evidence is against it. That evidence is -to my hand and can be examined by my own unaided powers, as it can be -examined by any other person in our modern society. I cannot recollect -one single case in all the hundreds of Jews I have come across--not one -in the score whom I can count as intimates--who showed any sign of this -malignant hatred. I have heard many outbursts of exasperation which, -when we think of the past, are natural enough; but of some persistent -and evil desire to hurt those among whom they live, some instinctive -desire unconnected with past suffering, and acting as a sort of -instinct, I have seen no trace. If such were to be discovered in some -exceptional Jew out of a large acquaintance I should conclude that it -might be true of a small minority, but common sense and common -experience are sufficient to show that it does not affect the mass. - -Of the causes of friction, even of acute friction, which I have -enumerated in former pages, there is the habit of secrecy, there is the -mutual contempt, arising in each from a sense of superiority over the -other; there is the quarrel between what is national and what is -international, between what is of us and what is alien. There are, in a -word, plenty of elements suggesting accidental antagonism, but of -intrinsic antagonism there is no evidence--there is no evidence, I mean, -that the Jews would still desire to destroy a society in which they -found themselves at their ease. - -And, if we examine ourselves, we shall be equally convinced that there -is no corresponding desire upon our side to do a wrong to the Jew. We -also are exasperated by the memory of insult in moments of quarrel, of -international action opposing our national interests and of friction -between what is native and what is alien; but that is a very different -thing from permanent and necessary antagonism. I know very well what is -called "modern thought" gives to the unconscious part of man a large -place and reduces, as much as it can, the field of reason. I cannot -agree with it. It seems to me that man is essentially rational; and his -political relations can be arranged consonantly with his conscious -morals and his conscious logic. - -At any rate, if they cannot, there is an end of all statesmanship and of -all useful political action even in details. - -Next, there are the two converse attitudes towards the question which -certainly are affecting, the one an increasing audience upon our side -and the other perhaps an interested though but secret audience upon the -other; I mean those two converse theories whereby, on the one side, -there is the Messianic idea of the Jew ultimately controlling the world, -on the other an extreme dread of that idea and a belief that it is being -actively pursued to the destruction of our institutions and religion. - -I can understand that, with the traditions of his race behind him and -with the tone of their sacred writings in his ears, a Jew should lean in -some degree to such a conception, or at any rate that some Jews should -lean towards it. Certainly in face of the ridiculously exaggerated power -of the Jews in recent times (it is now declining, for secrecy was of its -essence and it has now been brought into the arena of open discussion) -it was natural that men should fall into the exaggeration of panic. They -saw the Jew, a tiny fraction of most communities, not more than a -twentieth of any community, exercising a power quite out of proportion -to his numbers or, indeed, to his ability; and they saw that power -directed towards ends which were Jewish ends and therefore hostile or -indifferent to the rest of mankind. But my reason for rejecting not only -exaggerations of this idea but its fundamental implication is that it -seems to me practically impossible. It connotes abilities upon the -Jewish side, a continuous will upon the Jewish side, both of which are -obviously absent. And you have only to look at history to see that long -before things come to anything like a struggle for supremacy it is the -Jew who suffers most from the suspicion of holding such a design, not -we. Indeed, that is one of the important elements in the dangerous -situation which has been created to-day. - -That large and greatly increasing body of men who so fear Jewish -domination, and are vigorously reacting against the Jews under the -influence of that fear, are much more likely to end with injustice to -the Jew than with subservience to him. It is from this atmosphere that -the great misfortunes of the past have arisen. It is of the essence of -any solution that this mood should be exorcised upon the one side as -upon the other. - -There is another theory which I have read of in more than one learned -Jewish treatise and which has been repeated (after Jewish authors -themselves had launched it) by many non-Jewish societies and historians, -to the effect that the very survival of the Jews, their very existence -as a separate community, was due to conditions common in the past, now -disappeared, and that therefore the present difficulties can safely be -left to time. - -This is, of course, to make the general assertion that the Jewish race -can be absorbed, and that absorption is the solution. That conclusion I -summarily rejected in the earlier pages of this book on the historical -ground that it has had the most favourable circumstances for success and -yet has always failed. But in the particular case stated it has an -argument of its own and one needing very special examination: it is -this:-- - -Those who defend this theory tell us that however favourable the -opportunities for absorption were in the past they are nothing to the -opportunities of the present and the future, and that therefore the -argument from history fails. In the past (they tell us) the Jews were -exclusive and even made of their exclusiveness a religion. They on their -side mixed as little as possible with the world around them and we on -our side maintained that exclusion by an equal insistence upon the -difference between ourselves and them. We had in those days, it is -maintained, a religion based upon the Incarnation and therefore -abhorrent to the Jew; that religion is dead or dying, and with it the -tendency to exclusion from outside has disappeared; while on the Jewish -side there is also a great weakening of the old religious bond, less of -the old Messianic dogma, and on both sides the enormous melting-pot[3] -that makes for absorption with an intensity and rapidity quite unknown -in the past. It was one thing to absorb the Jew when it took a month to -go as an ordinary traveller from London to Rome, it is another thing -when it takes three days. It was one thing to absorb the Jew when in the -greater part of cases there was a bar to the mixing of the races, based -upon the nerves of religion, it is quite another thing to absorb the Jew -when those most powerful of emotional forces have disappeared--and so -forth. - -Now the reasons which bring me to reject this theory are two-fold. - -In the first place, I think it exaggerates the contrast between the past -and the present. In the second place, I know that in the actual world -before me and precisely under those conditions where the fusion, the -action of the "melting-pot," ought to be most complete, the most violent -reaction against absorption is to be observed. - -As to the contrast between the past and the present, I think it is based -upon an imperfect apprehension of what our past has been. It comes of -that "telescoping up" of history to which I alluded in another -connection in my second chapter. - -The long story of our race between the Roman occupation of Judæa and the -modern local and ephemeral industrial phase of the great modern towns is -not divided into two chapters, the strange past and the comprehensible -present. It is much of a muchness. The constant developments which -astonish us to-day in physical science, for instance, are not more -remarkable than the vast new developments in architecture and philosophy -which marked the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The disturbance of -thought which may be called "modern scepticism" is not anything like so -important a spiritual change as that tremendous revolution which we call -the conversion of the Roman Empire. The area of scepticism is not larger -to-day than it has been in many special periods of the past. The feeling -of strong religious emotion which forbids this or that action is still -present among us, sometimes attached to its older objects, sometimes (as -in the craze for prohibition) to some novel object. The indifference -which you will find to the particular religious barrier between Jew and -non-Jew is not peculiar to our times. It has come and gone in the past; -after a wave of such indifference you have had a wave of the most acute -reaction, and I think you are observing a wave of such reaction to-day. - -Nor do I see how the rapidity of mere physical communications affects -the matter, nor even how the volume of emigration affects the matter. -You can get a million Jews from Lithuania to New York--a distance of -5,000 miles--in less time than you could get a million Jews from the -Valley of the Rhine into Poland some centuries ago; but the million Jews -seem to remain Jews just the same under modern conditions as they did in -the past. Indeed, the toleration of Jews, the friendly reception of -them, and therefore the opportunities for their absorption were -indefinitely greater in mediaeval Poland than they are in modern -America. It seems to me that the whole of this part of the argument is -based upon that prevalent view of history which comes from reading our -little modern text-books: and our little modern text-books are very -rubbishy. It is a view which comes from that absurd emphasis upon -whatever is contemporary. The modern advance of physical science is -regarded as having totally changed the world inwardly as well as -outwardly. We have only to look at the modern world and to compare it -with any _two_ distant, special periods we know, to discover that the -difference between any pair of these three is equally striking. In many -ways the modern world is much more like the world of the Antonines than -it is like the world of Innocent the Great. In many ways the world of -Innocent the Great is much more like the Roman Empire than the modern -world. In many ways the world of Innocent the Great and our world have -more in common than either has with the pagan Roman Empire. The general -lesson is, therefore, that our time, with all its remarkable -specialities, is but one specimen out of a great number equally -individual, and certainly there is nothing in it either of religious -scepticism breaking down old religious barriers or of rapidity of -communication, or of any other fundamental factor, which specially -suggests the absorption of the Jew. - -For instance, the Jews mixed much more readily, on a much more equal -footing and with far less friction among the Mohammedans at particular -periods during the Islamic occupation of Spain than they do even in -England to-day. Yet they were not absorbed there, any more than they -were absorbed in Poland. They were not absorbed into that older, -tolerant, very denationalized pagan Roman world where they so often had -full civic rights and where they even manipulated, as they manipulate -to-day, the finances of the community. - -As for the decay of exclusiveness on their part, I see no sign of it. -For this exclusiveness proceeds not so much from a particular -observance which may relax at one period and tighten up at another, as -from an invariable national tradition which fluctuates in intensity but -never sinks so low as to jeopardize the continuance of the people. - -If we turn from argument to observation, the falsity of the theory -stares us in the face. We have but to take one point, where the metaphor -of the "melting-pot" most applies (and to which it was originally -applied), the city of New York. What has been the effect of this great -influx of Jews into New York, this turning of New York into a city a -third Jewish under our eyes and in so short a space of time? As we all -know, the effect has been the uprising, in that once indifferent -atmosphere, of such a feeling against the Jews as would appal us did we -see it in the Old World. It is red hot. It is an intense reaction -expressing itself with greater and greater violence every day; and the -spirit of that reaction cannot be better expressed than in a phrase -which we owe, I think, to Mr. Ford and his famous propaganda against the -Jews, through his paper the "Dearborn Independent." "It is all very well -to talk of the melting-pot," says he, "but so far from the Jews melting -in that pot, _it looks as though they wanted to melt the pot itself_." - -There you have, in New York, if anywhere, an opportunity for the theory -of absorption to prove itself. You have present in the field a score of -different races, including great masses of a race so utterly different -from ours as the negro. You have a certain small proportion of Chinamen -and you have of European stocks an indefinite variety--most of them in -large numbers. You have not only in local establishments or even only -in civic theory, but in actual practice--in enthusiastic practice--a -complete equality and a positive pride in the reception of no matter -what elements of immigration, in the certitude that all can rapidly be -moulded into the American form. Most of these elements were absorbed, -and absorbed rapidly; where they were not absorbed there was at least -peace between them. Then arrives the Jew and a totally new situation at -once appears. A situation of challenge, of provocation, of admitted -exclusion, of violent debate and even of clamour: but no sign of -absorption. In presence of all the elements that should make for -absorption, difference and hatred between Jew and non-Jew is growing in -New York with the vitality of a tropical plant. - -There is yet another theory which, if it were not widely held and if it -had not been advanced by so many Jews themselves, I should leave aside -as something comic, something unfit for serious discussion. But it has -been advanced and it must be met. It is no less than the theory that -there are no such people as the Jews, that the whole thing is illusion. - -This monstrous affirmation is based, I need hardly say, upon what is -called a "scientific" examination of the affair: for that word -"scientific" has come to be associated with every kind of unreason. Men, -especially Jewish men, have been found to affirm most solemnly that they -had measured skulls, taken sections of hair, catalogued the colours of -eyes, established facial angles, analysed blood, and applied I know not -how many other tricks, with the result that no Jewish type could be -discovered! People who can reason thus do not seem to appreciate the -fundamental quarrel between nominalism and realism, or to have heard of -the old philosophic joke on the definition of "a thing." - -We know a horse to be a horse, an apple to be an apple, a Chinaman to be -a Chinaman, or a Jew to be a Jew by some process on which philosophers -can debate, but upon the virtue of which no sane man doubts and upon the -right action of which we base all our lives. The chemist may tell me -that the chemical analysis of a lump of coal gives the same result as -the chemical analysis of a diamond, to which any man capable of using -his reason at all will reply that upon a very large number of other -lines of analysis, colour, touch, combustibility, hardness and softness, -economic value, prevalence (and so on indefinitely), the two are _not_ -the same. No analysis is complete, and if we had made no conscious -analysis at all, we could still perceive at once that a lump of coal is -not a diamond. - -It is just the same with these pseudo-scientific attempts to disprove -obvious truth. They pullulate and they are all equally ridiculous -because they deduce from insufficient data. The existence and -differentiation of the Jewish people as a race ethnically and as a -nation politically is as much a fact as the existence of coal or -diamonds. They are a nation politically because they act as a nation, -because their individual members feel and exercise a corporate function. -We know them to be a separate race because we can see that they are. -When you meet a Jew, whether you are his enemy or his friend, you meet a -Jew. He has a certain expression, a certain manner, certain physical -characteristics which you may not be able to analyse at the moment you -see him, but which give you the impression and the certitude that you -are dealing with a particular thing, to wit, the Jewish race. It is -true, of course, that the type, like all general types, fades off at the -edges, and there will always be cases where you may be in doubt of -whether you are dealing with a Jew or with a non-Jew, but there is a -marked central type round which the Jewish racial type is built up. That -is as certain as that there is a Mongolian type, or a negroid type, and -so forth. - -I do not take the objection very seriously. I only note it because it -_has_ been made, and may crop up in the course of any discussion on this -grave political issue. - -FOOTNOTE: - -[3] I borrow the metaphor from Mr. Zangwill, who applied it to New York -particularly. I apply it to the whole modern industrial world. - - -HABIT OR LAW? - - - - -CHAPTER XV - -HABIT OR LAW? - - -If it be true that the friction between the Jew and the civilization in -which he lives is aggravated by his habit of secrecy and by our -disingenuousness, by his expression of a sense of superiority which -galls us, and on our side by a lack of charity and of intelligence in -dealing with him, it would follow that no solution can be more than -approximate: that whatever arrangement be come to the contrast will -remain, and with it a certain latent friction, which always accompanies -contrast. - -But there is between a simmering of that kind and the active boiling of -the question to-day (with the threat of its boiling _over_) all the -difference in the world. But even though the solution be imperfect, it -might be reasonably stable: we might at least have peace, though not -friendship. It further follows from the elements of the problem that the -solution lies along the lines of either party modifying whatever in its -action is an irritant to the other; whatever, that is, can be modified -by the will, and is not mixed up with something ineradicable. - -The Jew cannot help feeling superior, but he can help the expression of -that superiority--at any rate he can modify such expression. He can -certainly, though it be at a great expense of tradition and habit, get -rid of that pestilent pseudo-defence of secrecy which poisons all the -relations between him and ourselves. We on our side can drop what is the -converse of that secrecy, the disingenuousness, the lack of candour, -into which we are fallen in our relations with the Jew. That cannot but -mean a great breach with our tradition and with habit also, but the -advantage is worth the sacrifice. We can (it must be the work of each -individual, it cannot be a corporate work) approach the Jew with more -respect and yet with more frequency. We can, I think, advance by many -degrees from the lack of charity we now show, even if we despair of -living in real intimacy with a people so different in their deepest -qualities from ourselves. - -Personally, I am not sure that such closer intimacy might not be -established; I have never found any difficulty in reaching and retaining -intimate acquaintance with the Jews of my own circle--but I may have -been fortunate. I know that with most of my fellows it is not so, and -perhaps the Jew will always remain to the mass of those about him -something strange and unapproachable, and I fear, repulsive. But there -is no reason, why we should mix with that hesitation in our relations an -element of indifference, still less of contempt, still less, again, of -cruelty. - -I repeat the formula for a solution: it is recognition and respect. - -Recognition is here no more than the telling of the truth: there is a -Jewish nation. Jews are citizens of that nation; and recognition means -not only the telling of this truth on special occasions but the use of -it as a regular habit in our relations on both sides. - -This statement is, upon any just analysis of the Jewish question, so -obvious and so simple, that it needs neither insistence upon it nor -development. Its plain statement is sufficient. But there attaches to a -solution so determined a much more active and complicated question, upon -the uncertainty of which not only this reform but many another has made -shipwreck. The question must be answered rightly, because, if we answer -it wrongly, the whole scheme fails. - -The question is this: Should the social habit, the general method in -writing and speaking and in all relations, precede in this case the -institutional action, legal changes, constitutional definitions? Or -should the legal changes, the new institutions, the constitutional -definitions come first? - -To decide rightly is of great moment, for this reason, that a wrong -decision may destroy all the effect of goodwill. - -In my judgment the wrong decision would be that which would give -precedence to legal change, to new definitions, to new institutions, and -attempt out of them to build a new spirit. I take it that this reversal -of the true order would make all stable peace impossible. - -It must be admitted, of course, that changes suggested by the Jews -themselves, the development of their own institutions, a voluntary -segregation of their community in other fields than those in which they -have already effected that segregation, stand in another category. These -new and definitely Jewish institutions we should always welcome. But the -attempt at framing public regulations, which are to defend the community -as a whole against an alien minority, when that minority must live with -one permanently and as a regular feature of the life of the community, -invariably tends to oppression, if such regulations are made the first -steps in a settlement instead of being left, as they should be, to the -last. Any separatist legislation should arise naturally out of a long -practice and full recognition of the Jews as a separate people and of -the accompaniment of that recognition with respect. If the advance is -made on our side, the Jew may refuse any such bargain. He may dig his -heels in and insist, as many another privileged class has insisted -before him, that he will continue to enjoy all that he has ever enjoyed, -that he will continue his demand for a dual allegiance, that he will -insist on the very fullest recognition as a Jew, and at the same time on -what is fatal to such recognition, the fullest recognition as a member -of our own community. - -If he does _that_ (and there are those who tell us he will certainly do -so, and will refuse all reform), then the community will be compelled to -legislate in spite of him. It will be perilous for him and for us; it -may even be the beginning of grievous trouble for both, but it will be -inevitable. It will appear in a mass of legislation all over Europe, -which will affect this country with the rest. - -The present situation cannot last indefinitely. It is already uncertain -even here, in England; it has reached further stages on the road to ruin -elsewhere. But if the Jew sees the peril in time, and appreciates the -nature of that change, the beginnings of which we have all seen and -which is proceeding at so great a pace, then relations can be -established out of which (later) formal rules, acceptable to both -parties, should proceed. And in that case it would be, I repeat, the -gravest of errors to initiate new positive laws and a new status before -a foundation had been prepared by the re-establishment of honest -relations; and that can only be done by a frank admission of reality, by -the open and continual admission everywhere that Israel is a nation -apart, is not, and cannot be, of us, and shall not be confounded with -ourselves. - -There is great temptation to delay, because the acuteness of the problem -is not felt here as yet, among the well-to-do, and still more because it -differs in different communities. The peril seems still far distant from -us, though it may be at the very door of our neighbours. Routine, the -inheritance of the immediate past, the false security produced by the -conventions of that past, may well tempt those who dislike the effort of -a change to shirk that change. But I would ask any intelligent and -thoughtful Jew who still thinks he can rely upon the false position of -the nineteenth century whether the same forces are there to support him -to-day as were present then? - -Take a particular example. In Poland and in Roumania the old fiction has -been temporarily imposed by force. The Jew, who in both these countries -is felt to be more alien than any other foreign European could be, is -imposed upon the Government and society of each country by the Western -Governments as a full citizen. The strain here is immensely aggravated -because it arose not from the nature of society but from the action of -outsiders; the English, the French, the American Governments (but -particularly the American and the English) have erected in Eastern -Europe this unstable, unjust and artificial state of affairs. It cannot -last, for it is unreal. - -The communities in question may make no laws which recognize the Jew; -alternatively, the door is open for oppression: and the moment the hated -foreign interference weakens, oppression will come. - -Well, when under the pressure of a real social difficulty and a crucial -one, the unreal settlement is torn up, by the passing of new laws -recognizing the Jew (but harshly, and under no agreement with him) or by -actual hostility, does the Jew in his heart of hearts think that he -would have the same support from the West now as he would have had -thirty years ago? He knows very well he would not. - -Thirty years ago you would have got from all the traditional Liberalism -of France, from the great bulk of its governing class and the whole of -its academic organization, from what was then the solid and still -respected body of old Republicans, an immediate answer to the Jewish -appeal. In England that answer would have been unanimous and -enthusiastic. You would have had torrents of leading articles, great -public meetings, Cabinet Ministers speechifying all over the place in -the sacred cause of toleration. Every one knows that to-day the appeal -of the Eastern Jews, though it might still be supported officially, -would be received by the public with indifference. Ten years hence it -may be received with derision. - -Or take another example. Let us suppose--it is highly probable--that the -Zionist experiment breaks down, that Englishmen refuse to have their -soldiers' lives risked in a quarrel which is not their own and refuse to -support out of their inordinate taxation a top-heavy colony which gives -them no advantage and concerns them not at all. On the breakdown of that -experiment, should it come soon, would there still be the support for -its re-establishment that you would have had even ten years ago? There -certainly would not. Ten years hence it is probable enough that you -would get, not indifference to such re-establishment, but the most -active hostility. All over the world the stream has turned in the same -direction. - -Unfortunately the effect of that change has been to excite hatred rather -than a desire for a settlement and to move men towards blind action -rather than towards a reasoned examination of the difficulty. That is -why the thing seems to me urgent, although there are still large areas -of Western society in which its urgency is masked and half forgotten. - -When I say "_urgent_" I mean that this my essay, which is to-day still -to the point, and the solution recommended in which is still feasible, -may very well, within the lifetime of its writer, become old-fashioned -out of all recognition. The peaceful settlement here proposed with -deliberate vagueness and softness of outline may seem in a few years as -out of date, as unreal through the intervening change, as do to-day the -old tags about the purity of parliamentary life and the seriousness of -party politics. - -My solution may appear at the end of this generation as mildly -inapplicable to the acute situation _then_ arisen between the Jews and -ourselves as appear to-day the old debates on the very tentative demand -for Home Rule in the '80's. Let us act as soon as possible and settle -the thing while there is yet time. For in the swirl and rapids of the -modern world, which grow not less as towards a calm, but more intense as -towards a cataract, every great debate takes on with every year a -stronger form, a nearer approach to conflict; and none more than the -immemorial debate, still unconcluded, between Islam and Christendom and -the Beni-Israel. - -But for my part, I say, "Peace be to Israel." - - -_Printed in Great Britain by_ Butler & Tanner, _Frome and London_. - - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JEWS*** - - -******* This file should be named 50556-8.txt or 50556-8.zip ******* - - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/5/0/5/5/50556 - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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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 at <a -href="http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you are not -located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this ebook.</p> -<p>Title: The Jews</p> -<p>Author: Hilaire Belloc</p> -<p>Release Date: November 26, 2015 [eBook #50556]</p> -<p>Language: English</p> -<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> -<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JEWS***</p> -<p> </p> -<h4>E-text prepared by Clarity, Martin Pettit,<br /> - and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> - (<a href="http://www.pgdp.net">http://www.pgdp.net</a>)<br /> - from page images generously made available by<br /> - Internet Archive/American Libraries<br /> - (<a href="https://archive.org/details/americana">https://archive.org/details/americana</a>)</h4> -<p> </p> -<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10"> - <tr> - <td valign="top"> - Note: - </td> - <td> - Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive/American Libraries. See - <a href="https://archive.org/details/jewsbelloc00bellrich"> - https://archive.org/details/jewsbelloc00bellrich</a> - </td> - </tr> -</table> -<p> </p> -<hr class="full" /> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> - -<div class="center"><a name="cover.jpg" id="cover.jpg"></a><img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="cover" /></div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[Pg i]</a></span></p> - -<p class="bold2">THE JEWS</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[Pg ii]</a></span></p> - -<h2><i>BY THE SAME AUTHOR</i>:</h2> - -<hr class="smler" /> - -<div class="box"> -<p class="bold">EUROPE AND THE FAITH</p> - -<blockquote><p>"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."—<i>The -Church Times.</i></p></blockquote> - -<p class="bold">THE OLD ROAD</p> - -<blockquote><p>With Illustrations by William Hyde, a Map and Route Guides. New -Edition.</p></blockquote> - -<p class="bold">THE STANE STREET</p> - -<blockquote><p>A Monograph. With Illustrations by William Hyde, and Maps.</p></blockquote></div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span></p> - -<h1>THE JEWS</h1> - -<p class="bold space-above">By HILAIRE BELLOC</p> - -<div class="center space-above"><img src="images/hebrewtext.jpg" alt="Hebrew text" /></div> - -<p class="bold space-above">CONSTABLE & COMPANY, LIMITED<br /> -LONDON BOMBAY SYDNEY</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span></p> - -<p class="center"><i>First Published 1922</i><br /> -<i>Second Impression 1922</i></p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p> -<p class="center">To<br /> -<br /> -MISS RUBY GOLDSMITH<br /> -<br /> -MY SECRETARY FOR MANY YEARS AT KING'S<br /> -LAND AND THE BEST AND MOST INTIMATE OF<br /> -OUR JEWISH FRIENDS, TO WHOM MY<br /> -FAMILY AND I WILL ALWAYS OWE<br /> -A DEEP DEBT OF GRATITUDE</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p> - -<h2>PREFACE</h2> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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 that <i>concealment</i> must 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 it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span> is 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.</p> - -<p>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 question<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span> to-day upon a society still -reluctant to consider it and still hoping it may return to its old -neglect. It cannot so return.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CONTENTS</h2> - -<table summary="CONTENTS"> - <tr> - <td></td> - <td><span class="smaller">PAGE</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="center">CHAPTER I</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Thesis of this Book</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2"><div class="box"><blockquote><p>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.</p> - -<p>An alien body in any organism is disposed of in one -of two ways: elimination and segregation.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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 called <i>Recognition</i>. 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.</p> - -<p>The true solution is in the second kind of segregation, -that is, recognition on both sides of a separate Jewish -nationality.</p></blockquote></div></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2"> </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="center">CHAPTER II</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Denial of the Problem</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_17">17</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2"><div class="box"><blockquote><p>In the immediate past the problem was shirked in -Western Europe by a mere denial of its existence—some -<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</a></span>were 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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>At any rate the old "Liberal" fiction is now quite -useless—the problem is admitted and must be solved.</p></blockquote></div></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2"> </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="center">CHAPTER III</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Present Phase of the Problem</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_43">43</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2"><div class="box"><blockquote><p>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, <i>but not a movement of the -Jewish race as a whole</i>—its particular effect was to -release criticism of Jewish power which had hitherto -been silent from fear of, or sympathy with, Capitalism.</p> - -<p>Men hesitated to attack the Jews as financiers because -the stability of society and of their own fortunes was -<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</a></span>bound 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.</p></blockquote></div></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2"> </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="center">CHAPTER IV</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The General Causes of Friction</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_69">69</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2"><div class="box"><blockquote><p>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 those <i>general</i> which are ineradicable and -proceed from the contrasting natures of the two races, -<i>particular</i> those which depend upon the will on either -side and can be modified to the advantage of both.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>The ill effect of the partially Jewish financial monopoly—especially -with Parliamentary corruption as pronounced -as it is to-day.</p></blockquote></div></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2"> </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="center">CHAPTER V</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Special Causes of Friction</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_99">99</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2"><div class="box"><blockquote><p>I have called "Special" causes of Friction those -<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</a></span>which 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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p></blockquote></div></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2"> </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="center">CHAPTER VI</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Cause of Friction upon our Side</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_123">123</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2"><div class="box"><blockquote><p>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.</p> - -<p>The first cause of friction on our side is <i>disingenuousness</i> -in 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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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—unintelligence -<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[Pg xv]</a></span>in our astonishment at his international position—example -of the cabinet minister's cousin who got into -trouble.</p> - -<p>Last cause, lack of charity—people won't put themselves -in the shoes of the Jew and see how things look -from <i>his</i> side—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.</p></blockquote></div></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2"> </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="center">CHAPTER VII</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Anti-Semite</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_145">145</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2"><div class="box"><blockquote><p>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 -of <i>documentation</i>—its vast accumulation of evidence—effect -this will have when it comes out.</p> - -<p>The Jews met Anti-Semitism by nothing but ridicule—this -weapon insufficient and bound to fail—their enemies -have countered it by accumulating <i>facts</i>—the latter a -much stronger weapon so long as the erroneous Jewish -policy of secrecy is maintained.</p> - -<p>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.</p></blockquote></div></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2"> </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="center">CHAPTER VIII</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Bolshevism</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_167">167</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2"><div class="box"><blockquote><p>The revolution in Russia will be the historical point of -departure whence will date the renewed hostility to the -Jew in Western Europe.</p> - -<p>Examination of that revolution—it was (as said in -Chapter III) "<i>a</i> Jewish movement, <i>but not a movement</i> -<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[Pg xvi]</a></span><i>of the Jewish race</i>:" importance of this distinction—unfortunately -the two different terms "Jewish race" -and "a Jewish movement" are confused in the popular -mind.</p> - -<p>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 cannot <i>directly</i> attack 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.</p> - -<p>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.</p></blockquote></div></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2"> </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="center">CHAPTER IX</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Position in the World as a Whole</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_189">189</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2"><div class="box"><blockquote><p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>The position in Russia—repeated—in the Marches of -Russia and Roumania and Poland—in Central Europe—in -Occidental Europe—Ireland an exception.</p> - -<p>The position in the United States—Mr. Ford and the -great effect of his action.</p> - -<p>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.</p></blockquote></div></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2"> </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="center"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">[Pg xvii]</a></span>CHAPTER X</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Position of the Jews in England</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_215">215</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2"><div class="box"><blockquote><p>England has gone to both extremes with the Jew. -The Jew in the Roman time and in the Middle Ages—his -monopoly of Usury in <i>early</i> Middle 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.</p></blockquote></div></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2"> </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="center">CHAPTER XI</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Zionism</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_231">231</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2"><div class="box"><blockquote><p>The chief interest of the Zionist experiment lies in its -reaction upon the <i>international</i> position of the Jew—yet -that point is not yet discussed—what will be the -effect of the experiment on the position of Jews <i>outside</i> -Palestine, 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.</p> - -<p>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.</p></blockquote></div></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2"> </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="center">CHAPTER XII</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Our Duty</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_249">249</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2"><div class="box"><blockquote><p>This but a consequence of the conditions established in -<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xviii" id="Page_xviii">[Pg xviii]</a></span>Chapters IV, V and VI—our double duty of mixing with -the Jews and of recognizing their separate nationality—necessity -of <i>openly</i> admitting 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 -of <i>Fear</i> in 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.</p></blockquote></div></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2"> </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="center">CHAPTER XIII</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Their Duty</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_271">271</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2"><div class="box"><blockquote><p>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.</p></blockquote></div></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2"> </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="center">CHAPTER XIV</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Various Theories</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_277">277</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2"><div class="box"><blockquote><p>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.</p> - -<p>The theory that reconciliation is impossible—its -attachment to the idea of a special curse or blessing.</p> - -<p>The theory of a mysterious necessary alliance between -Israel and Britain—its most extravagant forms.</p> - -<p>The theory that the Jews are the necessary <i>flux</i> of -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.</p> - -<p>The theory that the Jewish problem is domestic only -and no concern of ours—its error, since the relations are -mutual.</p> - -<p>The two theories of the Jew as a malignant enemy -<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xix" id="Page_xix">[Pg xix]</a></span>of our innocent selves, and of our malignant enmity -against the innocent and martyred Jew—both erroneous.</p> - -<p>The theory that the Jewish problem is <i>now</i> solving -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."</p> - -<p>Fantastic theory that no Jewish national type exists!</p></blockquote></div></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2"> </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="center">CHAPTER XV</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Conclusion. Habit or Law?</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_301">301</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2"><div class="box"><blockquote><p>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 on <i>our</i> side 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."</p></blockquote></div></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="bold2">THE THESIS OF THIS BOOK</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> - -<h2><span>CHAPTER I</span> <span class="smaller">THE THESIS OF THIS BOOK</span></h2> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p><p>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.</p> - -<p>There are two ways to such a desirable end.</p> - -<p>The first is by the elimination of what is alien. The second is by its -segregation. There is no other way.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>But we may also segregate the alien irritant by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> an 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 word <i>recognition</i>.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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 of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> mere exasperation and not a final gesture at that.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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 centuries<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> that -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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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, -there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> are 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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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 equally <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>unfailing -differentiation between themselves and the society through which they -ceaselessly move.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>The thing might have come where there was a chaos of peoples, as in -pagan Alexandria in the four centuries from 200 <span class="smaller">B.C.</span> to 200 <span class="smaller">A.D.</span>, 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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> The body as a -whole has remained separate, differentiated, with a strong identity of -its own under all conditions and in all places, and the <i>a priori</i> -reasoning, 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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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, and -<i>equally openly to admit the necessary limitations imposed by that -expression</i>; if we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> on 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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>It is always the same miserable sequence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> 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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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 such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> -violent 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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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 the <i>second</i> -policy. 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 lead<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> to 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, <i>then</i>, such a spirit once established, laws and regulations -consonant to it will naturally follow.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p> - -<p class="bold2">THE DENIAL OF THE PROBLEM</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> - -<h2><span>CHAPTER II</span> <span class="smaller">THE DENIAL OF THE PROBLEM</span></h2> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>I do not here allude to the great mass of convention, hypocrisy and fear -which pretends ignorance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> of 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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p><p>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 a <i>majority</i> by the use of Western arms.</p> - -<p>Both actions were the consequence of that confused position I have just -defined (history will call it the <i>last</i> example), which, though much -weakened in public opinion, was still honestly taken for granted by -<i>some</i> of the Parliamentarians who framed the Treaty, and was certainly -felt to be of personal advantage to <i>all</i>: 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.</p> - -<p>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, the -<i>official</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> political attitude of Western Europe with its parliamentary -governments and other corresponding institutions.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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 was <i>not</i> a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> religious but a -national one. Nevertheless (they said) it was necessary <i>to-day</i> to mask -that problem by a fiction and to <i>pretend</i> that 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 if <i>they</i> desired -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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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 glaring<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> and 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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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 reluctantly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> reject 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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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. -Any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> treatment 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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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 historical <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>perspective -in this other and graver matter we are here discussing.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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 what <i>he</i> at any rate has always known to be a very -grave problem indeed. For<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> the 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 of <i>justice</i>. 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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>What the Jew wanted was not the proud privilege of being called an -Englishman, a Frenchman, an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> Italian, 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 was <i>security</i>; 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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>For instance, a modern objector says: "What rubbish to treat Jews as -though they merely represented a religion! We all know they represent a -<i>nation</i>!" 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 point<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> of 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.</p> - -<p>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 admit <i>baptized</i> Jews, 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.</p> - -<p>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 the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> word "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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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 by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> the privileges they granted him; yet it was always -their policy to admit <i>citizenship</i> as 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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>What is more, to by far the greater part of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> wealthier 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.</p> - -<p>With the growth of plutocracy the anomaly of treating Jews as -individuals separate from the rest of the community increased. The most -important men in control of international finance were admittedly -Jewish. The Jew's international position made him always useful and -often necessary in the vast international economic undertakings of our -time. The anonymity which had come to be taken for granted throughout -modern capitalism made it seem absurd or impossible, always highly -unusual, and probably futile, to search for a separate Jewish element in -any particular undertaking.</p> - -<p>There is one last argument for this Liberal policy, which has a strong -practical value, though it is exceedingly dangerous to use it in the -defence of that policy because it cuts both ways. It is the argument -that the Jew ought to be thus treated as a citizen exactly like the rest -and given no position either of privilege or disability, because<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> he -does, as a fact, mould himself so very rapidly to his environment.</p> - -<p>When men say—as they are beginning to do—that a Jew is as different -from ourselves as a Chinaman, or a negro, or an Esquimaux, and ought -therefore to be treated as belonging to a separate body from our own, -the answer is that the Jew is nothing of the kind. Indeed, he becomes, -after a short sojourn among Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans or Americans, -so like his hosts on the surface that he is, to many, indistinguishable -from them; and that is one of the main facts in the problem.</p> - -<p>That is the real reason why to the majority of the middle classes in the -nineteenth century, in Western countries, the Jewish problem was -nonexistent. Were you to say it of any other race—negroes, for -instance, or Chinamen—it would sound incredible; but we know it in -practice to be true, that a Jew will pass his life in, say, three -different communities in turn, <i>and in each the people who have met him -will testify that he seemed just like themselves</i>.</p> - -<p>I have known a case in point which would amuse my non-Jewish readers but -perhaps offend my Jewish readers were I to present it in detail. I shall -cite it therefore without names, because I desire throughout this book -to keep to the rule whereby alone it can be of service, that nothing -offensive to either party shall be introduced; but it is typical and can -be matched in the experience of many.</p> - -<p>The case was that of the father of a man in English public life. He -began life with a German name in Hamburg. He was a patriotic citizen of -that free city, highly respected and in every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> way a Hamburger, and the -Hamburg men of that generation still talk of him as one of themselves.</p> - -<p>He drifted to Paris before the Franco-German War, and, there, was an -active Parisian, familiar with the life of the Boulevards and full of -energy in every patriotic and characteristically French pursuit; notably -he helped to recruit men during the national catastrophe of 1870-71. -Everybody who met him in this phase of his life thought of him and -talked of him as a Frenchman.</p> - -<p>Deciding that the future of France was doubtful after such a defeat, he -migrated to the United States, and there died. Though a man of some -years when he landed, he soon appeared in the eyes of the Americans with -whom he associated to be an American just like themselves. He acquired -the American accent, the American manner, the freedom and the restraints -of that manner. In every way he was a characteristic American.</p> - -<p>In Hamburg his German name had been pronounced after the German fashion. -In France, where German names are common, he retained it, but had it -pronounced in French fashion. On reaching the United States it was -changed to a Scotch name which it distantly resembled, and no doubt if -he had gone to Japan the Japanese would be telling us that they had -known him as a worthy Japanese gentleman of great activity in national -affairs and bearing the honoured name of an ancient Samurai family.</p> - -<p>The nineteenth century attitude almost entirely depended upon this -marvellous characteristic in the Jews which differentiates them from all -the rest of mankind. Had that characteristic power of superficial -mutation been absent, the nineteenth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> century policy would have broken -down as completely as the corresponding Northern policy towards the -negro broke down in the United States. Had the Jew been as conspicuous -among us, as, say, a white man is among Kaffirs, the fiction would have -broken down at once. As it was, all who adopted that policy, honestly or -dishonestly, were supported by this power of the Jew to conform -externally to his temporary surroundings.</p> - -<p>The man who consciously adopted the nineteenth century Liberal policy -towards the Jews as a mere political scheme, knowing full well the -dangers it might develop; the man only half conscious of the existence -of those dangers; and the man who had never heard of them but took it -for granted that the Jew was a citizen just like himself, with an -exceptional religion—each of those three men had in common, aiding the -schemes of the one, supporting the illusion of the other, the amazing -fact that a Jew takes on with inexplicable rapidity the colour of his -environment. That unique characteristic was the support of the Liberal -attitude and was at the same time its necessary condition.</p> - -<p>The fiction that a man of obviously different type and culture and race -is the same as ourselves, may be practical for purposes of law and -government, but cannot be maintained in general opinion. A conspiracy or -illusion attempting, for instance, to establish the Esquimaux in -Greenland as indistinguishable from the Danish officials of the -Settlement, would fail through ridicule. Equally ridiculous would be the -pretence that because they were both subjects of the same Crown an -Englishman in the Civil Service of India was exactly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> the same sort of -person as a Sikh soldier. But with the Jews you have the startling truth -that, while the fundamental difference goes on the whole time and is -perhaps deeper than any other of the differences separating mankind into -groups; while he is, within, and through all his ultimate character, -above all things a Jew; yet in the superficial and most immediately -apparent things he is clothed in the very habit of whatever society he -for the moment inhabits.</p> - -<p>I say that this might seem to many the last and strongest argument in -favour of the old-fashioned Liberal policy, but I repeat that it is a -dangerous argument, for it cuts both ways. If a food which disagrees -with you looks exactly like another kind of food which suits you, you -might use the likeness as an argument for eating either sort of food -indifferently. You might say: "It is silly to try to distinguish; one -must admit, on looking at them, that they are the same thing"; but it -would turn out after dinner a very bad practical policy.</p> - -<p>There is indeed one last argument which to me, personally, and I suppose -to most of my readers, is stronger than all the rest, for it is the -argument from morals.</p> - -<p>If the Liberal attitude of the nineteenth century had proved a stable -one, omitting that element in it which is a falsehood and therefore a -factor of instability, one could retain the rest; <i>then</i> it would -satisfy two appetites common to all men—appetite for justice and the -appetite for charity.</p> - -<p>Here is a man, a neighbour present in the midst of my society. I put him -to inconvenience if I treat him as an alien. I like him; I regard him as -a friend. To treat such a man as though he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> were, although a friend, -something separate, not to be admitted to certain functions of my -community, offends the heart, as it also offends the sense of justice. -Such a man may possess a great talent for, say, administration. Like all -men possessed of a great talent, he must exercise it. You maim him if -you do not allow him to exercise it. A rule forbidding him to take part -in the administration of the society in which he finds himself, or even -a feeling hindering him in such activities, creates, not only in him, -but in those who are his hosts, a sense of injustice; and if it were -possible to adopt a policy wherein the separate character of the Jew -should be always in abeyance, so that he could be at the same time an -Englishman and yet not an Englishman, or a Frenchman and yet not a -Frenchman, then we should have a settlement which all good men ought to -accept.</p> - -<p>Unfortunately that solution is false because, like many appeals to a -virtuous instinct, it is sentimental. We call "sentimental" a policy or -theory which attempts to reconcile contradictions. The sentimental man -will equally abhor crime and its necessary punishment; disorder and an -organized police. He likes to think of human life as though it did not -come to an end. He likes to read of the passion of love without its -concomitant of sexual conflict. He likes to read and think of great -fortunes accumulated without avarice, cunning or theft. He likes to -imagine an impossible world of mutually exclusive things. It makes him -comfortable.</p> - -<p>Now we commit the fault of the sentimental man (the gravest of practical -faults in politics) when we cling at this late date to a continuance of -the old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> policy. You cannot have your cake and eat it too, you cannot at -the same time have present in the world this ubiquitous fluid, yet -closely organized Jewish community, and <i>at the same time</i> each of the -individuals composing it treated as though they were <i>not</i> members of -the nation which makes them all they are. You cannot at the same time -treat a whole as one thing and its component parts as another. If you -do, you are building on contradiction and you will, like everybody who -builds on contradiction, run up against disaster.</p> - -<p class="center">* * * * *</p> - -<p>I am minded to give the reader another anecdote (again taking care, I -hope, to suppress all names and dates to prevent identification, which -might irritate my Jewish readers or too greatly interest their -opponents). As a younger man it was my constant pastime to linger at the -bar of the House of Lords and listen to what went on there. I shall -always remember one occasion when an aged Jew, who had begun life in -very humble circumstances, had accumulated a great fortune and had -purchased his peerage like any other, rose to speak in connection with a -resolution or with a bill dealing with "aliens"—the hypocrisy of the -politician, and the popular ferment against the rush of Jewish -immigrants into the East End between them gave rise to that -non-committal name. This old gentleman very rightly pushed all such -humbug aside. He knew perfectly well that the policy was aimed at "his -people"—and he called them "my people." He knew perfectly well that the -proposed change would introduce interference with their movement and -would subject them to humiliation. He spoke with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> flaming patriotism, -and I was enthralled by the intensity, vigour and sincerity of his -appeal. It was a very fine performance and, incidentally (considering -what the man was!), it illustrated the vast difference between his -people and my own. For a life devoted to accumulating wealth, which -would have killed nobler instincts in any one of us, had evidently -seemed to him quite normal and left him with every appetite of justice -and of love of nation unimpaired. He clinched that fine speech with the -cry, "What our people want is to be let alone." He said it over and over -again. I am sure that in the audience which listened to him, all the -older men felt a responsive echo to that appeal. It was the very -doctrine in which they had been brought up and the very note of the -great Victorian Liberal era, with its national triumphs in commerce and -in arms.</p> - -<p>Well, within a very few years the younger members of that very man's -family came out in Parliamentary scandal after scandal, appearing all in -sequence one after the other—a sort of procession. They had been let -alone right enough! But they had not let <i>us</i> alone. I ask myself, -sometimes, How would it sound if some years hence any one of those -descendants—having by that time been given his peerage (for they are -rich men and all of them in professional politics)—should return to -that cry of his ancestor and ask to be "let alone"? There would be no -response <i>then</i> in the breasts of the contemporaries who might hear him. -Manners will so much have changed in this regard that he would be -interrupted. But I do not think that my hypothetical descendant of that -rich old Jew is likely to make any such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> speech. I think that when the -time comes for making it, the whole idea of "letting alone" will be -quite dead.</p> - -<p>I have quoted this old man's speech with no invidious intention but only -as an actual example of the way in which the "letting alone" of this -great question breaks down. I am as familiar as any Jewish reader of -mine with names that have dignified public life in the past, Jewish -names, Jewish peers: and I recall in particular the honoured name of -Lord Herschell to the friendship between whose nearest and my own I -preserve a grateful and sacred memory.</p> - -<p class="center">* * * * *</p> - -<p>But to return to the failure of the sentimental argument.</p> - -<p>The sentimental argument fails because it involves contradictions—that -is, incompatibility of fact.</p> - -<p>Even if one had not this strictly rational principle to guide one, there -is the whole of history to guide one. It is true that the pretence of -common citizenship has worked now for a shorter, now for a longer, -period, but never indefinitely. You always come at last to a smash. The -Jew is welcomed in mediaeval Poland; he comes in vast numbers; all goes -well. Then the inevitable happens and the Jew and the Pole stand apart -as enemies, each accusing the other of injustice, the one crying out -that he is persecuted, the other that the State is in danger by alien -activity within. Spain alternatively pursued this policy, and its -opposite; the whole history of Spain—the original seat of Jewish -influence in Europe after the general exile—is a history of alternating -attempts at the sentimental solution and a savage reaction against it:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> -the reaction of the man, who, fighting for his life, strikes out -violently in terror of death. That is the history not only of Spain but -of every other country at one time or another.</p> - -<p>Indeed, we have before our very eyes to-day the beginning of exactly -such a reaction in the West of Europe and the United States of America, -and it is the presence of that reaction which has caused this book to be -written. The attempt at a Liberal solution has already failed in our -hands; if it had not failed there would be no more to be said, or, at -any rate, we could postpone the discussion until the actual difficulty -began. But we have only to look around us to see that, after these few -years, this one lifetime, during which the experiment has flourished in -the highest part of civilization, it is already breaking down. -Everywhere the old questions are being asked, everywhere the old -complaints are being raised, everywhere the old perils are reappearing. -We must seek some solution, for if we fail to find it we know from the -past what tragedies are in store for us both. There is a problem, a most -direct and urgent problem. Once it is recognized, a solution of it is -necessarily demanded.</p> - -<p>But it is not enough to show that the mere denial of the existence of -that problem—the old nineteenth century Liberal policy—was false and -bound to break down. It is just as necessary, if we appreciate how -practical and immediate the problem is, to state it and illustrate it -from contemporary events. It is not enough to show that the attempted -Liberal policy has failed. One must also, before trying to discover a -solution, analyse the nature of the problem as it presents itself at the -moment, and that is what I propose to do in the next chapter.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p> - -<p class="bold2">THE PRESENT PHASE OF THE PROBLEM</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p> - -<h2><span>CHAPTER III</span> <span class="smaller">THE PRESENT PHASE OF THE PROBLEM</span></h2> - -<p>I said in my last that the old solution of ignoring or denying the -Jewish problem was bound to break down and had broken down, and this was -tantamount to saying that the problem persists. But I said one must go -farther and state the full nature of that problem as it stands at this -moment before one could attempt a practical solution.</p> - -<p>It is not enough to say that a person who imagines himself immortal and -immune from disease is, as a fact, dangerously ill, and that the -break-down of his health has disproved his theory. One must go on to -find out exactly what is the matter with him, and, if possible, what the -cure for the trouble may be.</p> - -<p>The Jewish problem in its larger sense I have defined in the first -chapter of this book, and that as I think every one defines it, -including all the many Jews who have discussed the matter. It is the -presence within one political organism of another political organism at -friction with it: the strains set up by such an unnatural state of -affairs; the risk of disaster to the lesser body and of hurt to both if -it remain unremedied. The true solution therefore is only to be -discovered in some policy which will permanently relieve the strain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> and -re-establish normal relations. The end of such a solution should be the -functioning, as far as possible, of both parties, at their ease and -without disturbance one to the other.</p> - -<p>But this general statement of the problem—that it is the presence to -each party of an alien body and the consequent irritation and friction -on each—is not enough. We must pursue it more closely and develop it in -greater detail, describing how the friction and the irritation are -increasing: insisting that they have even become a menace. Then only can -we set out to discover as far as possible by analysis what exact -character the disease bears and why it is of this character. Only after -all this can we explore a remedy.</p> - -<p>When we look round the modern world, say the last twenty years, we -discover, in widely separate places, and among very different interests, -and inhabiting the most diverse characters, the presence of what is for -many a new political feeling: it runs from irritation to exasperation, -from grumbling to invective; it is everywhere directed against the Jews. -One activity after another, in which the Jews are variously in the right -or in the wrong, or indifferent, has aroused hostility in varying -degrees—but increasing—and though the danger-spots are still, as I -have said, dissociated in the main, yet they are beginning to coalesce -and to form large areas inimical to Israel.</p> - -<p>It is objected of the Jew in finance, in industry, in commerce—where he -is ubiquitous and powerful out of all proportion to his numbers—that he -seeks, and has already almost reached, dominion. It is objected that he -acts everywhere against the interests of his hosts; that these are being -<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>interfered with, guided, run against their will; that a power is -present which acts either with indifference to what we love or in active -opposition to what we love. Notably is it said to be indifferent to, or -in active opposition against, our national feelings, our religious -traditions, and the general culture and morals of Christendom which we -have inherited and desire to preserve: that power is Israel.</p> - -<p>These feelings grew as one example after another of the Jewish strength, -the Jewish cohesion, arrived to feed them. How violent they were to -become might be seen by taking as a special example their extreme form, -called "Anti-Semitism." When we come, later in this book, to examine -that modern phenomenon, we shall find it to be not only a proof of the -insistence and gravity of the problem we are trying to solve, but also -some explanation of its nature.</p> - -<p>Upon a world thus already exasperated, and in some large sections -exasperated to the point of unreason—for the anti-Semitic drive was, -and is, full of unreason—there suddenly fell the double effect of the -Bolshevist revolution: a revolution which struck both at the benevolent -who would hear no harm of the Jews, and those who had hitherto shielded -or obeyed them as identified only with the interests of large Capital. -It was a blow in flank under which staggered both the supporters of -Jewish neutrality and the dependants upon Jewish finance.</p> - -<p>The old Liberal policy still officially held the field; but when this -shattering explosion came it compelled attention. Bolshevism stated the -Jewish problem with a violence and an insistence such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> that it could no -longer be denied either by the blindest fanatic or the most resolute -liar.</p> - -<p>Such was, in its largest lines, the recent historical sequence leading -up to the state of affairs we now find. Let us trace that sequence in -more detail and from a little farther back.</p> - -<p>A lifetime ago, when the Liberal policy was founded and when conditions -were favourable to its establishment, the populace might still nourish -its traditional antagonism to the Jew, but in the West of Europe his -numbers were very limited (only a few thousand in France and England -combined, and hardly as many in Italy).</p> - -<p>He belonged for the most part to the classes that did not come into -direct competition with the poor of the large towns. From the -countrysides he was absent. He had not attempted to govern his hosts as -a politician, nor, in any large measure, to indoctrinate them through -the Press. The rapid decline of religion at that time broke down one -barrier, and the transformation of the governing classes from the old -territorial Lords to the modern plutocracy broke down another. The -convention that the Jew was indistinguishable from the citizens of the -country in which he happened to live, or, at any rate, from that in -which he had last lived, was further fostered by the break-up of that -cosmopolitan aristocratic society which had marked the eighteenth -century, and which could note and register the movements of prominent -individuals from nation to nation. The new industrial fortunes and the -new international finance both contributed to the same end, while the -Jew also began to compete successfully in every one of the liberal -professions without as yet dominating any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> of them. No conflicts had -arisen between the Jewish race and the national interests of any -European people, with the exception perhaps of the Poles; and these were -subject and silenced.</p> - -<p>Throughout all this time, from the years after Waterloo to the years -immediately succeeding the defeat of the French in 1870-71, the weight -and position of the Jew in Western civilization increased out of all -knowledge and yet without shock, and almost without attracting -attention. They entered the Parliaments everywhere, the English Peerage -as well, and the Universities in very large numbers. A Jew became Prime -Minister of Great Britain, another a principal leader of the Italian -resurrection; another led the opposition to Napoleon III. They were -present in increasing numbers in the chief institutions of every -country. They began to take positions as fellows of every important -Oxford and Cambridge college; they counted heavily in the national -literatures; Browning and Arnold families, for instance, in England; -Mazzini in Italy. They came for the first time into European diplomacy. -The armies and navies alone were as yet untouched by their influence. -Strains of them were even present in the reigning families. The -institution of Freemasonry (with which they are so closely allied and -all the ritual of which is Jewish in character) increased very rapidly -and very greatly. The growth of an anonymous Press and of an -increasingly anonymous commercial system further extended their power.</p> - -<p>It is an illusion to believe that all this great change was Jewish in -origin. The Jew did not create it, he floated upon it, but it worked -manifestly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> to his advantage, and we find him at the end of it -represented on the governing institutions of Western Europe fifty or one -hundredfold more than was his due in proportion to his numbers. The Jews -intermarried everywhere with the leading families and, before any sign -that a turn of the tide had taken place, they had already achieved that -position in which they are now being assailed and to oust them from -which such strong efforts are preparing.</p> - -<p>Perhaps the first event which cut across this unbroken ascent was the -defeat of the French in 1870-1. Not that its effects were immediate in -this field, but that a nation defeated is the more likely to raise a -grievance, real or imaginary; in seeking a cause for social misfortunes -following on its military disasters, it will naturally fix upon an -international rather than a national one, and blame its alien population -rather than its own. Moreover, the date of the French defeat was also -the date on which was overthrown the temporal power of the Papacy. In -this also the Jews had played their part. It gave them the opportunity -to play a still greater part in the immediate future of the new Italy. -Within a few years Rome was to see a Jewish Mayor who supported with all -his might the unchristianizing of the city and especially of its -educational system.</p> - -<p>One small but significant factor in the whole business of these 70's and -early 80's—the beginning of the last quarter of the nineteenth -century—was the rise to monopoly of the Jewish international news -agents, among which Reuters was prominent, and the presence of Jews as -international correspondents of the various great newspapers, the most -prominent example being Opper, a Bohemian<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> Jew, who concealed his origin -under the false name of "de Blowitz," and for years acted as Paris -correspondent for <i>The Times</i>, a paper in those days of international -influence.</p> - -<p>The first expression of the reaction that was at hand was to be found in -sundry definitely anti-Semitic writings appearing in Germany and France, -most noticeable in the latter country.</p> - -<p>Their effect was at first slight, though they had the high advantage of -extensive documentation. The great majority of educated men shrugged -their shoulders and passed such things by as the extravagancies of -fanatics; but these fanatics none the less laid the foundation of future -action by the quotation of an immense quantity of facts which could not -but remain in the mind even of those who were most contemptuous of the -new propaganda. In these books special insistence was laid upon exposing -what the Jews themselves call "crypto-Judaism"—that is, the presence -everywhere throughout Western Europe of men in important public -positions who passed for English, French or what not, but were really -Jews.</p> - -<p>In many cases (I have already quoted the poet Browning and the -distinguished family of Arnold) these people were not hiding their -religion but had simply drifted from the original Jewish community of -which their ancestors had been members, but in most others there was -more or less present an element of conscious secrecy. It was evidently -the object of those who produced the literature I am describing to -attack that secrecy in particular and to undo its effects; and, as I -have said, even where their fanaticism was most ridiculed, the vast -array of facts which they marshalled could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> not be without its effect -upon the memory of their contemporaries.</p> - -<p>There next appeared a series of direct international actions undertaken -by Jewish finance, the most important of which, of course, was the -drawing of Egypt into the European system, and particularly into the -system of Great Britain.</p> - -<p>Of more effect upon public opinion was the excitement of the Dreyfus -case in France and, immediately afterwards, of the South African War, in -England.</p> - -<p>The characteristic of the Dreyfus case was not the discussion upon the -guilt or innocence of the unfortunate man from whom it takes its title, -but the immense international clamour with which it was surrounded. This -local affair was made an affair of the whole world, and men took as -passionate an interest in it in the remotest corners of civilization as -though they had been the principals actually engaged.</p> - -<p>Such a phenomenon could not but astonish the mass of onlookers who had -hitherto not given the Jewish question a thought, and when there was -added to it the great ordeal of the South African War, openly and -undeniably provoked and promoted by Jewish interests in South Africa, -when that war was so unexpectedly prolonged and proved so unexpectedly -costly in blood and treasure, a second element was added to the growing -feeling, not yet, indeed, of antagonism to Jewish power (half cultured -France was Dreyfusard, and much more than half England favoured the Boer -War at its origin), but of interest in the Jewish question, of -curiosity, on the part of the average citizen, who had not hitherto -heard of it.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p><p>The original minority which had begun to oppose Jewish power, with -their extreme left wing of Anti-Semites, and their core of men whose -quarrel was rather with the financial control of the modern world than -with any racial problem, tended to grow. As always happens with a -growing movement, events appeared to suit themselves to that growth and -to promote it.</p> - -<p>The Panama scandals in the French Parliament had already fed the -movement in France. The later Parliamentary scandals in England, Marconi -and the rest, afforded so astonishing a parallel to Panama that the -similarity was of universal comment. They might have passed as isolated -things a generation before. They were now connected, often unjustly, -with the uneasy sense of a general financial conspiracy. They were, at -any rate, connected with an atmosphere essentially Jewish in character.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile there had already begun one of those great migratory movements -of the Jews which have diversified history for two thousand years and -which are almost always the prelude to each new disturbance in the -equilibrium of the Jews and each new resuscitation of the Jewish problem -in its most acute form.</p> - -<p>The great reservoir of the Jewish race was, of course, that country of -Poland which had so nobly succoured the Jews during the persecutions of -the late Middle Ages. Poland had made itself an asylum for all the Jews -who cared to go to it, and was now, after the infamous partition -inaugurated by Prussia, still the home of something like half the Jews -of the world. The hatred of the Jews entertained by all classes of -Russians, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>persecutions they suffered from the fact that Russia, -since the partition, governed that part of Poland where they were most -numerous, started the new exodus. The movement was a westerly one, -mainly to the United States, but there also arose in connection with it -a novel growth of great ghettoes in the English industrial towns, more -particularly in London, while New York was slowly transformed from a -city as free of Jewish population as London and Paris had been in the -past, to one in which a good third or more of its inhabitants became -either entirely Jewish or partly Jewish.</p> - -<p>This vast immigration, which was in full swing just before the outbreak -of the great war, and which was adding so active a leaven to the -increasing ferment, which had even planted the beginnings of a ghetto in -Paris and which was affecting the whole of the West, was supplemented by -one more factor of the first importance.</p> - -<p>Modern capitalism, by which the Jew had so largely benefited, but which -he did not originate and in which prominent, though few, Jewish names, -were so immixed, had for its counterpart and reaction the <i>socialist</i> -movement. This, again, the Jews did not originate, nor at first direct; -but it rapidly fell more and more under their control. The family of -Mordecai (who had assumed the name of Marx) produced in Karl a most -powerful exponent of that theory. Though he did no more than copy and -follow his non-Jewish instructors (especially Louis Blanc, a Franco-Scot -of genius), he presented in complete form the full theory of Socialism, -economic, social, and, by implication, religious; for he postulated -Materialism.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p><p>After Karl Marx came a crowd of his compatriots, who led the industrial -proletariat in rebellion against the increasing power of the capitalist -system, and began to organize a determined revolt.</p> - -<p>Before the Great War one could say that the whole of the Socialist -movement, so far as its staff and direction were concerned, was Jewish; -and while it took this purely economic form in the West, in the East—in -the Russian Empire—it took a political form as well, and the growing -revolutionary force in that Empire was equally Jewish in direction and -driving power.</p> - -<p>Such was the situation on the eve of the Great War. Men were beginning -to be thoroughly alive to what was meant by the Jewish problem. The old -security was dispelled for ever; but as yet only a minority, though now -a large one, was prepared to deal with that problem and to discuss it -openly. All that was official, and particularly the Press, with its vast -influence, had as yet refused in any department to face the realities of -the position. The convention forbidding public allusion to the Jewish -question was still very strong. On the surface it seemed as though the -old Liberal policy still stood firm and, indeed, unshakeable. The Jews -were in every place of 'vantage: they taught in the Universities of all -Europe; they were everywhere in the Press; everywhere in finance. They -were continually to be found in the highest places of Government and in -the chanceries of Christendom they had acquired a dominant power which -none could question. But the challenge against this unnatural position -necessarily worked against great odds, it remained private and had -great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> difficulty in finding expression. None the less, it extended, and -by 1914 had become serious.</p> - -<p>The immeasurable catastrophe of the war—with which the Jews had nothing -to do and which their more important financial representatives did all -they could to prevent—fell upon Europe. It seemed at first as though, -in the face of that overwhelming tragedy, what had been so rapidly -growing—I mean the debate and conflict upon Jewish claims—would be -silenced. The Jews were found fighting gallantly in all the armies. -Their services were generously acknowledged, though the cruel ambiguity -of their situation was hardly realized. Considering that they had no -national interest in the fight, it must have seemed to them a mere -insanity, crucifying their nation to no purpose. For Zangwill put the -matter well indeed when he said that those who eagerly and spontaneously -joined the first recruiting (and these were numerous) did so "for the -honour of Israel." The sacrifice was not without fruit. In its presence -many a complaint was silenced and much was revealed which, but for it, -would have remained unprobed. The Christian family in its bereavement -saw at its side a Jewish neighbour who had lost his son in what was no -concern of his race; the Christian priest witnessed the agony of the -young Jewish soldier. The defender of the Western nations saw at his -side not only the Jewish conscript (who should never have been called) -but the Jewish volunteer. Thus, the first to enlist from the United -States was a Jew, later promoted, whom I had the pleasure and honour of -meeting on Mangin's staff at Mayence. I hope he may see these lines.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p><p>It looked as though in the presence of such a suffering, which the Jews -shared with us, the growing quarrel between them and ourselves would be -appeased. Men who had been prominent not only for their discussion of -the Jewish problem, but for their direct and open antagonism to Jewish -power and even to the most legitimate of Jewish claims, were now -compelled to silence. Reconciliation was in the air ... when, in the -very heat of the struggle, came that factor, incalculably important, -which now rules all the rest; I mean the factor of what is called -<i>Bolshevism</i>.</p> - -<p>This new Jewish movement changed the whole face of things and, coming on -the top of the rest, has transformed the problem for all our generation.</p> - -<p>Henceforth it was to be discussed quite openly. Henceforth it could only -become, more and more, the chief problem of politics and give rise to -that menacing situation upon a solution of which depends the security of -our future.</p> - -<p>For the Bolshevist movement, or rather explosion, was Jewish.</p> - -<p>That truth may be so easily confused with a falsehood that I must, at -the outset, make it exact and clear.</p> - -<p>The Bolshevist Movement was <i>a</i> Jewish movement, but not a movement of -the Jewish race as a whole. Most Jews were quite extraneous to it; very -many indeed, and those of the most typical, abhor it; many actively -combat it. The imputation of its evils to the Jews as a whole is a grave -injustice and proceeds from a confusion of thought whereof I, at any -rate, am free.</p> - -<p>With so much said let me return to the affair.</p> - -<p>What is called "Labour," that is, the direction<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> of the proletarian -revolt against capitalist conditions, had, as we have seen, been -directed in the main by the Jew. His energy, his international quality, -his devotion to a set scheme, prevailed. All this was not peculiar to -Russia but present throughout the industrialized areas of the West.</p> - -<p>By the word "directed" I do not mean any conscious plan. I mean that the -Jews, with their perpetual movement from country to country, with their -natural indifference to national feeling as a force counteracting class -feeling, with their lucid thought and their passion for deduction, with -their tenacity and intellectual industry, had naturally become the chief -exponents and the most able leaders. They formed, above all, the cement -binding the movement together throughout the world. It was they, more -than any others, who insisted on a clear-cut solution upon the lines -which their compatriot Karl Marx had copied from his greater European -contemporaries, and made definite in his famous book on Capital.</p> - -<p>But there was all the difference in the world between this intellectual -leadership, this organization of socialism by Jews <i>while Socialism -still remained a mere theory</i>, and the control and actual management of -it in a great State when it passed from theory to practice.</p> - -<p>The words "social revolution" were still but words in 1914 and men did -not take them too seriously. But when in 1917 a socialist revolution was -accomplished suddenly at one blow, in one great State, and when its -agents, directors and masters were seen to be a close corporation of -Jews with only a few non-Jewish hangers-on (each of these controlled by -the Jews through one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> influence or another), it was quite another -matter. The thing had become actual. The menace to national traditions -and to the whole Christian ethic of property was immediate. More -important than all, so far as the Jewish problem is concerned, many who -had remained silent upon it on account of convention, avarice or fear, -were now compelled to speak. From that moment, in early '17, it became -the chief political problem of our time: coincident with, intimately -mixed with, but in all its implications superior to, the great economic -quarrel on to which it was now grafted.</p> - -<p>The story may be briefly told. The Russian State, ill-equipped for -modern war, had passed during the end of the year 1916 through a strain -which it had found intolerable. Russian Society, after the mortal losses -sustained, was upon the eve of dissolution, and the formidable -revolutionary movement which had for years left its direction and -organization in Jewish hands broke out, for the third time in our -generation: but this time successfully.</p> - -<p>After rapidly accelerating phases it settled into the situation which -has endured from the early part of 1918 to the present day. In the towns -the freely-elected Parliament was repudiated and a "Dictatorship of the -Proletariat" was declared. The workshops were in future to be run by -Committees, in the Russian "Soviets," and similar organizations were to -control agriculture in the villages, where the peasants had already -seized the land and were streaming back from the dissolved armies to -their homes.</p> - -<p>In practice, of course, what was set up was no proletarian Government, -still less anything so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> impossible and contradictory in terms as a -"dictatorship" of proletarians. The thing was called "The Republic of -the Workmen and Peasants." It was, in fact, nothing of the sort. It was -the pure despotism of a clique, the leaders of which had been specially -launched upon Russia under German direction in order to break down any -chance of a revival of Russian military power, and all those leaders, -without exception, were Jews, or held by the Jews through their domestic -relations, and all that followed was done directly under the orders of -Jews, the most prominent of whom was one Braunstein, who disguised -himself under the assumed name of Trotsky. A terror was set up, under -which were massacred innumerable Russians of the governing classes, so -that the whole framework of the Russian State disappeared. Among these, -of course, must specially be noted great numbers of the clergy, against -whom the Jewish revolutionaries had a particular grudge. A clean sweep -was made of all the old social organization, and under the despotism of -this Jewish clique the old economic order was reversed. Food and all -necessities were controlled (in the towns) and rationed, the manual -labourer receiving the largest share; and none any share unless he -worked at the orders of the new masters.</p> - -<p>The agricultural land was in theory nationalized, but in practice the -Jewish Committees of the towns were unable to enforce their rule over -it, and it reverted to the natural condition of peasant ownership. But -the Jewish Committees of the towns were strong enough to raid great -areas of agricultural production for the support of themselves and their -troops and of their dependants in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> the cities, who had come close to -starvation through the breakdown of the social system.</p> - -<p>What followed later is of common knowledge: the attempts at -counter-revolution, led by scattered Russians and other military -leaders, all failed because the peasants believed that their -newly-acquired farms were at stake and eagerly volunteered to defend -them, the greatly increased misery of the towns, the slow decline of -industrial production (in spite of the most rigid despotism, enforcing -conscript labour), and the general deliquescence of society.</p> - -<p>If the motives of the men who thus brought the whole of a Christian -State into ruins within a few weeks were analysed, we should, it is to -be presumed, discover something of this sort: their main motive was the -pursuit of the political and economic ideals of which they were the -spokesmen and which already so many of their compatriots, the Jews, -throughout the rest of Europe, had espoused—communism so far as -property was concerned; the Marxian doctrine of socialist production and -distribution; the Socialist doctrine imposed by arbitrary and despotic -arrangements, favouring those who had in the past been least favoured. -In this economic and political group of motives the leading motive was -probably enough, the doctrine of Communism in which these men, for the -most part, sincerely believed.</p> - -<p>To this must be added an equally sincere hatred of national feeling, -save, of course, where the Jewish nation was concerned. The conception -of a Russian national feeling seemed to these new leaders ridiculous, -as, indeed, the conception of a national feeling must seem ridiculous to -their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> compatriots everywhere; or, if not ridiculous, subsidiary to the -more important motives of individual advantage and to the righting of -such immediate wrongs as the individual may feel. The Christian religion -they naturally attacked, for it was abhorrent to their social theory.</p> - -<p>They also had a certain crusading, or propagandist, ideal running -through the whole of their action—the desire to spread Communism far -beyond the boundaries of what had once been the Russian State. It is -this which has led them to intrigue throughout Central, and even in -Western, Europe, in favour of revolution.</p> - -<p>Though these were the main motives, other motives must also have been -present.</p> - -<p>It is impossible that Committees consisting of Jews and suddenly finding -themselves thus in control of such new powers, should not have desired -to benefit their fellows. It is equally impossible that they should have -forgone a sentiment of revenge against that which had persecuted their -people in the past. They cannot but, in the destroying of Russia, have -mixed with a desire to advantage the individual Russian poor the desire -to take vengeance upon the national tradition as a whole; it has even -been said—but denied, and I know not where the truth lies—that Jews -were among those guilty of the worst incident which we now know in all -its revolting details—the murder of the Russian Royal family—father, -mother and girls, and the unfortunate sickly heir, the only boy. -Further, it is impossible, with Jewish Committees thus in control of the -Russian treasury and of Russian means of communication, that they should -not have had some sympathy with their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>compatriots who were so largely -in control of Western finance. However sincere their detestation of -capitalism (for probably in most of them the opinion is held sincerely -enough), it is in the nature of things that one of their blood and kind -should, however misguided they may think him, appeal to them more than -one of ours. And it is this which explains the half alliance which you -find throughout the world between the Jewish financiers on the one hand -and the Jewish control of the Russian revolution on the other. It is -this which explains the half-heartedness of the defence against -Bolshevism, the perpetual commercial protest, the continued -negotiations, the recognition of the Soviet by our politicians, the -clamour of "Labour" in favour of German Jewish industrialism and against -Poland: all that has taken place wherever Jewish finance is powerful, -particularly at Westminster.</p> - -<p>But, be this as it may, the tremendous explosion which we call -Bolshevism brought the discussion of the Jewish problem to a head. The -two forces which had hitherto held back the discussion of that problem -were that Liberal fiction which had ruled for more than a generation, -according to which it was indecent even to mention the word Jew, or to -suggest that there was any difference between the Jew and those who -harboured him; and, secondly, the fact that the Jews were erroneously -regarded by most of the well-to-do people in the West—that is, by most -of those who had the control of the Press and therefore of all public -expression—as so controlling wealth that they were at once the natural -guardians of property and so placed that an attack upon them jeopardized -the wealth of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> the critic. The man who had gone into the City, or who -had his life spent upon the Bourse in Paris, or who was negotiating any -great capitalist enterprise, who had to do in whatever capacity with the -running of the great banks or with the international means of -communication by sea and land, even the man who got his precarious -living by writing—each and all had hitherto felt that a public silence -upon the Jewish problem was necessary to his private welfare.</p> - -<p>Those who recognized the gravity of the problem had hitherto been moved -by fear to be silent upon it, at least in public, though in private they -were often voluble enough. Those who recognized it in a lesser degree -had also been affected by the same fear. Lastly, you had the large class -who were under no necessity for restraint, whether from fear or any -other cause, but who were quite content to leave things as they were so -long as they received their regular salary or dividends, and who were -profoundly convinced that any interference with the Jew would imperil -those dividends or that salary.</p> - -<p>The Jewish Bolshevist movement put an end to that state of mind. The -people who had hitherto been silent through avarice, convention, or -fear, now found themselves between an upper and a nether millstone. -Hitherto they had at least believed that to keep silence was to secure -or to advance their economic position. Now they found, suddenly risen -upon the flank of that position, a new and formidable Jewish force -determined upon the destruction of property. There was no longer any -reason to keep silent. There was a growing need to speak. And though the -old habit, the old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> secrecy, was still strong upon them, the necessity -for combating Jewish Bolshevism was stronger still. All over Europe the -Jewish character of the movement became more and more apparent. The -leaders of Communism everywhere proclaimed that truth by adopting the -asinine policy of pretending that the revolution was Russian and -national; they attempted—far too late—to hide the Jewish origins of -its creators and directors, and made a childish effort to pretend that -the Russian names so innocently put forward were genuine, when the real -names were upon every tongue. Yet at the same time they were receiving -money and securities of the victims through Jewish agents, jewels -stripped from the dead or rifled from the strong boxes of murdered men -and women. In one specific instance the promise of a subsidy to a -Communist paper in London was traced to this source; it was proved that -the Englishman involved was a mere puppet and that the Jewish -connections of the family through marriage were the true agents in the -transaction. In another a Trade Deputation was pompously announced under -Russian names, which turned out upon inspection to consist, as to its -first member, of a man engaged all his life in the service of a Jewish -firm, as to the other, of a Jew who was actually the brother-in-law of -Braunstein! The diplomatic agent nominated and partially accepted by the -British Government to represent the new authority of the Russian towns -was again a Jew, Finkelstein, the nephew by marriage of a prominent Jew -in this country. He passed under the name of Litvinoff. So it was -throughout the whole movement, in every capital and in every great -industrial town.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p><p>We must not neglect the very obvious truth that in all this there was -ample fuel for the flame. The industrial proletariat throughout the -world was equally disgusted and equally ready for revolt. The leadership -of the movement may be Jewish but its current was not created by the -Jew. To imagine that is to fall into the most childish errors of the -"Anti-Semite." The stream of influence arose from the sufferings and the -burning sense of injustice which industrial capitalism had imposed on -the dispossessed mass of wage earners. They were (and are) naturally -indifferent as to whether those whom they hope may be their saviours -come from Palestine, Muscovy or Timbuctoo. They are interested in -economic freedom: in the doctrine of socialism and in its results, not -in the personality of those who guide them.</p> - -<p>Their position is comprehensible enough: but my point is, that the -directing minority of Western European capitalism which had hitherto -been silent upon the Jewish problems from the motives I have described -were now released; they were free to speak their mind, and began to -speak it. The volume of their protest cannot but increase. The cat, as -the expression goes, is out of the bag, or, to put it in more dignified -language, the debate will now never more be silenced. It is admitted -that the revolutionary leadership is mainly Jewish. It is recognized as -clearly now as it has long been recognized that international finance -was mainly Jewish; and even those who would tolerate silence upon the -one peril will certainly not tolerate it upon the other.</p> - -<p>The danger is, indeed, not over. The debate will take place—that is no -peril, but a good; the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> danger is rather that, as restraint is gradually -removed, the natural antagonism to the Jewish race, felt by nearly all -those who are not of it and among whom it lives, may take an irrational -and violent form, and that we may be upon the brink of yet one more of -those catastrophes, of those tragedies, of those disasters which have -marked the history of Israel in the past.</p> - -<p>To avert this, to discover some solution of the problem while there is -yet time, to prevent deeds which would bring us to shame and that small -minority among us to suffering, should be the object of every honest man.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p> - -<p class="bold2">THE GENERAL CAUSES OF FRICTION</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p> - -<h2><span>CHAPTER IV</span> <span class="smaller">THE GENERAL CAUSE OF FRICTION</span></h2> - -<p>The immediate cause of the new gravity apparent in the Jewish problem is -the Revolution in Russia. The completely new feature of open discussion -now attaching to it (a thing which would have seemed incredible in -England twenty years ago) is the leadership the Jews have assumed in the -economic quarrel of the proletariat against capitalism.</p> - -<p>Most people, therefore, on being asked the cause of friction between the -Jews and their hosts at this moment will reply (in England, at least) -that it lies in the anti-social propaganda now running loose throughout -Industrial Europe. "Our quarrel with the Jews," you will hear from a -hundred different sources, "is that they are conspiring against -Christian civilization, and in particular against our own country, under -the form of social revolutionaries."</p> - -<p>Such a reply, though it is the almost universal reply of the moment in -this country, is most imperfect.</p> - -<p>The friction between the Jews and the nations among which they are -dispersed is far older, far more profound, far more universal. For a -whole generation before the present crisis arose, the comparatively -small number of men who were hammering away steadily at the Jewish -problem, trying to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> provoke its discussion, and insisting on its -importance, were mainly concerned with quite another aspect of Jewish -activity—the aspect of international finance as controlled by Jews. -Before that aspect had assumed its modern gravity the reproach against -the Jews was that their international position warred against our racial -traditions and our patriotisms. Before that again there had been the -reproach of a different religion and particularly of their antagonism to -the doctrine of the Incarnation and all that flowed from that doctrine. -And there had been even, before that great quarrel, the reproach that -they were bad citizens within the pagan Roman Empire, perpetually in -rebellion against it and guilty of massacring other Roman citizens.</p> - -<p>In another civilization than ours, in that of Islam, another set of -reproaches had arisen, or rather another species of contempt and -oppression. After long periods of peace there would come, in particular -regions, the most violent oppression. Within the last few years, for -instance, a Jew in Morocco was treated as though he was hardly human. He -had to turn his face to the wall when any magnate was passing by. He had -to dress in a particular manner to mark him off as something degraded -among his fellow-beings. He might not ride through the gate of a town, -but had to dismount. There were twenty actions normal to civic life in -the Moroccan city which were forbidden to the Jew.</p> - -<p>All this is as much as to say that the friction between the Jews and -those among whom they live is always present, and has always been -present, now latent, now rising furiously to the surface,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> now grumbling -through long periods of uncertain peace, now boiling over in all the -evils of persecution—which is as much as to say that this friction -between Jew and non-Jew, while finding different excuses for its action -on different occasions, has been a force permanently at work everywhere -and at all times.</p> - -<p>What is the cause of it? What is its nature?</p> - -<p>The matter is very difficult to approach, because we are not dealing -with things susceptible of positive proof. You can prove from historical -record that the thing has existed. You can show its terrible effects, -ceaselessly recurrent throughout all our history. But it is another -matter to analyse the unseen forces which produce it, and any such -analysis can be no more than an attempt.</p> - -<p>I take it that the causes of this friction, with all its lamentable -results, are of two kinds. There are, first, <i>general</i> causes for it, by -which I mean those causes which are always present and are ineradicable. -Their effort may be summed up in the truth that the whole texture of the -Jewish nation, their corporate tradition, their social mind, is at issue -with the people among whom they live. There are, next, special causes, -by which I mean social actions and expressions which lead to friction -and could be modified, the two chief of which are the use of secrecy by -the Jews as a method of action and the open expression of superiority -over his neighbours which the Jew cannot help feeling but is wrong to -emphasize.</p> - -<p>I will deal with these in their order, and first consider the general -causes; though I must admit at the outset that a mere summary of them is -no sufficient explanation of the phenomenon. There<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> would seem to be -something more profound and even more mysterious about it. For it will -be universally conceded that, while the closest intimacy and respect is -possible between individuals of the two opposing races, the moment you -come to great groups, and especially to the popular instinct in the -matter, the gravest friction is apparent. It is an issue too deep than -to be accounted for by mere differences of temper. It is as though there -were some inward force filling men on either side, not indeed with -necessary hostility—it is against any such necessity that all this book -is written—but certainly with conflicting ends.</p> - -<p>It is first to be noted that most of the accusations made against the -Jews by their enemies and most of the very proper rebuttals of those -accusations advanced by the Jews and their defenders, miss the mark -because they attempt to put in abstract form what is really something -highly concrete. And this is equally true of the praise bestowed upon -the Jews, of the special virtues ascribed to them and of the denials of -these virtues.</p> - -<p>They miss the mark because they attempt to express in terms of one -category what should be expressed in terms of another. They are doing -what a man does when he compares two pictures by their outline while in -point of fact their interest lies in colour, or when he affirms -something of a tune the fundamental point of which something is not the -air at all but the instruments upon which it is played: as who should -say that "God save the King" was "shrill" because he heard it played on -a penny whistle or "booming" because he heard it played on a -violoncello. The real point to note is not that the Jews appear to us -(or we to them)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> to possess certain abstract qualities and defects, but -that in their case each quality or defect has a special character, a -special national <i>timbre</i> which it lacks in ours.</p> - -<p>Thus you will hear the Jews arraigned by their enemies for three such -vices as cowardice, avarice and treason—to take three of the commonest -accusations. You examine their actions and you find innumerable -instances of the highest courage, the greatest generosity and the most -devoted loyalty: but courage, generosity and loyalty of a Jewish kind, -directed to Jewish ends, and stamped with a highly distinctive Jewish -mark.</p> - -<p>The man who accuses the Jews of cowardice means that they do not enjoy a -fight of his kind, nor a fight fought after his fashion. All he has -discovered is that the courage is not shown under the same -circumstances, nor for the same ends, nor in the same mode. But if the -word courage means anything, he cannot on reflection deny it to actions -of which one could make an endless catalogue even from contemporary -experience alone. Is it cowardice in a young man to sacrifice his life -deliberately for the sake of his own people? Did that young Jew show -cowardice who killed the Russian Prime Minister, the antagonist of his -people, after the first revolution following on the Russo-Japanese war? -Was it cowardice to walk up in a crowded theatre, surrounded by all the -enemies of his race, and shoot their chief in their midst? Is it -cowardice to stand up against the vast alien majority, and to do so over -and over again, perhaps through a whole lifetime, insisting on things -that are grossly unpopular with that majority and running a risk the -whole time of physical violence? You find Jews<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> adopting that attitude -all over Europe. Can one think it is cowardice which has permitted the -individuals of this nation to maintain their tradition unbroken through -two thousand years of intermittent torture, spoliation and violent -death? The thing so stated is ridiculous, and it is clear that those who -make such an accusation are confounding their own form of courage with -courage as a universal attribute.</p> - -<p>They think that because Jews show courage under other circumstances and -in another way from themselves, corresponding to another appetite, as it -were, therefore it is no longer courage: to think like that is to -confess yourself very limited.</p> - -<p>I can testify, myself, to any number of courageous acts which I have -seen performed by Jews. I am not alluding to acts of courage in warfare, -of which there is ample evidence, but to acts of a sort in which our -race would not have shown the same quality or <i>timbre</i> of courage. I -will cite one case.</p> - -<p>Rather more than twenty years ago, when feeling on the Dreyfus case was -at its height and when the feeling of the French Army in particular was -at white heat, I happened to be in the town of Nîmes, through which, at -the time, a body of troops was passing. The café in which I sat was -filled with young sergeants. There were hardly any civilians present -beside myself. There came into the place an elderly Jew, very short in -stature, highly marked with the physical characteristics of his race, an -unmistakable Jew. He was somewhat bent under the weight of his years, -with fiery eyes and a singularly vibrating intonation of voice. He was -selling broadsheets of the most violent kind, all of them insults -against the Army. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> came into this café with the sheets in his hand so -that all could see the large capital letters of the headlines, and -slowly went round the assembly ironically offering them to the lads in -uniform with their swords at their side, for they were of the cavalry.</p> - -<p>Every one knows the French temper on such occasions—a complete silence -which may at any moment be transformed into something very different. -One sergeant after another politely waved him aside and passed him on. -He went round the whole lot of them, gazing into their faces with his -piercing eyes, wearing the whole time an ironical smile of insult, -describing at intervals the nature of his goods, and when he had done -that he went out unharmed.</p> - -<p>It was an astonishing sight. I have seen many others as astonishing and -as vivid, but for courage I have never seen it surpassed. Here was a -man, old and feeble, the member of a very small minority which he knew -to be hated, and particularly hated by the people whom he challenged. -Because he held one of his own people to be injured, he took this -tremendous risk and went through this self-imposed task with a sort of -pleasure in that risk. You may call it insolence, offensiveness, what -you will: but you cannot deny it the title of courage. It was courage of -the very highest quality.</p> - -<p>I repeat: you may see evidence of that sort of courage in Jewish action -throughout the world and in every age. You have the beginning of it in -the Siege of Jerusalem; to-morrow, if the fear which we now all -entertain should unhappily prove well founded, we shall see it again -upon the same scale.</p> - -<p>Take avarice. When the Jew is accused of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> avarice by his enemies they -are reading into him that vice in a form of which <i>they</i> know themselves -capable, which <i>they</i> themselves practise, which <i>they</i> fully -understand, but which <i>he</i> never practises in their fashion. The Jew is -adventurous with his money. He is a speculator, a trader. He is also a -man who thinks of it in exact terms. He is never romantic about it. But -he is almost invariably generous in the use of it. Our race, when it -yields to the vice of avarice, is close, secretive, uncharitable. He is -pitiless and sly in accumulation. He is vociferous in his insistence -upon the exact terms of an agreed compact. He is also tenacious in the -pursuit of anything which he has set out on, the accumulation of money -among the rest. He is almost fanatical in his appetite for success in -whatever he has undertaken, the accumulation of money among the rest. -But to say that the money, once accumulated, is not generously used, is -nonsense. There is not one of us who could not cite at once a dozen -examples of Jewish generosity upon a scale which makes us ashamed.</p> - -<p>Nor is it true to say that this generosity has ostentation for its root, -or, as it is called, "Ransome," either. Though a love of magnificence is -certainly a great passion in the Jewish character, it does not account -for the most of his generosity. It is a generosity which extends to all -manner of private relations, and if you will take the testimony of those -who have been in the service of the Jews and are not Jews themselves, -that testimony is almost universally in favour of their employers, if -those employers be men of large means.</p> - -<p>They will tell you that they felt humiliated in serving a Jew; that the -relations were never easy;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> that there was always distance. But not -often that they were treated meanly. Just the other way. There has -usually been present a <i>spontaneous</i> generosity. The same argument -applies to the cry of "Ransome." It is true that some of the more -scandalous Jewish fortunes have thrown up defences against public anger -by the return of a small proportion in the shape of public endowments: -it is an action and a motive not peculiar to them. But that does not -explain the mass of private and unheard benefaction to which we can all -testify and which is as common with the middle-class Jew as with the -wealthy. It is here as in the matter of courage a question of <i>kind</i>. -Those of our people who happen to be generous (they are rare) do not -calculate. They often forget or confuse the sums they have made away -with, as though it were mere extravagance. The Jew knows the exact -extent of his sacrifice, its proportion to his total means. Is he then -less generous? By no means. He is, in scale <i>more</i> generous—but in a -different fashion.</p> - -<p>It might be argued that this generosity of the Jew is a consequence of -the way in which he regards money. It comes and goes with him because he -is a speculator and a wanderer. It has been said that no great Jewish -fortune is ever permanent; that none of these millionaires ever founded -a family. This is not quite true; but it is true that considering the -long list of great Jewish fortunes which have marked the whole progress -of our civilization it is astonishing how few have taken root. But -though this conception of money may be an element in the generosity of -the Jew it does not fully explain it, and at any rate that generosity is -there, and contradicts flatly the accusation of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> avarice. Indeed the -general accusation of avarice fails: and <i>that</i> is why it is a sort of -standing jest permitted even where the Jews are most powerful. It is a -jest they themselves do not resent because they know it to be beside the -mark.</p> - -<p>The accusation of treason is on the same footing—save that it is even -more "to one side" than the others quoted. There is no race which has -produced so few traitors. It is not treason in the Jew to be -international. It is not treason in the Jew to work now for one interest -among those who are not of his people, now for another. He can only be -charged with treason when he acts against the interests of Israel, and -there is no nation nor ever has been one in which the national -solidarity was greater or national weakness in the shape of traitors -less. Indeed, that is the very accusation their enemies make against -them; that they are too homogeneous; that they hold too much together -and are too fierce in self-defence; and you cannot have that accusation -coupled with an accusation of treason. What is true is that the Jew -lends himself to one non-jewish group in its action against another. He -will serve France against the Germans, or the Germans against France, -and he will do so indifferently as a resident in the country he benefits -or the country he wounds: for he is indifferent to either. The moment -war breaks out the intelligence departments of both sides rely upon the -Jew: and they rely upon him not only on account of his indifference to -nationalism but also on account of his many languages, his travel, the -presence of his relations in the enemy country. And this is true not -only of war but of armed peace.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p><p>But it is clear that in all this there are examples of what <i>in us</i>, -would be treason. In him such actions are not treasons, for he does not -betray Israel. But they all have an atmosphere repellent to us. They are -things which if we did them (or when we do them) degrade us. They do not -degrade the Jew.</p> - -<p>One might continue the list of such accusations indefinitely, and in -every one you would find that the root of the quarrel is not the -presence of a particular defect but the presence of a difference in -circumstances, temperament, character: a different colour and taste in -the quality or defect concerned. It is <i>that</i> which offends. It is -<i>that</i> which causes the misunderstandings and which leads to the -tragedies.</p> - -<p>While this is true of the accusations made against the Jewish people it -is unfortunately equally true of the corresponding qualities which they -and their defenders advance in the rebuttal. The Jew is essentially -patriotic: that is true. But not patriotic to our ends or in our way. He -is essentially self-respecting. But not self-respecting to our ends or -in our way. A personal obligation which he cannot meet, a personal and -intimate contract in which he may default, especially to one of his own -people, is abhorrent to the Jew; but not in our way. He has not our -shame of bankruptcy for instance, but much more than our shame of -personal borrowing. Drunkenness, a vice most offensive to human dignity, -is with him the rarest vice: with us the commonest. But our sense of -dignity in repose he has not, nor does he feel our sense of injured -dignity in mummery. His tenacity, which all know and all in a sense -admire and which is far<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> superior to our own, is also a narrower -tenacity, or at any rate a tenacity of a different kind. He will follow -one end where we will follow many. His wonderful loyalty to all family -relations we know: but we do not appreciate it because it is outside our -own circle. Even his intellectual gifts, which are less affected by this -matter of <i>timbre</i>, have something alien to us in them. They are -undeniable but we feel them to be used for other ends than ours: they -are coldly used when ours are used enthusiastically: they are used with -intensity when we use them with carelessness.</p> - -<p>If we leave the controversial field and concern ourselves with an -appreciation of Jewish qualities, apart from our like or dislike of them -and apart from their difference in intimate texture, as it were, from -our own, they may be summarized I think as follows:—</p> - -<p>The Jew concentrates upon one matter. He does not disperse his mind. And -this concentration carries with it strength and weakness. It has been -said in connection with it (all such terms are metaphorical) that his -mind is not elastic. But this is a great element in his success. I have -noticed that the Jew having once taken up a particular task shows an -indifference to other tasks which, from our standpoint, is marvellous. -How many instances could not one cite of two Jewish brothers, the one -occupied in finance, the other in science, or the one in politics, the -other in music, and how clearly do we see in those instances the -complete indifference of the Jew to things outside the province he has -undertaken! How remarkable in our eyes is his resistance to any -temptation which might lead him away from his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> end. The Jew who is -devoted to science, for instance, remains completely indifferent to its -opportunities for enrichment. The Jew who is devoted to philosophy (and -what great names he can show in this sphere throughout the centuries!) -lives in poverty and is perfectly content so to live. The Jew devoted to -any particular ideal of social change devotes himself entirely to that, -and ends his task often more powerful, hardly ever more wealthy, nearly -always much poorer than when he began it. Above all he refuses to be -distracted for a moment from his goal.</p> - -<p>Another character which is affiliated to this first leading character of -the Jew would seem to be the lucidity of his thought. The Jew's argument -is never muddled. That is one of his prime assets not only in all -discussion but in all action. It is also, if a cause of strength, a -cause of the enmity he arouses: or (to use my milder term) of the -"friction."</p> - -<p>For an exactly constructed process of reasoning, from which there is no -escape, has in it (for those less capable of it) something of the bully. -A man may feel the conclusion to be false: perhaps he <i>knows</i> it to be -false. He lacks the power to express his reasons. He may not know how to -state the principles which his adversary has left out of account, or -when to bring them into discussion, and he feels the iron logic offered -to him like a pistol presented at the head of his better judgment. But -for strength and for weakness also, lucidity is the mark of the Jew's -mind. He carries that lucidity into the smallest details of whatever he -may perform.</p> - -<p>One must add to all this a certain intensity of action which is very -noticeable and which again is a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> cause of friction between himself and -those about him. Hear a Jew speaking, especially a Jew speaking upon the -revolutionary platform, and note the <i>high voltage</i> at which the current -is working. The energy which he uses is not the energy of a large flame -but of a well-directed blow-pipe: a stream of heat. He is wholly -absorbed, not in his own expression, but in actively penetrating the -mind of his hearers. And here again is that difference in quality to -which I have alluded. One might say indifferently that the Jew is never -eloquent or that he is always eloquent when he speaks upon things that -possess his soul. He is not eloquent in our fashion; but he is at any -rate astonishingly effective in his own.</p> - -<p>The Jew has this other characteristic which has become increasingly -noticeable in our own time, but which is probably as old as the race: -and that is a corporate capacity for hiding or for advertising at will: -a power of "pushing" whatever the whole race desires advanced, or of -suppressing what the whole race desires to suppress. And this also, -however legitimately used, is a cause of friction.</p> - -<p>Men get the feeling of a swarm in the presence of such action. They also -get the feeling of being tricked: and it breeds bad blood.</p> - -<p>In the aspect of the deliberate use of secrecy I shall deal with this -character in my next chapter, for I think in that aspect it is a -particular cause of friction which can be eliminated. But the general -capacity and instinct of the Jew for corporate action in the "booming" -of what he wants "boomed" and the "soft pedalling" of what he wants -"soft pedalled" is ineradicable. It will always remain a permanent -irritant in its effect upon those to whom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> it is applied. The best proof -of it is that after the most violent "boom," after the talents of some -particular Jew, or the scientific discovery of another, or the -misfortunes of another, or the miscarriage of justice against another, -has been shouted at us, pointed and iterated until we are all deafened, -there comes an inevitable reaction, and the same men who were half -hypnotized into the desired mood are nauseated with it and refuse a -repetition of the dose.</p> - -<p>The converse is true. Men who find that some important matter has been -suppressed, some bad scandal in the State or some trick in commerce -because Jewry desired it to be suppressed, are soon on the alert. They -will not suffer the operation as quietly the second time as they did the -first. Indeed they tend if anything to grow too suspicious. Anyhow, in -both cases this ineradicable racial habit, a cause perhaps of Jewish -survival and certainly an element of Jewish strength, is also a cause of -acute friction between them and us.</p> - -<p>But a mere category of this kind is, as I have said, useless to explain -the fundamental quality, the hidden root, of the ceaseless conflict -between the very soul of the Jew and the soul of the society around him. -All these points are but manifestations of some profound, some -subterranean power for contrast, the value of which we cannot grasp, but -the effects of which are only too apparent. And there remains in the -minds of those who most rely upon this race and of those who most -suspect them the sense of an impassable gulf between them and ourselves. -It is the recognition, the admission of such a contrast, the telling of -the truth about it, the working upon it as a necessary condition, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> -must form the foundation for any solution at which we can arrive.</p> - -<p class="center">* * * * *</p> - -<p>There is one feature in the European's attitude towards the Jews which -must be specially dealt with, and that is the false impression that the -friction between us and them is in the main a quarrel with their wealth.</p> - -<p>That impression has been greatly weakened by the recent revolutionary -activity of the Jew surging up from the depths, appearing upon the -surface, and producing the great upheaval in Russia, and the attempted -upheavals elsewhere. But though the new Jewish revolutionary movement -has shaken the old insistence on Jewish wealth it is hard to eradicate -it. It has been present throughout the ages, and will remain at the back -of people's minds perhaps for ever, because the few Jews who do -concentrate on piling up great fortunes concentrate on that task so -entirely. Yet the impression is false and is the fruitful cause of the -worst misunderstandings.</p> - -<p>For the Jews are not a rich nation, and the very fact that they stand in -the popular mind—and especially in the mind of rich people in times of -corruption—for wealth, is an example of the way in which they are -misunderstood and of the way in which injustice to the Jew arises.</p> - -<p>The Jews are a poor nation. An enemy would say that they were poor -because they did not work, but this again would be an injustice, because -the Jew works exceedingly hard and has often in the past and does still -in many places work hard, not only in negotiation and commerce but with -his hands.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p><p>We see the Jews in the Middle Ages monopolizing important manual -occupations in some districts—dyeing and shipbuilding, for instance. -And there are many parts of Eastern Europe where they work upon the land -to-day.</p> - -<p>The Jews are a poor nation because they are an alien nation and because -their activities are for the most part condemned to working against the -grain, in a society which is not their own. But that they <i>are</i> a poor -nation is not only true but abundantly evident to any one who has -travelled and watched their various settlements with any sympathy.</p> - -<p>Now that they have arrived in such great numbers in the West people are -beginning to appreciate this. We have already seen how, a lifetime ago, -when the Jews of the West (I mean especially in France and England and -America) were a small number of merchants and financiers, the great -wealth of a very small number among them was not counterbalanced in our -experience by the exceeding poverty of the mass. But to-day we can see -for ourselves how true it is that, once you get below the exceptional -fortunes and a comparatively small middle-class, the Jewish nation is no -more than millions of exceedingly poor families.</p> - -<p>Those who have watched them outside the West, those who have seen them -in their great eastern communities where the bulk of the race still -resides, in the Marches of Russia, will abundantly agree. It helps us to -understand the Jewish problem if we grasp the fact that a great part of -the Jewish complaint against us is precisely this poverty to which the -bulk of the Jews are condemned. It is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> all very well to sneer at the -Jewish complaint of persecution and oppression and to cite ironically, -whenever it arises, the immense fortunes of a few families like the -Rothschilds and the Sassoons, the Monds, the Samuels and the rest. From -the point of view of the average Jew that is not the way the thing looks -at all. What he notices, and notices rightly, is that he has no part in -that well-distributed, solid, permanent, inherited wealth which is the -mark of a healthy European community.</p> - -<p>Further (a most important point already touched on in passing), these -great fortunes are ephemeral.</p> - -<p>In the European nations you have a mass of great fortunes far larger in -number, and even in total, than the Jewish financial fortunes. But those -great fortunes have been in the past and are still, wherever our society -is healthy, permanent. They run through European history in the shape of -the great families, in the shape of the <i>nobility</i>.</p> - -<p>The great territorial families in this country have been wealthy for -centuries and remain in established wealth, and the same is in the main -true of the great Italian families, it is obviously true of the great -German families, and, in spite of the great changes of the last century -and a half, it is still largely true of the old French families. It is -not true of the Jewish families. The vast Jewish fortunes which have -marked history rise suddenly and melt again almost as suddenly. A Jew -will begin in some very small way—as a pawnbroker in Liverpool, for -instance, or a very small bookseller in Frankfort. You will find his son -a great banker, his grandson so wealthy as to command politics for a -generation, and then (if you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> will watch the process in the past—to -take a modern unfinished instance is of course misleading) <i>at last, and -soon, the name disappears again, and disappears for ever</i>.</p> - -<p>Whom have you representing to-day the few great Jewish fortunes of the -early Middle Ages in England? They were all ruined before the end of the -thirteenth century. Whom have you representing the later great Jewish -fortunes on the Rhine, the fortunes of the sixteenth century and the -early seventeenth? They have utterly gone. Who have you left -representing the considerable Jewish houses of Medieval Venice? of -Genoa? of Rome?</p> - -<p>The causes of this rapid fluctuation are many. They all attach to the -peculiar position, as well as to the peculiar character, of the Jew. We -find them partly in the passion for speculation which the Jewish -intelligence naturally harbours. We find them still more, I think, in -the instinctive opposition to the Jew which his alien surroundings -perpetually arouse.</p> - -<p>It is, however, important to remember this last point. From our point of -view the Jew, when he does get rich, seems to get much too rich and to -get rich much too quickly, and he exercises far too much power through -his wealth; for we think of him the whole time as an alien with no right -to any position. But the Jew sees it in a very different light. In his -point of view his effort to accumulate wealth is always heavily -handicapped. When he succeeds he only succeeds through his own tenacity -and the patriotic co-operation of his fellows, and he always holds his -new-found wealth on an insecure tenure. What looks to us like the -breakdown of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> Jewish fortune through speculation, seems to the Jew the -fatal recurrent result of unending opposition.</p> - -<p>In connection with the illusion of a wealthy Jewish race, you have, of -course, the matter which I briefly mentioned above, the connection -between our wealthier, and therefore governing classes, and the Jewish -wealth of the moment. A great part of the illusion, as I have said, is -due to the fact that the gentry of every epoch come into contact with -the Jew <i>only</i> as a rich man, and it is the capital modern vice of our -own gentry, their passion for mere wealth and their subservience to it, -which has largely accounted for this dangerous misunderstanding.</p> - -<p>Look around you in Western Europe to-day and see what people mean by -this story of Jewish wealth. See who the people are that allude -continually to it and spread the idea of it. They are the rich -Europeans, who, in their subservience to crude wealth, in their habit of -gauging everything by that wealth and of submitting to almost any -indignity for the purpose of obtaining more wealth, marry their -daughters to Jews, serve Jewish interests, and, while perpetually -sneering at the Jew behind his back, call him to his face by his most -intimate name and make the most of his hospitality. Which of them ever -knows a middle-class Jew, let alone a poor Jew? Why, most of them are -actually ignorant of the fact that this mass of poor Jews exists at all! -They serve the Jew when he is wealthy and only when he is wealthy. They -envy him basely as a wealthy man and only as a wealthy man. They -prostitute their dignity, they sell their fellow-Europeans, not from any -genuine affection for the Jewish race<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>—indeed there is no class in the -community, closely intermixed with the Jews as they are, which feel the -friction more than the gentry—but simply from a thirst for money, which -they happen to find held in great masses by a few Jewish families.</p> - -<p>It is most noticeable that other aspects of Jewish activity remain -unused by the wealthy class, the gentry—and therefore by the State. -Whether it would be wise to use them or not is another matter. At any -rate, the motive for leaving them unused is the fact that they are not -connected with wealth. The Jewish intelligence which might so often have -served the policy of a Statesman is largely left unused. The -cosmopolitan position of the Jew when it is used is used for little more -than spying; and that profound force, the historical memory of the Jew, -is neglected almost altogether. With this neglect goes a natural and -evil result, the failure on the part of the European governing classes, -especially to-day, to safeguard the community against the troubles which -are bound to arise from the clashing of interests between the Jews and -the people among whom they dwell.</p> - -<p>It may sound paradoxical, but it is true, that if the Statesmen of -Europe, and the hereditary families of the European nations who still -take so much part in the conduct of those nations, had thought less of -the Jewish money power and more of the Jews as a whole they would have -benefited both parties in a very different fashion. We have seen the -artificial protection of the Jews of Eastern Europe because individual -Statesmen have been subservient to the commands of very rich individual -Jewish bankers. But the thing has been done blunderingly. It has served -only to anger the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> independent nationalities of the East, notably the -Poles, the Roumanians and the Hungarians who have experience of the -difficulties inseparable from an alien minority. Our politicians have -treated the whole affair externally and mechanically, merely obeying -orders without trying to understand.</p> - -<p>The ultimate result of such interference by our Western politicians is -unhappily certain. The last state of the Jews in Eastern Europe will be -worse than the first. Their sufferings will be greater than in the past, -and that because, instead of acting from attempted comprehension and -sympathetic comprehension of the Jewish difficulties the politicians, -who have acted as the servants of a few wealthy Jews, have merely obeyed -the orders of these rich men and have done so with the secret reluctance -that always accompanies self-surrender to a wage.</p> - -<p>Is it not apparent, as we look through history, that the permanent power -of the Jew or, at any rate, the celebrity of his nation is utterly -distinct from those chance accumulations of wealth which a few -individuals owe to the national passion for speculation and a -cosmopolitan position?</p> - -<p>One after another the striking Jewish names of history are the names of -Jews who have ardently pursued some moral or intellectual thesis; most -of them—I had nearly said <i>all</i> of them—were poor men, and for the -most part men deliberately poor because they preferred, as it is in the -Jewish nature to prefer, the immediate work in hand to any other -consideration.</p> - -<p>It is these names that remain and are permanent and are the glory of the -Jewish race.</p> - -<p class="center">* * * * *</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p><p>There is one aspect of this Jewish wealth which I hesitate whether to -put among the general or among the particular causes of the friction -between that nation and its hosts.</p> - -<p>It falls certainly among the general causes in the sense that it is -connected with the Jewish character as a whole and not with any special -method in that character's action. It is connected, I mean, with their -very nature, and they cannot change that nature. On the other hand, it -might be put among the particular causes on account of its quite modern -and probably ephemeral character: it is, as it were, a particular cause -of the friction proceeding from the general causes of character just -enumerated, and this cause of friction is the presence of Jewish -<span class="smcap">Monopoly</span>.</p> - -<p>It is an exceedingly dangerous point in the present situation. I do not -think that the Jews have a sufficient appreciation of the risk they are -running by its development. There is already something like a Jewish -monopoly in high finance. There is a growing tendency to Jewish monopoly -over the stage for instance, the fruit trade in London, and to a great -extent the tobacco trade. There is the same element of Jewish monopoly -in the silver trade, and in the control of various other metals, notably -lead, nickel, quicksilver. What is most disquieting of all, this -tendency to monopoly is spreading like a disease. One province after -another falls under it and it acts as a most powerful irritant. It will -perhaps prove the immediate cause of that explosion against the Jews -which we all dread and which the best of us, I hope, are trying to -avert.</p> - -<p>It applies, of course, to a tiny fraction of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> Jewish race as a -whole. One could put the Jews who control lead, nickel, mercury and the -rest into one small room: nor would that room contain very pleasant -specimens of their race. You could get the great Jewish bankers who -control international finance round one large dinner table, and I know -dinner tables which have seen nearly all of them at one time or another. -These monopolists, in strategic positions of universal control are an -insignificant handful of men out of the millions of Israel, just as the -great fortunes we have been discussing attach to an insignificant -proportion of that race. Nevertheless, this claim to an exercise of -monopoly brings hatred upon the Jews as a whole.</p> - -<p>The thing is deservedly hated because it is exceedingly unnatural and -exceedingly tyrannical. It would be tyrannical even for one of our own -people to hold us up in the supply of things essential to us. It is -intolerable in a people alien to us. When we come to discuss, in the -next chapter, the unfortunate use of secrecy by the Jews (the most -potent, perhaps, of the particular causes which have lead them into -their present peril) we shall better understand another odious feature -in this modern monopoly of control, which is the way in which it spreads -underground and out of sight leaving the world in general ignorant that -this, that and the other individual Jew is its master in the matter of -some essential thing which he controls.</p> - -<p>To put it plainly, these monopolies must be put an end to.</p> - -<p>Before the Great War there was only one of which Europe as a whole was -conscious, and that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> was the financial monopoly. Yet here the monopoly -was far less perfect than in the case of the metals. The Great War -brought thousands upon thousands of educated men (who took up public -duties as temporary officials) up against the staggering secret they had -never suspected—the complete control exercised over things absolutely -necessary to the nation's survival by half a dozen Jews, who were -completely indifferent as to whether we or the enemy should emerge alive -from the struggle.</p> - -<p>Incidentally, the wealth of these few and very wealthy Jews has been -scandalously increased through the war on this very account. And at the -moment in which I write the French press, which has a longer experience -in the free discussion of the Jewish question than any other, is -exposing the abominable increase in value of the Rothschild's lead -mines, an increase mainly due to the use of lead for the killing of men.</p> - -<p>But lead is only one of the monopolies, as I have said. A whole group -already exists and the extension of the system is going on as rapidly as -an epidemic. Not only must it cease before any solution of the Jewish -question can be attempted, but the process must be reversed. If the -various national Cabinets do not interfere to protect these monopolies, -then good-bye to any attempt at justice for the Jew. In the legitimate -anger against a few pitiful dozens among the worst specimens of the -nation, Israel as a whole will be sacrificed.</p> - -<p>There is in this formation of monopolies, as in the more reputable -activities of the nation, even in its more justly famous activities, -even in its glories, that element of racial character which is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> never -absent from any Jewish action. And that is why I have put the point, -modern and ephemeral as it is, among the general causes of trouble.</p> - -<p>The reason these general monopolies are formed by Jews is that the Jew -is international, tenacious and determined upon reaching the very end of -his task. He is not satisfied in any trade until that trade is, as far -as possible, under his complete control, and he has for the extension of -that control the support of his brethren throughout the world. He has at -the same time the international knowledge and international indifference -which further aid his efforts.</p> - -<p class="center">* * * * *</p> - -<p>But even were the quite recent monopolies in metal and other trades -taken, as they ought to be taken, from these few alien masters of them, -there would remain that partial monopoly (it is not at all a complete -monopoly) which a few Jews have exercised not only to-day, but -recurrently throughout history, over the highest finance: that is, over -the credit of the nations, and therefore to-day, as never before, over -the whole field of the world's industry.</p> - -<p>Should that partial financial monopoly remain uncorrected it will -produce a sufficient hostility against the Jews to precipitate, of -itself, the next general attack upon them.</p> - -<p>It may be argued that this fear is groundless because the control has -now lasted for a long time. It has lasted a lifetime even in its present -hardly complete form: and it is secure because its operations are -removed from general observation, and because it is mixed up with the -interests of all the wealthier classes.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p><p>I am afraid these arguments will not hold. Although the Jewish control -of finance is not a thing which touches the public at large, yet all -educated men down to a comparatively low stratum of society are fully -aware of it, and every man who is aware of it resents it. It is resented -almost as much by the mass of poor Jews as by the non-Jews, but in a -different way.</p> - -<p>Again, although this financial monopoly does not directly affect the -economic life of the private citizen, he is beginning to understand more -and more how it indirectly affects it. It affects him, for instance, -through his patriotism. He will not submit to be told that, in order to -suit the convenience of these alien bankers, he must forgo the rights of -victory and allow some enemy whom he has justly chastised to escape the -consequences of that chastisement. Still more urgently will he deny the -right of the Jewish bankers to interfere with the national reparation -due to him for damage wantonly done in the course of hostilities.</p> - -<p>Again, international finance does not live separate from private -activities. It touches at last a mass of individual enterprises, and -through those individual enterprises its action is questioned and -examined by a host of private citizens.</p> - -<p>Yet again, the Jews who thus control international finance are at work -in many other capacities. For instance, some of them stand behind those -great Industrial Insurance schemes which are so detestable to the mass -of the people. Action against these may arise any moment. If such action -comes one may be certain that the individual attacked will be remembered -in his capacity of international financier quite as much as in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> -capacity of a battener upon the lapsed premiums of the poor. Sooner or -later the character of this monopoly, to which men of a lifetime ago -were indifferent through ignorance but of which to-day all the educated -part of the community is aware and deeply resents, will be appreciated -and equally resented at a lower level still. When society is -sufficiently filled with indignation against it, then the explosion will -come. If that explosion only affected the rich Jews immediately -concerned no one would much regret it. There would be little harm done. -But the trouble is that it will almost certainly affect the whole nation -to which those individuals belong.</p> - -<p>I may be told that to put an end to this state of affairs is impossible -so long as parliamentary government, with its profound corruption, -endures; that the only force capable of dealing with the plutocratic -evil of alien monopoly upon this scale is a king; and that a king we -have not, among modern nations. To which I answer that the parliamentary -system will not last for ever. It is already in active dissolution among -ourselves, and badly hit elsewhere. The king may not be so far off as -people think him to be.</p> - -<p>At any rate, in one way or another the thing will cease, and will -probably cease in violence. The danger is that if it ceases in violence -a vast number of innocent will be involved with the guilty.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p> - -<p class="bold2">THE SPECIAL CAUSES OF FRICTION</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p> - -<h2><span>CHAPTER V</span> <span class="smaller">THE SPECIAL CAUSES OF FRICTION</span></h2> - -<p>There are two special forces upon the Jewish side which nourish and -exasperate the inevitable friction between the Jewish race and its -hosts. It will be well to deal with these before passing to the -corresponding forces upon our side. For to find a remedy it is necessary -to diagnose the disease.</p> - -<p>The two main Jewish forces which exasperate and maintain the sense of -friction between the Jews and their hosts are first of all the Jewish -reliance upon secrecy, and, secondly, the Jewish expression of superiority.</p> - -<p class="bold">1. <span class="smcap">The Jewish Reliance upon Secrecy</span></p> - -<p>It has unfortunately now become a habit for so many generations, that it -has almost passed into an instinct throughout the Jewish body, to rely -upon the weapon of secrecy. Secret societies, a language kept as far as -possible secret, the use of false names in order to hide secret -movements, secret relations between various parts of the Jewish body: -all these and other forms of secrecy have become the national method. It -is a method to be deplored, not because its indignity and falsehood -degrade the Jew—that is not our affair—but rather on account of the -ill-effects this policy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> produces on our mutual relations. It feeds and -intensifies the antagonism already excited by racial contrast.</p> - -<p>But before we go further it is essential to be just; for no one -understands anything if he attacks it unjustly.</p> - -<p>The Jewish habit of secrecy—the assumption of false names and the -pretence of non-Jewish origin in individuals, the concealment of -relationships and the rest of it—have presumably sprung from the -experience of the race. Let a man put himself in the place of the Jew -and he will see how sound the presumption is. A race scattered, -persecuted, often despised, always suspected and nearly always hated by -those among whom it moves, is constrained by something like physical -force to the use of secret methods.</p> - -<p>Take the particular trick of false names. It seems to us particularly -odious. We think when we show our contempt for those who use this -subterfuge that we are giving them no more than they deserve. It is a -meanness which we associate with criminals and vagabonds; a piece of -crawling and sneaking. We suspect its practisers of desiring to hide -something which would bring them into disgrace if it were known, or of -desiring to over-reach their fellows in commerce by a form of falsehood.</p> - -<p>But the Jew has other and better motives. As one of their community said -to me with great force, when I discussed the matter with him many years -ago at a City dinner, "When we work under our own names you abuse us as -Jews. When we work under <i>your</i> names you abuse us as forgers." The Jew -has often felt himself so handicapped<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> if he declared himself, that he -was half forced, or at any rate grievously tempted, to a piece of -baseness which was never a temptation for us. Surely all this carefully -arranged code of assumed patronymics (Stanley for Solomon, Curzon for -Cohen, Sinclair for Slezinger, Montague for Moses, Benson for Benjamin, -etc., etc.) had its root in that.</p> - -<p>The Jew can plead something further in extenuation of this practice. -Family names did not grow up naturally with them, as with us, in the -course of the Middle Ages. The Jew retained, as we long retained in the -middle and lower ranks of European society, the simple habit of -possessing one personal name and differentiating a man from his fellows -by introducing the name of his father. Thus a Jew in the sixteenth -century was Moses ben Solomon, just as the Cromwells' ancestor of the -same generation was Williams ap Williams. He had not what we call a -surname or family name. In the same way until varying dates, early in -France and England and other Western countries, much later in Wales, -Brittany, Poland and the Slav countries of the East, a man was known -only by his personal name, distinguished, if that were necessary, by -mentioning also the name of his father, or, in some cases, of his tribe.</p> - -<p>Properly speaking the Jews have no surnames, and they may say with -justice: "Since we were compelled to take surnames arbitrarily (which -was the case in the Germanies and sometimes elsewhere as well), you -cannot blame us if we attach no particular sanctity to the custom." If a -Jew of plain Jewish name was compelled by alien force to take the fancy -name of Flowerfield, he is surely free to change that fancy name, for -which he is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> not responsible, to any other he chooses. There was a good -reason for the Government to force a name upon him. Only thus could he -be registered and his actions traced. But forced it was, and therefore, -on him, not morally binding.</p> - -<p>All this is true, but there remains an element not to be accounted for -on any such pleas. There are in the experience of all of us, an -experience repeated indefinitely, men who have no excuse whatsoever for -a false name save that advantage of deceit. Men whose race is -universally known will unblushingly adopt a false name as a mask, and -after a year or two pretend to treat it as an insult if their original -and true name be used in its place. This is particularly the case with -the great financial families. Some, indeed, have the pride to maintain -the original patronymic and refuse to change it in any of their -descendants. But the great mass of them concealed their relations one -with another by adopting all manner of fantastic titles, and there can -be no object in such a proceeding save the object of deception. I admit -it is a form of protection, and especially do I admit that in its origin -it may have mainly derived from a necessity for self-protection. But I -maintain that to-day the practice does nothing but harm to the Jew. -There are other races which have suffered persecution, many of them, up -and down the world, and we do not find in them a universal habit of this kind.</p> - -<p>Again, who can say that the bearing of a Jewish name to-day, or at any -rate in the immediate past, is or was a handicap in commerce where -Occidental nations were concerned? And as for the Eastern nations, the -Jews there are so sharply differentiated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> that a false name can be of no -service merely to hide the racial character of its bearer. There must be -another motive present.</p> - -<p>The same arguments apply for and against other forms of secrecy. A man -may plead that if secrecy in relationship were not maintained the -dislike of Jews would lead to false accusations. The Jew is highly -individual, especially in intellectual affairs. He takes his own line. -He expresses his opinions with singular courage. And such individual -opinions will often differ violently from those of men with whom he is -most closely connected. "Why," I can understand some distinguished -Jewish publicist in England saying, "should I be compromised by people -knowing that such-and-such a Bolshevist in Moscow or in New York is my -cousin or nephew? I am conservative in temperament; I have always served -faithfully the state in which I live; I heartily disapprove of these -people's views and actions. If their relationship with me were known I -should fall under the common ban. That would be unjust. Therefore I keep -the relationship secret."</p> - -<p>The plea is sound, but it does not cover the ground. It is not -sufficient to explain, for instance, the habit of hiding relationships -between men equally distinguished and equally approved in the different -societies in which they move. It does not explain why we must be left in -ignorance of the fact that a man whom we are treating as the best of -fellow-citizens should hide his connection with another man who is -treated with equal honour in another country. There are occasions where -national conflicts make the thing explicable. A Jew in England with a -brother in Germany and a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> father at Constantinople might well be excused -in 1915 for calling himself Montmorency. Yet we note that often where -there is most need to hide the connection, the connection is not hidden -at all. On the contrary, it is openly advertised. We all recollect the -name of one Jewish financier who was most unjustly treated during the -war. He had faithfully served this country and the breach of his -connection with it was (to my mind at least, and I think to most people -who can judge the matter) a very bad thing for Britain in the conflict. -Yet there was here no change of name and no attempt to hide the -connection between himself and his brother, who stood, in another -capital, for the financial policy of our enemies.</p> - -<p>Again, the Rothschilds, present in the various capitals of Europe, have -never pretended to hide their mutual relationships, and no one has -thought any the worse of them, nor has this open practice in any way -diminished their financial power.</p> - -<p>There must be more than necessity at work; I suggest that there is -something like instinct, or, at any rate, an inherited tradition so -strong that recourse to it seems natural.</p> - -<p>Now it cannot be too forcibly emphasized that secrecy in any of these -forms—working through secret societies, using false names, hiding of -relationships, denying Jewish origin—specially exasperates this, our -own race, among which the Jews are thrown in their dispersion. It is -invariably discovered, sooner or later, and whenever it is discovered -men have an angry feeling that they have been duped, even in cases where -the practice is most innocent and is no more than the following of -something like a ritual.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p><p>I doubt whether the Jews have any idea how strongly this force works -against them. If a man were to say "my name is so-and-so; my father was -born at such-and-such a place in Galicia; my brother is still there in -such-and-such a business"—if he told us all that, he would not suffer -upon our appreciating later on that members of his family abroad were -connected with movements we disapproved: no, not even with a Government -in active hostility to our own. Everybody knows the international -position of the Jew. Everybody knows that he cannot avoid that position. -Everybody makes allowances for it. And I conceive that the abandonment -of this habit of secrecy is not only possible but would be very greatly -to the advantage of the whole race.</p> - -<p>Perhaps its most absurd form (not its most dangerous form) is the -secrecy maintained by distinguished men with regard to their Jewish -ancestors. They and their Jewish relations often suppress it altogether -or, at best, touch on it rarely and obscurely. Why should they act thus? -Take the case of two men at random out of hundreds whose names are -universally known and by most people respected, the name of Charles -Kingsley, the writer, and the name of Moss-Booth, the founder of the -Salvation Army. Here are two men who in very different fields played a -great part in English life and who both owed their genius and nearly all -their physical appearance to Jewish mothers. I should have thought it to -the advantage of the Jewish race and of the individuals concerned that -this fact should be widely known. The literary abilities of Charles -Kingsley,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> the organizing and other abilities of Booth are not lessened -in people's eyes, but, if anything, enhanced, by a knowledge of their -true lineage. Yet the mention of that lineage is treated as though it -were a sort of insult. I have heard it wrung out in some passionate plea -for the Jewish race as a proof that they are not devoid of abilities, -but never generally published.</p> - -<p>Surely it would be more sensible to emphasize in every possible case the -Jewish or partially Jewish origin of men who distinguished themselves, -and thus to show under what a debt Europeans stand to the Jewish blood. -To treat the matter as a sort of sacred labyrinth, as a mysterious -temple into which one may now and then be allowed to peep is ridiculous. -The Jews cannot have their cake and eat it too. If it is—surely it must -be—in their eyes a matter for pride to belong to blood which they hold -to be superior and to a tradition of such immense antiquity, then it -cannot be at the same time a matter of insult. Yet the convention is -desperately maintained by the Jews themselves. If a man tells me that he -hates the English, and in reply I say, "That's because you are an -Irishman," he does not fly at my throat. He takes it as a matter of -course that the history of the English government in Ireland excuses his -expression. So far from being insulted at being called an Irishman he -would be insulted if you said he was not an Irishman. And so it is with -many another nationality which has suffered oppression and persecution. -I can find no rational basis for a contrary policy in the case of the -Jews. Moreover the habit does this further harm: it makes men ascribe a -Jewish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> character to anything they dislike, and thus extends -undeservedly the odium against the race.</p> - -<p>A foreign movement against one's nation, an unpopular public figure, a -detested doctrine, are labelled "Jewish" and the field of hate, already -perilously wide, is broadened indefinitely. It is useless to say, "The -Jews do not admit the connection, the names are not Jewish, there is no -overt Jewish element." He answers, "Jews never do admit such connection; -Jews admittedly hide under false names; Jewish action never <i>is</i> overt." -And—as things are, until they change—there is no denying what he says. -His judgment may be as wild as you will (I have heard Sinn Feiners -called Jews!), but, so long as this wretched habit of secrecy is -maintained, there is no correcting that judgment. A universal suspicion -is engendered and spreads.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile the same vice drags into publicity every ill-sounding Jewish -act and name and leaves in obscurity the honoured names and useful -public actions of Jewry. For a false name, like a forgery, advertises itself.</p> - -<p>It is not always recognized in this connection that the Jewish "booms," -which are so fruitful a cause of exasperation, depend on this same -policy of concealment and on that account add to the volume of anger as -each new trick is discovered.</p> - -<p>Not that the objects of these world-wide campaigns are unworthy of -attention. The Jewish actor, or film-star, or writer or scientist -selected is usually talented; the victim of injustice whose case is -advertised on the big drum has often a genuine grievance. But that the -notice demanded is out of all proportion and that its dependence on -Jewish organization is always kept hidden.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p><p>So much for the element of secret action. A great deal more might be -written upon it, but there are two reasons against enlarging thereon. -First, a full discussion would take up far too much of my space; -secondly, it would tend to add what I particularly wish to avoid in -these pages, I mean emphasis upon the errors of the Jew. It would -continue a quarrel, our whole object in which is to find peace.</p> - -<p class="bold">2. <span class="smcap">The Expression of Superiority by the Jew</span></p> - -<p>This is a very different matter. The mere <i>sense</i> of superiority is not -something in which any special policy can be recommended, because it is -there and cannot be remedied. It is part of the whole position. But it -is possible to restrain its expression. For that purpose it is of value -to define it, to put it upon record and to estimate its effect upon our issue.</p> - -<p>The Jew individually feels himself superior to his non-Jewish -contemporary and neighbour of whatever race, and particularly of our -race; the Jew feels his nation immeasurably superior to any other human -community, and particularly to our modern national communities in Europe.</p> - -<p>The frank statement of so simple and fundamental a truth is rarely made. -It will sound, I fear, shocking in many ears. To many others it will -sound not so much shocking as comic, and to many more stupefying.</p> - -<p>The idea that the Jew should think himself our superior is something so -incomprehensible to us that we forget the existence of the feeling. If -it be constantly reiterated, for the purpose of dealing with this great -political difficulty, it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> is perhaps reluctantly admitted, but still -held as sort of abnormal, bewildering truth. I contend that the -forgetfulness of that truth, the attempt to solve the problem without -that truth remaining constant and fixed in the mind of the statesman, is -in a very large measure the cause of our failure in the past; and that -the way the Jew openly acts upon it in gesture, tone, manner, social -assertion, is a very important factor in the quarrel between his race and ours.</p> - -<p>Consider the attitude of statesmanship in the past towards this vital -conflict. In every such attitude I think the Jewish conviction of -superiority has been omitted.</p> - -<p>For the attitudes taken up by European statesmen in the past towards the -alien Jewish element in their midst have always been one of three sorts:—</p> - -<p>(1) Either they have acted as though there were no Jewish nation, as -though the Jew were merely a private citizen like any other who happened -to have peculiar opinions and customs of his own but who was not -substantially different from the men around him.</p> - -<p>(2) Or they have attempted to suppress, or to expel, or to destroy the -Jew with ignominy and violence.</p> - -<p>(3) Or, while recognizing the existence of the Jewish nation as -something separate from their own fellow-nationals whom they have to -administrate, the statesmen have tried to arrive at equilibrium by a -sort of pact in which Jewish separateness was recognized, <i>but under -conditions of disability</i>.</p> - -<p>Now in all these three methods there is absent all recognition of the -Jewish feeling of superiority.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p><p>In the first it is obviously lacking because the whole idea of a Jewish -nation is absent. It is equally obviously lacking from the second -method, that of persecution: the persecutor instinctively acts as though -the Jew felt himself to be an inferior. In the third method it is also -absent, not in theory but in practice. For the statesmen who have acted -thus in the past have not attempted to give the Jews a <i>separate</i> status -only, they have in point of fact nearly always given them an <i>inferior</i> -status. By so doing they have exasperated the Jewish national sentiment.</p> - -<p>For instance, certain nations have treated Jews as a separate people, as -aliens, by forbidding them untrammelled residence, and enforcing -registration. But when it came to taxation or freedom from military -service, <i>then</i> there was no special recognition of the Jew.</p> - -<p>There is indeed a fourth attitude which has occasionally appeared in -history when States have been in active decline or have fallen into the -hands of base and weak men, and that is the exaggerated flattery and -support of a few powerful wealthy Jews by administrators who were bribed -or cowed. We are suffering from that to-day. But these exceptional cases -(they have always led to national disaster) do not form a true category -of <i>Statesmanship</i> in the matter. Nor is there even in those who thus -actually advantage a few Jews above their own fellow-citizens, and give -them special prominence and power, so much a recognition of the Jewish -sense of superiority as a secret hatred of their Jewish masters.</p> - -<p>Bitter as is everywhere the secret attack on the Jews by those who have -subjected themselves for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> gain or publicity, it is nowhere so bitter as -in the private speech of the politicians.</p> - -<p>It would seem in the presence of so many failures in policy, and all -these failures having in common the non-recognition of this Jewish -feeling, that success can never be obtained unless we fully allow for -it. I submit that there will never be peace between any Jewish alien -minority and the community within which it may happen to reside until -those who administrate that community fully accept, and studiously avoid -the exasperation of, this state of the Jewish mind.</p> - -<p>In statesmanship, as in every other form of human activity, exact -definition is of the first importance. We must distinguish at the outset -between this Jewish sense of superiority and any real superiority. The -statesman is not concerned with the rightness or wrongness of the Jewish -attitude. It may be a most absurd illusion, or it may be a most profound -vision. He has nothing to do with that. Having made up his mind that the -small and quite alien minority must be tolerated and must be allowed to -live as happily as possible in the midst of a community from which it so -profoundly differs, his next duty is to know thoroughly the nature of -the material upon which he is acting and with which he has to deal.</p> - -<p>He may smile at the Jewish sense of superiority; he may even be -privately indignant; but he must be quite sure that it is a permanent -part of the nation with which he has to settle. It will never be -removed. The Jew in the East End of London, the poorest of the poor, -feels himself the superior of the magistrate before whom he is hauled, -of the policeman who keeps order in the streets, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> immensely the -superior of the simple-faced soldiers and sailors, whose trade is the -most typical of our own race. He even feels himself the superior of -those whom he better understands—the negotiators: the people who live -by cunning. The expression of our faces, our gesture, our manner; the -very fact that our minds, less acute, are also broader, confirms his -feeling.</p> - -<p>This fixed idea of superiority which appears in every phrase and -implication, is taken for granted by the Jew. It is felt, I say, by the -poorest and most oppressed, the least rich and the most unfortunate of -the Jewish people in our midst. Unfortunately—and this is the crux—it -proceeds to <i>unrestrained expression</i>. It is this which is so violently -resented. It is this which aggravates the quarrel. It is this which must -be kept in control if we are to have peace; not the sense of -superiority, that is ineradicable, but the expression of it. It appears, -as we all know, with extraordinary emphasis in the action and manner of -the few very wealthy Jews with whom the directing classes of the nation -are better acquainted. But whether he be a rich man suffering only from -alien and hostile surroundings, or a poor man suffering from all the -lowering forces of squalor, of destitution and of contempt, the Jew -feels himself the potential master of his hosts and shows it. He reposes -in the same confidence as was felt by Disraeli when he said: "The Jew -cannot be absorbed; it is not possible for a superior race to be -absorbed by an inferior." But unfortunately he does not only repose on -that foundation; he also <i>acts</i> upon it, and that is intolerable.</p> - -<p>We must, I say, allow for this feeling in any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> settlement we make; we -have also to study its consequences. Otherwise we shall be baffled by -phenomena which would seem inexplicable. But we need not allow for—on -the contrary, we should actively condemn—an open attitude of Jewish -contempt for ourselves.</p> - -<p>Here are some consequences of this open expression of -superiority—consequences which we all discover to-day in the relations -between the Jewish people and ourselves and which are leading us into a -situation very dangerous for them and for us.</p> - -<p>First, you have that familiar handling of European things by the Jew, -which is continually stirring the wrath of the European and as -continually leaving the Jew in wonderment what possible harm he can have -done. Thus, the Jew will write of our religion, taking for granted that -it is folly, and will marvel that we are offended. He will appear in our -national discussions, not only giving advice, but attempting to direct -policy, and will be puzzled to discover that his indifference to -national feeling is annoying. He will postulate the Jewish temperament -as something which, if different from ours, must, whether we like it or -not, be thrust upon us.</p> - -<p>He acts in all these things as every one acts instinctively in the -presence of those whom they take for granted to be inferiors, and when -men talk of the "Jewish insolence," or the "Jewish sneer," they imply -that attitude. We are wrong if we take these things as calculated -insult. The action of the Jew, in so far as it proceeds from this sense -of superiority, is no more calculated and no more deliberately hostile -than are our own actions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> whenever we find ourselves in relations with -those whom we think inferior to ourselves. But we are right to point -them out, to resent them, to reprove them, and, if it became necessary, -to end them.</p> - -<p>The Jewish problem will never be solved unless we make allowances for -the sense of superiority, take it for granted as an unavoidable evil, -and restrain our indignation in its presence; but neither will it be -solved if we permit its more and more open expression.</p> - -<p>Another consequence of this attitude: The Jew, on account of it, makes -no effort to get into touch with the mass of the race in the midst of -which he may happen to be living. He is content to remain separate from -it, and thinks he cannot help remaining separate from them. And he shows -it. He consents to associate with the <i>élite</i>, with those who direct, -with those who have some special sort of function, but it seems to him a -waste of time to attempt communion with the rest. And he shows it. That -is what Renan meant when he said that the Jews were the least democratic -of all people. Renan, who was supported by Jewish money and lived, while -he was doing his best work, dependent on a Jewish publisher; Renan, who -was so fascinated by the history of Israel, and who decided himself to -become a scholar in all Hebraic things, understood the Jew not at all. -His judgments upon them are invariably superficial and to one side of -the truth; the judgments of a foreigner—an admiring foreigner but not a -sympathetic foreigner. And when he said that the Jews were not -democratic he was, instead of passing a judgment upon an intimate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> -political instinct of the Jewish people, simply noting an external -phenomenon. For the Jews are, as a fact, strongly democratic—no nation -more so—in their national relations among themselves; they only appear -undemocratic to us because they openly look down on us among whom they live.</p> - -<p>Another form taken by that open expression of the sense of superiority -among the Jews: It lends to all their actions in our State a certain -assurance and solidity which vastly strengthens their power of -resistance, no doubt, but also provokes their misfortunes. The religious -interpreter of history might say that they had been specially endowed -with this sense by Providence because Providence intended them to -survive as a national unit miraculously, in the face of every -disability; to remain themselves for 2,000 years under conditions which -would have destroyed any other people in perhaps a century: and yet -intended to suffer. The rationalist will say that the expression of a -sense of superiority, and the power of resistance that accompanies it -are but different names for the same thing; that but for the presence of -that expression of superiority the resistance could not have succeeded, -but for the resistance there could have been no persecution; that there -was no design in the matter, only the chance presence of a particular -quality which has produced its necessary and logical effect. But -whichever be the true explanation, the historical fact remains, that -this sense of superiority produced an open and overweening expression of -it whenever the Jews have been free to give vent to their feelings, and -that while it has had, as one great consequence, the strengthening of -the identity, permanence,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> survival of the Jewish people, it has also -had, for another great consequence, their recurrent oppression following -on every period of freedom.</p> - -<p>There is one last thing to be said, which it is almost impossible to say -without the danger of giving pain and therefore of confusing the problem -and making the solution more difficult. But it must be said, because, if -we shirk it, the problem is confused the more. It is this: While it is -undoubtedly true, and will always be true, that a Jew feels himself the -superior of his hosts, it is also true that his hosts feel themselves -immeasurably superior to the Jew. We can only arrive at a just and -peaceable solution of our difficulties by remembering that the Jew, to -whom we have given special and alien status in the Commonwealth, is all -the while thinking of himself as our superior. But on his side the Jew -must recognize, however unpalatable to him the recognition may be, that -those among whom he is living and whose inferiority he takes for -granted, on <i>their</i> side regard him as something much less than themselves.</p> - -<p>That statement, I know, will be as stupefying to the Jew as its converse -is stupefying to us. It will seem as extraordinary, as incredible, and -all the rest of it; but it is true, and it is a permanent truth. Unless -the Jews recognize that truth the trouble will go on indefinitely. There -is no European so mean in fortune or so base in character as not to feel -himself altogether the superior of any Jew, however wealthy, however -powerful, and (I am afraid I must add) however good. True, virtue has a -superiority of its own which cannot be hidden, and the cruel, or the -treacherous, or the debauched European cannot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> but feel himself morally -inferior to a Jew who is just, self-governed, merciful, generous, and -the rest of it. But we know how it is with national feelings. The type -is stronger for us than the individual; and while we may recognize -certain superior characteristics in the individual, we are thinking all -the while of the race, of the communal form, and contrasting our own -with the alien form to the disadvantage of the latter.</p> - -<p>So difficult is it for the Jew to appreciate this factor in the problem -that his lack of appreciation has been almost as great a cause of -difficulty in the past as the same lack upon our side. We seem to him -insolent when, in our own eyes, we are merely acting normally as superiors.</p> - -<p>What emotion does it not create, I wonder, in some Jewish merchant or -money-dealer who has purchased a high directing place in our plutocracy -when he discovers from the gesture, the tone, the expression of some -chance poor Englishman, perhaps no more than an embarrassed hack writer, -a clear feeling of superiority? Must it not seem to him mere insolence? -"What possible claim" (he will say within himself) "has this <i>goy</i>, and -a poor unsuccessful <i>goy</i> at that, to treat <i>me</i> as though I were less -than he! I, who am worth millions, who am ruling and doing what I will -with his own national leaders, who dispose of his State very much as I -choose, and who belong to that nation which is wholly above all others, -the Jewish people?" Everywhere the Jew discovers the consequences of -this feeling, even though that feeling be to him so incomprehensible -that he can hardly admit its existence.</p> - -<p>Well, whether he likes to admit it or not, it is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> there. Individual Jews -may be flattered for the sake of their wealth or because of the fear of -them, in which a commercial community stands. Such Jews as mistake the -current printed word which they read for the spoken words they never -hear may fall into the error of thinking that this sense of superiority -on our part did not exist. They must be warned, if ever the problem is -to be solved, that it <i>does</i>.</p> - -<p>In their case, just as in ours, a right solution can only be arrived at -by the frank admission that the feeling is there and by the fixed -knowledge that, whether the feeling be an illusion or represent a -reality, it will not change; but also by a repression of it in our -mutual relations.</p> - -<p>We may add to our summary of this subtle but profound cause of -disturbance the further truth that a paradox of the sort is to be found, -though perhaps less emphasized, in every other political problem. The -diplomat resident in a foreign capital has to consider not only his own -certitude that his hosts are inferior, but their certitude of their own -superiority to him and his. The general in the field may be certain of -his mastery over an opponent, but if that opponent is as yet undefeated -he will do ill to forget that he is matched by a confidence equal to his -own. Still more does the negotiator in commerce act upon this principle -and recognize it, or at least if he fails to do so, he invites disaster. -For when the commercial man is occupied in overreaching his neighbour, -his chances of success very largely depend upon his treating that -neighbour as though he really were what he believes himself to be. He -may be dealing with a stupid and vain man easily<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> to be overmatched and -impoverished, but if he lets it appear that he regards his proposed -victim as a vain and stupid man, then he will miss his bargain.</p> - -<p>In general, there is no success over others, nor even (which is much -more necessary), any permanent arrangement possible with others, unless -we know, allow for, and act upon the self-judgment of others, however -wrong we may believe that self-judgment to be.</p> - -<p>It is clear that in this conflict between the Jew and, let us say, the -European (for it is between the Jew and the white Occidental race that -our present problem lies, though the same problem arises with all other -races among whom the Jew may find himself), both parties cannot be -right. A being superior to the race of man and looking on our petty -quarrels might be able to decide which of the two opponents were nearer -reality, and whether we are the better justified in our contempt of the -Jew or the Jew in his contempt of us. But in working out our own -solution without the aid of such guidance, there is no rule but for both -parties to take for granted what each regards as an illusion in the -other; to restrain its expression for the sake of reaching a settlement; -and in the settlement they arrive at, to admit as a factor necessarily -and permanently present what each still secretly regards as a folly, but -an incurable folly, in the other.</p> - -<p>The alternative to such self-restraint is a falling back into the old -circle of submission, consequent anger accompanied by shame and -violence, and these followed by remorse.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p> - -<p class="bold2">THE CAUSE OF FRICTION UPON OUR SIDE</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p> - -<h2><span>CHAPTER VI</span> <span class="smaller">THE CAUSE OF FRICTION UPON OUR SIDE</span></h2> - -<p>Having concluded a brief review of the causes of friction upon the -Jewish side, we must turn to the cause of friction upon our own.</p> - -<p>At first sight it might seem that the task was superfluous. Action and -reaction are equal and opposite. If you have shown why A irritates B, -you have also presumably shown why B irritates A. Or again, if you -regard an alien minority in a community as an irritant (which it nearly -always is and which it certainly is in the case of the Jews), you have, -it would seem, sufficiently defined the position and need not trouble to -examine what part the irritated play in the matter. What is parasitical -at the worst preys upon the general body, at the best disturbs it. The -general body would appear passive. It has no part in the business but to -react against the cause of the disturbance and if possible get rid of -it. As that cause is none of its making, one need not seek for any -responsibility on its side.</p> - -<p>The house is ours: the Jew is an intruder (an objector may say), and -there is an end of it.</p> - -<p>But the situation is not as simple as that. Quite apart from the fact -that the Jew will certainly not allow such a description of his -activity, there is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> the obvious truth that where you are dealing with -two <i>human</i> factors, that is, with two factors which have a common -nature and therefore common duties, you are also dealing with two known -and analysable organic things. You are also dealing with two sets of -wills, and these wills we know to be free, in spite of sophists. A man -and a group of men can do well or ill, both absolutely, and relatively -to some particular question in hand; and no group of men can escape -responsibility in relation to any other group with which it is in -contact. It is certain that we play a part ourselves in this quarrel -between us and the Jews. It is a part which is in a measure inevitable, -because it proceeds in a measure from the mere contrast between two -racial characters. But there is a remaining part which can be remedied -by the action of the will.</p> - -<p>Though we cannot change that element which is inherent in our nature any -more than the Jews can change theirs, yet an understanding of it makes -all the difference; and we can certainly change those elements which are -inherent in our wills.</p> - -<p>The proof of this is that in the long story of the relations between the -two races, there have been, in various times and places, those -exceptional chapters of calm to which I have alluded on an earlier page, -and these could not have been maintained had not the causes of friction -been modified on either side, but especially upon ours.</p> - -<p>All that cause of friction which arises from the mere contrast of -character may be set down very briefly. It is included in what has just -been said on the general causes, the difference in nature between the -Jews and ourselves. If their form of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> courage, their form of generosity, -their form of loyalty is, as it is, of a different quality from ours; if -their defects show the same difference of quality or colour; if we -perpetually feel, as we do feel, the friction caused by this contrast, -so do they, presumably, feel a corresponding friction in their dealings -with us. We shall neither of us be able to change that state of affairs. -We must admit it, and we must try to understand its nature.</p> - -<p>Above all, we must not take it for granted that a difference from -ourselves is in itself an evil in another. That is a point to be -insisted upon. When we are dealing with inanimate nature, or with -unintelligent animate nature, we do not ascribe motive, for there is no -motive to ascribe. A man does not go about with bitterness in his heart -against wasps, though the purpose of the wasp is very different from the -purpose of the man and their interests clash. He does not call the wasp -wicked, nor, save as a relief to his feelings, give it moral names. He -does not condemn the wasp. Still less does he condemn all wasps, or -anything else in nature around him that works against his interest. But -when he has to deal with other human beings, man at once begins to -ascribe a motive. He must do so, because he knows that motive is the -spring of all human action, including his own. When that motive differs -from his, contrasts with his and is therefore in any degree inimical to -his, he is inclined to ascribe an evil motive. All that is a truism as -old as the hills.</p> - -<p>If you have not to live with those who thus differ from you there is no -great harm done, but if you have to accept them as part of your life, it -is a different matter. It is then essential<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> to the order of the State -that this illusion of directly antagonistic motive should be watched and -restrained.</p> - -<p>But all this concerns rather our duty in the matter than the mere cause -of friction.</p> - -<p>The first cause of friction is that contrast which is the same whether -we describe it from the alien's point of view, as has just been done, or -from our own.</p> - -<p>The causes of friction which lie within the province of the will, and -which are, therefore, directly a matter for reform, are of another kind. -The first of them undoubtedly is our <i>disingenuousness</i> in our dealings -with the Jew.</p> - -<p>This disingenuousness extends from our daily habit to our treatment of -history. It is more deep-rooted than most people are aware of, more -widespread than those who are aware of it like to admit. It affects our -relations with the Jews just as much when we are attempting to defend -their position in the State as when we attack them. Indeed, I think it -affects our relations more when we are trying to defend them than when -we attack them. The only two kinds of men who show perfect candour in -their dealings with the Jews are the completely ignorant dupe who can -hardly tell a Jew when he sees one and who accepts as a reality the old -fiction of there being no difference except a difference of religion -(which he has been taught to think unimportant) and the person called an -"Anti-Semite."</p> - -<p>Both these types certainly say what they think. That is why in their -heart of hearts the Jews are grateful to both, although both are -intellectually contemptible. The Jew feels, I think, when he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> meets -either of these types, "At any rate I know where I am." But the great -bulk of men, especially among the more cultivated, are grossly -disingenuous in all their dealings with the Jews. It is the great fault -of our side which corresponds to the fault of secrecy upon theirs. And -when you have allowed for routine, for the necessities of social -intercourse, for convention and the rest, it remains a deliberately -conceived moral evil.</p> - -<p>A man and his friend meet in the street a Jew whom they know; they -exchange ordinary civilities with him; they pass on. The moment his back -is turned each comments to his companion upon the Jewish character of -the man they have just left, and almost invariably to his disadvantage.</p> - -<p>Now to blame this way of going on does not imply that when you meet your -Jewish acquaintance you are to offend him by saying to his face the kind -of things you say behind his back; that would be a monstrous piece of -cynicism and, in practice, insane. We do not act thus in any relation of -life. But it does mean that in the attitude, the gesture, the tone of -the voice, we play a deliberately false part in our relations with Jews, -which we do not play in our relations with any other people. A peculiar -pretence, a pretence only practised with Jews, is elaborately -maintained. There is no allusion to or admission of our real attitude, -our sense of contrast. We therefore suffer an unnatural strain; and we -relieve of the strain immediately afterwards by an exaggeration of the -contrast we have pretended to ignore. It is blameworthy in a special -degree because it is peculiar to that one case. If we admitted the Jew -as a Jew, talked to him of the things that were uppermost in his mind -and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> in ours, and treated him as we treat any other foreigner in our -midst, there would have been no harm done. As it is the lie has done a -double harm—to him and to us. To us by an exasperation which is -entirely our own fault, to him by deceiving him as to his true position.</p> - -<p>The Jews who mix with the wealthiest classes to-day, especially in -London, have no true idea of their real position in the eyes of their -guests; and the fault is with their guests.</p> - -<p>I have cited an obvious daily example, but it is the least important, -for it is passing and shallow. This disingenuousness spreads to -relations more permanent. A man goes into business with a Jew, accepts -him as a partner, works with him constantly and yet nourishes in his -heart a disloyalty to that relationship. It is a phenomenon of constant -recurrence and it poisons the relations between the two races. If a man -is prepared to enter into one of these permanent relations with another -man who differs fundamentally from himself in tradition and human -character, he must face the consequences. One of those consequences, if -he is to remain an honest man, is the acceptation of the position with -all that it implies. He cannot have the advantage—as he hopes to have -it—of the Jewish sobriety, the Jewish tenacity, the Jewish lucidity of -thought, the Jewish international relationships, the Jewish opportunity -of advancement through the aid of his fellows, and at the same time -secretly indulge in a contempt and dislike for his companion, and -relieve that suppressed feeling in his absence. Yet that is what men are -doing daily throughout the business world.</p> - -<p>Listen to the conversation of such a man as,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> having thus engaged in -intimate commercial relationship with the Jew, falls upon misfortune. He -spends the rest of his life denouncing the Jews as a race and his own -companion in misfortune in particular. He has no right to do it. It is -undignified; it is puerile, but, worst of all, it is unjust. He -presumably knew what he was doing when he entered into what could not -but be a difficult relationship. The consequences of that relationship -he should accept whether they turn out well for him or ill.</p> - -<p>We find something perhaps even worse to note in the attitude of those -who are successful in their business through an alliance with the Jew. -For in this case gratitude should be added to justice, and that -gratitude is very rarely shown. On the contrary, the non-Jewish partner -is for ever in a mood of complaint about his share. He is perpetually in -a grievance that he has been overreached, or that he has been bullied, -or that he has been robbed, save in those very rare cases where the -success is so overwhelming, the fortunes so rapid, that there is no room -for a grudge. In almost every other case that I have come across there -is that element of recrimination—behind the Jew's back—even under -conditions of success.</p> - -<p>I know very well what can be said upon the other side. It can be said -that what I have called upon a former page the "ruthlessness" of the Jew -in commercial relations, as well as his tenacity and all the rest, make -the contest unequal; that in a partnership between Jew and non-Jew the -non-Jew is, as a fact, often overreached and is, as a fact, often left -(as the pretty vocabulary of modern commerce has it) "in the cart." But -pray why did<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> the non-Jew enter into the alliance at all? Was it not -precisely in order that he should benefit, if he could, by those very -qualities which he later denounces? He expected that those qualities -which make for the success of the Jew in commerce would also benefit -himself. He knew that there must always be a certain amount of -competition, even within such an alliance. He backed himself to watch -his own interests under conditions which he knew perfectly well when he -entered into them. He has not a leg to stand upon in quarrelling with -the results of the relationship, for in so doing he is merely -quarrelling with his own judgment and, for the matter of that, his own -plot.</p> - -<p>If a man cannot tolerate the contrast between the Jewish race and our -own, or if he regards that race as possessing energies which will -invariably defeat him in the competition of commerce, then let him keep -away from a Jewish alliance altogether. It is the simplest plan. But to -immix himself with the Jewish commercial activity and then to grumble at -the results is despicable.</p> - -<p>All this is worse, of course, when one is dealing with relations even -closer than those of commerce. Those relations are numerous in the -modern world, and disingenuousness in them takes the worst possible -form. Men, especially of the wealthier classes of the gentry, will make -the closest friends of Jews with the avowed purpose of personal -advantage. They think the friendship will help them to great positions -in the State, or to the advancement of private fortune, or to fame. In -that calculation they are wise. For the Jew has to-day exceptional power -in all these things. They therefore have the Jew continually at their -tables, they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> stay continually under the Jew's roof. In all the -relations of life they are as intimate as friends can be. Yet they -relieve the strain which such an unnatural situation imposes by a -standing sneer at their Jewish friends in their absence. One may say of -such men (and they are to-day an increasing majority among our rich) -that the falsity of their situation has got on their nerves. It has -become a sort of disease with them; and I am very certain that when the -opportunity comes, when the public reaction against Jewish power rises, -clamorous, insistent and open, they will be among the first to take -their revenge. It is abominable, but it is true.</p> - -<p>And this truth applies not only to friendships, it even applies to -marriages. Marriage between Christian and Jew is, in that rank, an -affair of interest, and the bitterness the relation breeds is excessive.</p> - -<p>This disingenuousness, then—lack of candour on the part of our race in -its dealings with the Jew—a vice particularly rife among the wealthy -and middle classes (far less common among the poor), extends, as I have -said, to history. We dare not, or will not teach in our history books -the plain facts of the relations between our own race and the Jews. We -throw the story of these relations, which are among the half-dozen -leading factors of history, right into the background even when we do -mention it. In what they are taught of history the schoolboy and the -undergraduate come across no more than a line or two upon those -relations. The teacher cannot be quite silent upon the expulsion of the -Jews under Edward I or upon their return under Cromwell. A man cannot -read the history of the Roman Empire without hearing of the Jewish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> war. -A man cannot read the Constitutional History of England without hearing -of the special economic position of Jews under the Mediaeval Crown. But -the vastness of the subject, its permanent and insistent character -throughout two thousand years; its great episodes; its general -effect—all that is deliberately suppressed.</p> - -<p>How many people, for instance, of those who profess a good knowledge of -the Roman Empire, even in its details, are aware, let alone have written -upon the tremendous massacres and counter-massacres of Jews and -Europeans, the mass of edicts alternately protecting and persecuting -Jews; the economic position of the Jew, especially in the later empire; -the character of the dispersion?</p> - -<p>There took place in Cyprus and in the Libyan cities under Hadrian a -Jewish movement against the surrounding non-Jewish society far exceeding -in violence the late wreckage of Russia, which to-day fills all our -thoughts. The massacres were wholesale and so were the reprisals. The -Jews killed a quarter of a million of the people of Cyprus alone, and -the Roman authorities answered with a repression which was a pitiless -war.</p> - -<p>One might pile up instances indefinitely. The point is, that the average -educated man has never been allowed to hear of them. What a factor the -Jew was in that Roman State from which we all spring, how he survived -its violent antagonism to him and his antagonism to it; the special -privilege whereby he was excepted from a worship of its gods; his -handling of its finances—all the intimate parallel which it affords to -later times is left in silence. The average educated man who has been -taught, even in some fullness, his Roman History,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> leaves that study -with the impression that the Jews (if he had noticed them at all) are -but an insignificant detail in the story.</p> - -<p>So it is with history more recent and even contemporaneous. In the -history of the nineteenth century it is outrageous. The special -character of the Jew, his actions through the Secret Societies and in -the various revolutions of foreign States, his rapid acquisition of -power through finance, political and social, especially in this -country—all that is left out. It is an exact parallel to the -disingenuousness which we note in social relations. The same man who -shall have written a monograph upon some point of nineteenth century -history and left his readers in ignorance of the Jewish elements in the -story will regale you in private with a dozen anecdotes: such-and-such a -man was a Jew; such-and-such a man was half a Jew; another was -controlled in his policy by a Jewish mistress; the go-between in -such-and-such a negotiation was a Jew; the Jewish blood in such-and-such -a family came in thus and thus—And so forth: but not a word of it on -the printed page!</p> - -<p>This deliberate falsehood equally applies to contemporary record. The -newspaper reader is deceived—so far as it is still possible to deceive -him—with the most shameless lies. "Abraham Cohen, a Pole"; "M. -Mosevitch, a distinguished Roumanian"; "Mr. Schiff, and other -representative Americans"; "M. Bergson with his typically French -lucidity"; "Maximilian Harden, always courageous in his criticism of his -<i>own</i> people" (his <i>own</i> being the German) ... and the rest of the -rubbish. It is weakening, I admit, but it has not yet ceased.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p><p>Now this form of falsehood corrodes, of course, the souls of those who -indulge in it. But that does not concern the matter of this book. Where -it comes in as a cause of friction between the two races, and a -removable cause of friction, is in the effect it has upon the Jewish -conception of their position in our society. It falsifies that -conception altogether. It produces in the Jew a false sense of security -and a completely distorted phantasm of the way in which he is really -received in our society. The more this disingenuousness is practised the -more the surprise which follows upon its discovery and the more -legitimate the bitterness and hatred which that surprise occasions in -those of whom we are the hosts. It is not only true of this country; it -is true of every other country in which the Jew has been harboured and -for a time protected. Invariably he has complained that his awakening -was rude, that he was bewildered by what seemed to him a novel and -inexplicable feeling against him; that he had thought he was among -friends and found himself suddenly among treacherous enemies. All this -would have been saved to others in the past, and will be saved to -ourselves in the near future, if this pestilent habit of falsehood were -eliminated.</p> - -<p>Disingenuousness is, on our side, the first main cause of the friction -between the two races.</p> - -<p>The second main cause of friction upon our side is the unintelligence of -our dealing with the Jews. That unintelligence is allied, of course, to -the disingenuousness of which I have spoken; but it is a separate thing -none the less, and we can learn from the Jews its opposite, for <i>their</i> -dealings with <i>us</i> are always intelligent. They know what they are -driving at in those relations, though they often<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> misunderstand the -material with which they deal. But we, over and over again, would seem -not even to know what we are driving at.</p> - -<p>What could be more unintelligent, for instance, than the special forms -of courtesy with which the Jew is treated? I am not talking of the -elaborate, false friendship which I have just dealt with under the head -of disingenuousness, but of the genuine attempts at courtesy towards -this alien people—the courtesy expressed by those who have no intimate -relations with them, and do not desire to have intimate relations with -them. It is almost invariably, in those who commonly avoid the Jews, a -courtesy which expresses patronage on the surface of it. It may be -compared with the courtesy that rich men show to poor men—as offensive -a thing as there is in the world.</p> - -<p>And how unintelligent is our dealing with any particular Jewish problem; -for instance, the problem of Jewish immigration! We mask it under false -names, calling it "the alien question," "Russian immigration," "the -influx of undesirables from Eastern and Central Europe," and any number -of other timorous equivalents. The process is one of cowardly falsehood, -but the falsehood is not more remarkable than the stupidity, for no one -is taken in and least of all the Jews themselves.</p> - -<p>This unintelligence extends to many another field. How unintelligent are -the efforts of the writers who would, as it were, make amends to the -Jews for former persecution by putting imaginary Jew heroes into their -books. In this particular we offend less than did our fathers of the -Victorian period. Dickens' offence was grave. He disliked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> Jews -instinctively; when he wrote of a Jew according to his inclination he -made him out a criminal. Hearing that he must make amends for this -action, he introduced a Jew who is like nothing on earth—a sort of -compound of an Arab Sheik and a Family Bible picture from the Old -Testament, and the whole embroidered on an utterly non-Jewish—a purely -English character.</p> - -<p>How unintelligent are the various defences of the Jew by the non-Jew, -even with the best intentions! You will hear people tell you solemnly, -as a sort of revelation, that there are kindly, witty Jews, Jews who are -good prize-fighters or good fencers. I well remember one old gentleman -who tried hard to convince me (as though I needed convincing) that there -were Jews who had taste. He said to me, "I do not myself go into Jewish -houses, but my son does, and he assures me that much of the decoration -is in good taste." How unintelligent is the idea that because a man's -motives are not open and because he has not the same reasons for serving -the State that you have, <i>therefore</i> he is to be perpetually under -suspicion! How still more unintelligent is the conception that, although -he is alien, yet you cannot use him in certain special services for the -State.</p> - -<p>This unintelligence is specially apparent in the treatment of the Jew in -his international relations. The Jew is a nomad, the non-Jew a man with -a fixed habitation. The Englishman, the Frenchman and the rest are -perpetually approaching the Jew as though he also had a fixed -habitation. We seem never to be able to get over the shock of surprise -when we learn that a particular Jew abroad is the cousin, or nephew, or -brother of another Jew with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> different name in England, or with -another Jew with yet another name in Pinsk or San Francisco. Yet, -surely, this is of the very essence of the Jewish position. We ought to -take it for granted that the Jew is thus nomadic, international, spread -all over the world, migratory, as we take the same thing for granted in -birds of passage. To adopt the attitude which we almost invariably do -and to feel a shock of surprise when we discover what must in the nature -of things be the most regular feature in the civic situation of the Jew, -is to fall into that most stupid of all stupid errors, the reading of -oneself into others.</p> - -<p>I remember the horror and scandal with which men whispered their -discovery that a man with a German name, who had got into trouble a few -years ago, was the first cousin of a Cabinet Minister. Why not? They -seemed to be struck all of a heap by the dreadful revelation that the -names borne by Jews were not always their original names, that rich and -important men often have poor relations, and that poor relations often -get embarrassed.</p> - -<p>In terms of their own society the thing would have been simple enough. -They would have felt no surprise to hear that some man of our own race, -who had made a rapid fortune and purchased a political position, -suffered from a disreputable relative, also of our own race. But because -in the case of the Jew there were the two unusual elements of a foreign -name and distant origin, they were bewildered. They even thought it in -some way specially scandalous. They had not appreciated the material -with which they were dealing, and that is the mark of unintelligence. -But the cream of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>unintelligence, the form in which unintelligent -treatment of him most exasperates the Jew, is undoubtedly that typical, -that ceaseless case of the man who is perpetually crying out against -Israel, and purposing nothing—the man who nourishes a sterile -grievance; who has not even the clarity or vigour to attempt -suppression; who would be horrified at persecution, almost equally -horrified at any breach of convention, and yet continues to cry out -against a state of affairs which he does nothing to put right and for -which he has not even a theoretic solution.</p> - -<p>The last of the main causes of friction between the Jews and ourselves -is lack of charity, and that in the simplest form of refusing to go half -way to meet the Jew, and of refusing to put ourselves in the shoes of -the Jew so as to understand his position in our society and his attitude -towards it. It is a universal fault just as common in those who daily -associate with, live off, and fawn upon Jews as in those who keep aloof -from them. It never seems to occur to anyone on our side who has to deal -with the Jewish problem, to make the imaginative effort required. And -yet we have the parallel ready to our hands. The Jew feels among us, -only with far greater intensity, what we feel when we are resident in a -foreign country—a sense of exile, a sense of irritation against alien -things, merely because they are alien; a great desire for companionship -and for understanding, yet a great indifference to the fate of those -among whom he finds himself; an added attachment, not, indeed, to his -territorial home, for he has none, but to his nation. If we could -perpetually bear in mind that parallel, the friction on our side would -be greatly modified.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p><p>There are many Jewish societies which ask nothing better than to have -occasional addresses from non-Jews. Those addresses are given, those -Societies are visited, but not nearly as much as they should be.</p> - -<p>There is a great Jewish literature—I mean a great mass of books dealing -specially with the Jew's position from the Jew's own point of view. It -is not read or known. I may be told that the fault of all this is -largely that of the Jews themselves on account of their use of secrecy. -I do not think the objection applies. With all his use of secrecy the -Jew is there present among us for us to approach, if we will, and to -understand as best we can. And I say that the approach is not made.</p> - -<p>It is an effort, of course. No one knows it better than I; for on more -than one occasion when I have addressed a Jewish audience I have found -myself the object of very severe language. But it is an effort which -every one ought to make who admits that there is a Jewish problem at -all, and it is an effort very rarely made. It is not only an effort -because it involves the crossing of a gulf, it is also an effort because -we find this alien thing in many ways repugnant to us. Yet people make -that effort for the purposes of the State continually where other races -are concerned. It is far more important that they should make it where -the Jews are concerned. For those other alien races, administrated for -the moment by officials of our own race, will not permanently be so -administered. The relations between them and us are for a brief time, -and they are relations that constantly change. The Jew is with us -always; and the type of contact between his race and ours will remain -much the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> same through an indefinitely long future as they have through -so very long a past.</p> - -<p class="center">* * * * *</p> - -<p>Here, then, is the summary, as I see it, of the causes of friction -between the two races.</p> - -<p>First, a general cause, which lies in the contrasting nature of the two -and upon the irritant effect of that contrast. This cause is not to be -eliminated, though its effects may be modified. It is a profound -contrast and a sharp irritant constant in its activity. The essential is -to recognize its real nature, not to give to it general terms of faults -and vices, but to appreciate the difference of <i>quality</i> involved: above -all, not to tell lies about it and pretend it is not present.</p> - -<p>Secondly, as to special causes of friction—I mean causes which on their -side, as on ours, can be, if not eliminated, at any rate modified—I -suggest that the most prominent are: 1. The sense of superiority which, -though it cannot be destroyed, can at least be checked in expression and -which, by a pretty irony, is equally strong upon both sides. 2. The use -of secrecy by the Jews themselves; partly as a weapon of defence, partly -as a method of action, always to be deplored, and of a nature -particularly exasperating to our temperament. 3. Upon our side, a -persistent disingenuousness in our treatment of this minority. -Unintelligence in their treatment: the whole made worse by an -indifference or lack of charity, a refusal to make the effort necessary -for meeting and understanding as well as we can the race which must -always be with us and which is yet so different from our own.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p><p>Now these causes of friction permanently present tend to produce what I -have called the tragic cycle: welcome of a Jewish colony, then ill-ease, -followed by acute ill-ease, followed by persecution, exile and even -massacre. This followed, naturally, by a reaction and the taking up of -the process all over again.</p> - -<p>In our own time we have seen, quite lately, the succession of the second -to the first of these stages; we have passed from welcome to ill-ease. -That passage threatens a further passage from the second to the third; -from the third to the terrible conclusion.</p> - -<p>We feel quite secure to-day from the last extreme of this cycle. We are -certain it will never come to persecution: that is still inconceivable. -But it is not inconceivable everywhere: and no society is free from -change. Some now alive may live to see riots even in this quiet polity -and worse in newer or less settled states.</p> - -<p>Such a catastrophe is to be avoided by every effort in our power and a -solution to the problem presented must imperatively be sought. But in -passing we should note, for the consideration of those who may doubt the -acuteness of the problem and the immediate practical necessity for a -solution, the presence of a phenomenon which amply proves that it <i>is</i> -acute and that the solution <i>is</i> necessary. That phenomenon is the -presence to-day of a new type, the Anti-Semite, the man to whom all the -Jews are abhorrent.</p> - -<p>It is a phenomenon which has increased prodigiously; its rate of -increase is accelerating, and as a warning of the peril, as a proof of -its magnitude, I propose to examine that phenomenon closely in my next chapter.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p> - -<p class="bold2">THE ANTI-SEMITE</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p> - -<h2><span>CHAPTER VII</span> <span class="smaller">THE ANTI-SEMITE</span></h2> - -<p>To understand any problem one must study not only its real factors as -they appear to a reasonable man who sees the whole affair steadily; one -must also understand the insanities and distortions the problem has -provoked, for they singularly illustrate its character and force.</p> - -<p>It is not enough to consider only the actual in any difficulty to be -solved, it is necessary also to consider the imaginary; because the -legend or illusion is a direct product of the truth and shows how the -truth has acted on other minds.</p> - -<p>Thus a caricature brings out what we unconsciously know to be present in -any personality, emphasizes it, and though false in its exaggeration, -forbids us to forget it in the future. Thus any extreme, no matter how -false its lack of proportion, is of the highest value to judgment.</p> - -<p>In a practical problem of politics there is another most weighty reason -for examining extreme and distorted opinion: which is, that in politics -we deal not only with real things but with the liking or disliking of -these things by living men: their exaggerated or ill-informed affection -or repulsion. All statesmanship lies in the apprehension of enthusiasm -and indifference.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p><p>Now there are in this great political problem presented by the Jewish -race in our midst two extremes. One we have already studied: it is the -extreme folly of falsehood, of pretending that the problem is not there.</p> - -<p>That extreme was an almost universal folly in the immediate past, -especially in this country. It is now abandoned by all of our generation -save a few people of an official sort, and these will not long maintain -an attitude outworn and already ridiculous.</p> - -<p>But the other extreme remains to be studied. It is, in our society, -quite a recent phenomenon, though it has gained very great strength in -recent years and is increasing alarmingly. It is the extreme of hatred. -It is the extreme manifested by those who have but one motive in their -action towards the Jewish race, and that motive a mere desire for its -elimination. It implies that there is no peace possible between the two -races; no reasoned political solution. It relies upon nothing but -antagonism. It is already very strong, and its adherents believe -themselves to be on the eve of a sort of blundering triumph.</p> - -<p>Every one who desires to deal with this grave political matter -practically, that is, to establish a permanent policy, will be much more -concerned with the extreme here examined than with the other extreme, -which ignores the problem altogether. For this new extreme of active -hatred is flourishing; that other, older extreme no longer functions.</p> - -<p>The near future will have to deal, in practical politics, not only with -the problem presented by the Jews as an alien power within the State, -but (what will probably prove a more difficult matter)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> with the hater -of the Jew, who is claiming, and rapidly achieving, power on his side. -The type is as old as the problem; it is two thousand years old. But it -waxes and wanes. Its modern name of "Anti-Semite" is as ridiculous in -derivation as it is ludicrous in form. It is partly of German academic -origin and partly a newspaper name, vulgar as one would expect it to be -from such an origin, and also as falsely pedantic as one would expect, -but the exasperated mood of which it is a label is very real.</p> - -<p>I say the word "Anti-Semite" is vulgar and pedantic: that I think will -be universally admitted. It is also nonsensical. The antagonism to the -Jews has nothing to do with any supposed "Semitic" race—which probably -does not exist any more than do many other modern hypothetical -abstractions, and which, anyhow, does not come into the matter. The -Anti-Semite is not a man who hates the modern Arabs or the ancient -Carthaginians. He is a man who hates Jews.</p> - -<p>However, we must accept the word because it has become currency, and go -on to the more essential matter of discovering how those to whom it -applies are moved, what the result of their action would be if (or when) -they could act freely; and, most important of all, of what they are a -sign.</p> - -<p>The Anti-Semite is a man marked by two main characters. In the first -place he hates the Jews <i>in themselves</i>. His motive is not a hatred of -their presence in our society. His motive is not the hatred of -concealment, falsehood, hypocrisy, corruption and all the other -incidental evils of that false position. These things, indeed, irritate -him, but they are not his leading motive. His leading motive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> is a -hatred of the Jewish people. He is in intense reaction against this -alien thing which he perceives to have acquired so much power in his -society. The way in which it has exercised this power especially -exasperates him. But he will remain a hater of the Jewish nation when -they are despised, insignificant, and neglected, and he will remain a -hater of it even if there be then attached to its position no accidents -of secrecy, falsehood and financial corruption. The type increases -rapidly when Jews have power: it becomes almost universal when they -begin to abuse that power. It dwindles as that power declines. But it is -always the same and is an index of peril.</p> - -<p>The Anti-Semite is a man who <i>wants to get rid of the Jews</i>. He is -filled with an instinctive feeling in the matter. He detests the Jew as -a Jew, and would detest him wherever he found him. The evidences of such -a state of mind are familiar to us all. The Anti-Semite admires, for -instance, a work of art; on finding its author to be a Jew it becomes -distasteful to him though the work remains exactly what it was before. -The Anti-Semite will confuse the action of any particular Jew with his -general odium for the race. He will hardly admit high talents in his -adversaries, or if he admits them he will always see in their expression -something distorted and unsavoury.</p> - -<p>When an accusation is made against a Jew he cannot adopt the judicial -attitude any more than could that other extremist, the humbug who denies -the Jewish problem altogether. Just as that other person, now passing -out of our lives, would not admit a Jew to be guilty under the most -glaring evidence and was particularly unable to admit guilt in a Jew who -might be wealthy; just as he proclaimed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> the Jews as a whole impeccable, -so does the Anti-Semite approach every Jew with a presumption of his -probable guilt, so does he exaggerate this prejudice when he has to deal -with a wealthy Jew, and so does he consider the whole Jewish race in the -lump as probably guilty of pretty well any charge brought against it.</p> - -<p>The contrast was very well seen in the Dreyfus case, when the old type -of extremist was still strong. He would not look at the evidence against -Dreyfus, he would not, if he could help it, mention his race. All he -knew was that Dreyfus was and must in the nature of things be innocent -and that all the diverse men who testified against him were wicked -conspirators. The new type of extremist, then but rising and not yet -master, would not listen to the strong evidence in Dreyfus' favour, -refused to re-examine the case after the chief witness had been found -guilty of forgery, made up his mind that Dreyfus was necessarily guilty -and was convinced that all his supporters were dupes or knaves.</p> - -<p>The mere fact that the Jews exist, let alone that they are powerful, -poisons life for such a man. He is led by his lop-sided enthusiasm into -the most ridiculous errors. In this country every name of German origin -at once suggests a Jew to him. Every financial operation, especially if -it be of doubtful morality, must certainly have a Jew behind it; -wherever a number of partners, Jewish and non-Jewish, are engaged in -some bad work (as, for instance, in one of our innumerable Parliamentary -scandals), a Jew must always for this sort of person be the prime mover -and the evil genius of the whole.</p> - -<p>As is the case with every other mania, this mania rapidly obscures the -general vision of its victim.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> His prejudices soon lose proportion -altogether. He comes to see the Jew in everything and everywhere, and to -accept confidently propositions which he would himself see to be -contradictory, could he give a moment's quiet thought to the matter.</p> - -<p>Thus I have heard on all sides in the last few years these strange -assertions proceeding from the same source, yet obviously incompatible -one with the other: That modern scepticism was Jewish in its origin; -that modern superstition, our modern necromancy and crystal gazing and -all the rest of it, was Jewish in its origin; that the evils of -democracy are all Jewish in their origin; that the evil of tyrannical -government, in Prussia, for instance, was Jewish in its origin; that the -pagan perversions of bad modern art were Jewish in their origin; that -the puerility of bad church furniture was due to Jewish dealers; that -the Great War was the product of Jewish armament firms; that the -anti-patriotic appeals which weakened the allied armies came from Jewish -sources—and so on. It is indeed true that there is a Jewish quality in -all these diverse and contradictory things where a Jew mixes in them; -just as there is a Scotch, or French, or English quality when a Scot, a -Frenchman, or an Englishman is the agent. But to ascribe the whole -boiling to the Jew, and to make him the conscious origin of all, is a -contradiction in terms.</p> - -<p>The Anti-Semite is a man so absorbed in his subject that he at last -loses interest in any matter, unless he can give it some association -with his delusion, for delusion it is.</p> - -<p>In a sense, of course, this state of mind is a sort of compliment to the -Jewish nation. If such a preoccupation with them be not amicable it is -at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> least intense, and those against whom it is directed may well regard -it as a proof of their importance in the world. But that aspect of the -phenomenon is not consoling for the future of either of us—the Jew who -now nervously awaits attack, and we who desire to forestall and prevent -such attack.</p> - -<p>The Anti-Semite is very much more numerous and very much more powerful -than might be imagined from the reading of the daily press; for the -press is still, for the most part, under the convention of ignoring the -Jewish problem and under the terror of the financial results which might -follow from a discussion of it. His universal activity is not yet to be -read of in the great newspapers; but in conversation and in the practice -of daily life we hear of it everywhere.</p> - -<p>And here I may digress upon a modern feature which applies to all -political problems and therefore to this Jewish problem among others. -The great movements of our time have never <i>originated</i> in the press of -the great cities. They rise and store up their energies in political -cliques, in popular gatherings, and spoken rumours long before they -appear in this main instrument for the spreading of news. That is -because the press of our great cities is controlled by very few men, -whose object is not the discussion of public affairs, still less the -giving of full information to their fellow-citizens, but the piling up -of private fortune. As these men are not, as a rule, educated men, nor -particularly concerned with the fortunes of the State, nor capable of -understanding from the past what the future may be, they will never take -up a great movement until it is forced upon them. On the contrary, they -will waste energy in getting up false excitement upon <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>insignificant -matters where they feel safe, and even in using their instruments for -the advertisement of their own insignificant lives. In all this, the -modern press of our great cities differs very greatly from the press of -a lifetime ago. It was not always owned by educated men, but it was -conducted by highly educated men, who were given a free hand. It -therefore concerned itself with problems of real importance and it -debated upon either side real contrasts of opinion upon those matters. -This modern press of ours does none of these things; but precisely -because it is so reluctant to express real emotion it does, when the -emotion is forced upon it, let it out in a flood. Just as it would not -tell the truth when a thing was growing, so when it reaches an extreme -it will not exercise restraint. On the contrary, if the "stunt" be an -exciting one, it will push it (once it has made up its mind to talk of -it at all) in the most extreme form and to the last pitch of violence.</p> - -<p>We have seen that plainly enough in the monstrous expressions of foreign -policy during the last ten years, and we have seen it in the abominable -hounding of individuals to which that same press has lent itself.</p> - -<p>Now in the matter of Anti-Semitic feeling we shall have, I think, -exactly the same phenomenon repeated. That feeling is now ubiquitous. It -is spreading with an alarming rapidity, and the increase of its -intensity is even more remarkable than the increase in the numbers of -its adherents. Sooner or later—and fairly soon, I imagine—the press -will give it voice. When it <i>does</i>, it will give it voice, we may be -certain, in the most extreme, the most passionate, the most irrational -form; and when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> that happens, in a field where passion is already so -wild, God help its victims!</p> - -<p>The Anti-Semitic passion, largely based though it is on imaginary -things, has adopted one method of action highly practical. It is a -method of action closely in touch with reality, and productive of -formidable results. I mean <i>its compiling of documents</i>. It has here -noted, all over Europe and America, with exactitude, and continues to -put upon record, everything which can be said to the detriment of its -victims.</p> - -<p>It discovered at its origin, presented as a barrier against it, the -Jewish weapon of secrecy. The folly of the Jews in using such a weapon -was never better shown, for of all defences it is the easiest to break -down. The Anti-Semites countered at once by making every inquiry, by -collecting their information, by finding out and exposing the true names -hidden under the mask of false ones, by detecting and registering the -relationships between men who pretended ignorance one of the other; it -ferreted all through the ramifications of anonymous finance and -invariably caught the Jew who was behind the great industrial insurance -schemes, the Jew who was behind such and such a metal monopoly, the Jew -who was behind such and such a news agency, the Jew who financed such -and such a politician. That formidable library of exposure spreads -daily, and when the opportunity for general publication is given there -will be no answer to it.</p> - -<p>It is the greatest mistake in the world to regard the Anti-Semite in the -vast numerical strength he has now attained all over our civilization as -wholly unpractical and therefore negligible, as a man who cannot -construct a formidable plan of action simply<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> because he has lost his -sense of values. While the movement was growing the method of meeting it -was always that of ridicule. It was a false method. The strength of -Anti-Semitism was and is based not only on intensity of feeling, but -also on industry, an industry very accurate in its methods. The -Anti-Semitic pamphlets, newspapers and books, which the great daily -press is so careful to boycott, form by now a mass of information upon -the whole Jewish problem which is already overwhelming and still -mounting up: and all of it hostile to the Jews. You will not find in it, -of course, any material for the Defendant's Brief, but as a <i>dossier</i> -for the Prosecution it is astonishing in extent and accuracy and -correlation.</p> - -<p>Now it is to be remembered in this connection that the human mind is -influenced by documentation in a special manner. The exact citation of -demonstrable things with chapter and verse convinces as can no other -method, and the Anti-Semite is ready with such citation on a very large -scale indeed, at the first moment when a general publicity, now denied, -shall be granted to it.</p> - -<p class="center">* * * * *</p> - -<p>Moreover, this reliance of the Jew upon the futility of the Anti-Semitic -propaganda omits one very important feature. The Anti-Semitic group is -built up of men differing greatly in experience, in judgment and policy. -And it is built up of strata differing greatly in the intensity of their -hatred. It includes many a man with administrative experience, many a -man of great business capacity, of acquired fortune, of talent in -affairs. It includes men with a thorough knowledge of European<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> -diplomacy; it includes men (in great numbers) with the literary gift of -expression for persuading their fellows. Not only is this true, but, as -I have said, it includes a large "right wing" which, because they are -more restrained in expression than the rest, will exercise a greater -weight; men who are not at all blinded by their hatred, though hatred -has become their chief motive; men who retain full capacity for -organizing a plan of action and for carrying it out. It is true that -there is a definite line which divides the Anti-Semite from the rest of -those who are attempting to solve the Jewish problem. It is the line -dividing those whose motive is peace from those whose motive is -antagonism. It is the line dividing those whose object is action, -against the Jew, and those whose object is a settlement. But on the -Anti-Semitic side of that line—that is, among those whose determination -is to suppress and eliminate Jewish influence to the extreme of their -power—there are now very many more than the original enthusiasts who -created the movement.</p> - -<p>The Jews should further remember that to-day every one outside their own -community is potentially an Anti-Semite. Not every one, perhaps not even -yet a majority, at least in the directing and wealthier classes, is -other than friendly or indifferent to the Jews, but there has grown up -in every one not a Jew something of reaction against the Jewish power. -It requires but an accident to change this from the latent and slight -thing it is in most men to an angry passion. I have noticed that among -the most violent of Anti-Semites are those who had passed some -considerable portion of their early manhood in ignorance of the whole -problem. These come across a Jew unexpectedly in some relation hostile<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> -to them—they lose money through some Jewish financial operation, or -they connect, for the first time, in middle age, several misfortunes of -theirs with a common element of Jewish action, or they find Jews mixed -up in some attack on their country: thenceforward they become and remain -unrepentant Anti-Semites.</p> - -<p>The dupe, when he discovers he has been duped, is dangerous, and there -is even a considerable category of those who have suffered nothing, even -by accident, at the hand of the Jew, yet who, when they discover what -the Jewish power is, feel they have been played with, and grow angry at -the trickery.</p> - -<p>It has been and will be with Anti-Semitism as with all movements. When -they begin they are ridiculed. As they grow they come to be feared and -boycotted; but of those that are successful it may be justly said that -the moment of success begins when they turn the corner and from a fad -become a fashion.</p> - -<p>It is still (doubtfully) the fashion to separate oneself from the -Anti-Semitic movement. You still hear men, when they write or speak upon -the Jewish problem, no matter with what hostility to the Jew, excuse -themselves as a rule at the beginning of their remarks by saying, "I am -no Anti-Semite." For some flavour of the old ridicule still attaches to -the name. But fashions change rapidly and the new fashion which comes in -to support a growing thing, when it does arrive, arrives in a flood.</p> - -<p>We can all of us remember the time when the talk of nationalization, the -old State Socialist talk, was the talk of a few faddists who were -everywhere ridiculed and despised. To-day it is the fashion; and the -practice of State control, State support,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> the universality of State -action, is such that it is those who oppose it who are now the faddists -and the cranks.</p> - -<p>We can all of us remember the day when, in the United States, a -prohibitionist was a faddist, and a very unpopular faddist at that. We -have seen fashion catch him up with a vengeance.</p> - -<p>We can all of us remember the day when the supporters of women's -suffrage in England were a very small group of faddists indeed: we know -what has happened there!</p> - -<p>The forces driving men towards the Anti-Semitic camp are far stronger -than the forces acting upon these old hobbies of women's suffrage, of -prohibition and the rest. They are personal, intimate forces arising -from the strongest racial instincts and the most bitter individual -memories of financial loss, subjection, national dishonour.</p> - -<p>For instance, any German to-day to whom you may talk of his great -disaster will answer by telling you that it is due to the Jews: that the -Jews are preying upon the fallen body of the State; that the Jews are -"rats in the Reich." For one man that blames the old military -authorities for the misfortunes following the war, twenty blame the -Jews, though these were the architects of the former German prosperity, -and among them were found a larger proportion of opponents of the war -than in any other section of the Emperor's subjects. That is but one -example; you will find it repeated in one form or another in almost -every other polity of the modern world.</p> - -<p>The Anti-Semite has become a strong political figure. It is a great and -dangerous error at this moment to think his policy is futile. It is a -policy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> of action, and a policy which may proceed from plan to execution -before we know it.</p> - -<p>There used to be quoted years ago—and I have myself quoted it with -approval—a famous question put by a close and reasonable observer of -public affairs upon the Continent, to the most prominent of Continental -Anti-Semites in that day. The question was this: "If you had unlimited -power in this matter, what would you do?" The implied answer was that -the Anti-Semite could do nothing. He could not make a law which would -segregate the Jews for they could escape that law by mixing with those -around them. He could not make a law exiling them; for, first, it would -be impossible to define them; secondly, even if that were possible, -those defined would not be received elsewhere. What could he do? The -implication was, I say, that he could do nothing; he was supposed, in -the presence of that question, to admit his futility.</p> - -<p>Unfortunately we now know that he <i>can</i> do something. The Anti-Semite -can persecute, he can attack. With a sufficient force behind him he can -destroy. In much of this destruction he would have, in a present state -of feeling and in most countries, the mass of public opinion behind him. -He could begin with a widespread examination of Jewish wealth and its -origins and an equally widespread confiscation. He could use the dread -of such confiscation as a weapon for compelling the divulgence of Jewish -origins where a man desired to conceal them. He could do this not only -in the case of the wealthy men, but, through the terror of wealthy men, -over the whole field of the Jewish community. He could introduce -registration and with it a segregation of the Jews. Inspired as he would -be by no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> desire for a settlement agreeable to them, but solely for a -settlement agreeable to <i>himself</i>, he could aim at that harsh -settlement, and even though he might not reach his goal, it is not -pleasant to envisage what he might do on his way to it.</p> - -<p>But even though the Anti-Semite fail to acquire full power, there remain -attached to his great increase in numbers and intensity of feeling the -prime questions, "What is the <i>meaning</i> of the thing? Why has it arisen? -Why is it spreading? What are the forces nourishing it?"</p> - -<p>These are the main questions which those who regret the presence of such -a passion in the body politic, which those who are alarmed about it, -which those who, like the Jews themselves, must, if they are to avoid a -catastrophe, defend themselves against it, would do well to answer. -There has not been as yet sufficient time to answer those questions -fully or to appreciate this great reaction in its entirety, but we can -already judge it in part. The Anti-Semitic movement is essentially a -reaction against the abnormal growth in Jewish power, and the new -strength of Anti-Semitism is largely due to the Jews themselves.</p> - -<p>When this angry enthusiasm re-arose in its modern form, first in -Germany, then spreading to France, next appearing, and now rapidly -growing, in England, it was novel and confined to small cliques. The -truths which it enunciated were then as unfamiliar as the false values -on which it also reposed. That universal policy of the Jews against -which it is part of my thesis to argue, a policy natural but none the -less erroneous, the policy of <i>secrecy</i>, the policy of <i>hiding</i>, at once -took advantage of what was absurd in the novelty of Anti-Semitism. The -Jew, in spite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> of his age-long experience of menace and active -hostility, in spite of his knowledge of what this sort of spirit had -effected in the past, did not come out into the open. He did not act -against the new attack with open indignation, still less with open -argument, as he should have done. He took advantage of its absurdity, at -its beginnings, in the eyes of the general public. He used all his -endeavours to make the word "Anti-Semitic" a label for something -hopelessly ridiculous, a subject for mere laughter, a matter which no -reasonable man should for a moment consider seriously.</p> - -<p>For something between a dozen and twenty years this policy was -successful. The method though less and less firmly established as time -went on, has not yet quite failed. None the less that policy was very -ill-advised. It was used not only to ridicule the Anti-Semite, but what -was quite illegitimate, quite irrational (and bound in the long run to -be fatal), it was used to prevent all discussion of the Jewish question, -though that question was increasing every day in practical importance -and clamouring to be decided.</p> - -<p>It was the instinctive policy with the mass of the Jewish nation, a -deliberate policy with most of its leaders, not only to use ridicule -against Anti-Semitism but to label as "Anti-Semitic" any discussion of -the Jewish problem at all, or, for that matter, any information even on -the Jewish problem. It was used to prevent, through ridicule, any -statement of any fact with regard to the Jewish race save a few -conventional compliments or a few conventional and harmless jests.</p> - -<p>If a man alluded to the presence of a Jewish financial power in any -region—for instance, in India<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>—he was an Anti-Semite. If he interested -himself in the peculiar character of Jewish philosophical discussions, -especially in matters concerning religion, he was an Anti-Semite. If the -emigrations of the Jewish masses from country to country, the vast -modern invasion of the United States, for instance (which has been -organized and controlled like an army on the march), interested him as -an historian, he could not speak of it under pain of being called an -Anti-Semite. If he exposed a financial swindler who happened to be a -Jew, he was an Anti-Semite. If he exposed a group of Parliamentarians -taking money from the Jews, he was an Anti-Semite. If he did no more -than call a Jew a Jew, he was an Anti-Semite. The laughter which the -name used to provoke was most foolishly used to support nothing nobler -or more definitive than this wretched policy of concealment. Anyone with -judgment could have told the Jews, had the Jews cared to consult such an -one, that their pusillanimous policy was bound to fail. It was but a -postponement of the evil day.</p> - -<p>You cannot long confuse interest with hatred, the statement of plain and -important truths with mania, the discussion of fundamental questions -with silly enthusiasm, for the same reason that you cannot long confuse -truth with falsehood. Sooner or later people are bound to remark that -the defendant seems curiously anxious to avoid all investigation of his -case. The moment that is generally observed, the defence is on the way -to failure.</p> - -<p>I say it was a fatal policy; but it was deliberately undertaken by the -Jews and they are now suffering from its results. As a consequence you -have all over Europe a mass of plain men who so far from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> being scared -off from discussing the Jewish problem by this false ridicule are more -determined than ever to thrash it out in the open and to get it settled -upon rational and final lines.</p> - -<p>That would perhaps be no great harm in itself. It would merely mean that -a false policy had failed, and that proper frank and loyal discussion -would succeed all this hushing up and boycott. Unfortunately the false -policy had other and much worse consequences. It exasperated men who had -already begun to interest themselves in the political discussion and who -would not tolerate undeserved ridicule. It heaped up a world of -determined opposition to the Jews. It is not exactly that the -Anti-Semite has already won or even is as yet certainly on his way to -winning, but he now has his chance of winning. Whereas, some few years -ago, he had the tide against him, he is now, through the fault of the -Jews themselves, at its turn. He now finds himself on an extreme wing, -it is true, but <i>attached</i> to a very large body which is already -strongly biassed against the Jews, dislikes their presence among us, and -is determined to act against them, not only where they still have great -power, but also where that power is visibly declining, and even where -they are in danger.</p> - -<p>It must not be forgotten, as we survey this growing menace, that a -policy which reaches no finality is not on that account futile. It must -not be forgotten that in the minds of many men (one might say in the -minds of most men) during periods of excitement, a policy of repression, -though always failing to reach finality, may still be continuous: it may -become a habit and may endure indefinitely in the vast suffering of its -victims. The Jews have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> seen that happen in many a small nationality -other than their own. They have seen, no doubt, that continued -repression acting in an atmosphere of equally continuous rebellion has -usually in the long run failed, but they must admit that the maintenance -of such repression, with all its accompaniments of moral and physical -torture, confiscation, exile and all the rest, has often been a policy -long drawn out. It has been drawn out in some cases for centuries. It is -not true that, because a policy does not aim at a complete settlement, -therefore it cannot be undertaken and vigorously pursued. It can. Time -and again a hostile force has attempted to eliminate opposition, or even -contrast, and to eliminate it by every instrument, including massacre -itself. Sometimes, very rarely, it has succeeded. Usually it has, in the -long run, failed. But in the great majority of cases it has at any rate -continued long after its failure was apparent. That is the danger which -menaces from the phenomenon I have examined in this chapter. It would be -madness in the Jews to neglect that phenomenon. It is now so strong in -numbers, intensity of conviction, and passion that it menaces their -whole immediate future in our civilization. Its ultimate causes we have -explored. Its immediate cause, the cause of its sudden development and -present startling growth, we have seen to be the Jewish action in -Russia, and to this, which I have already touched upon in my third -chapter, where I sketched the sequence of events leading up to the -present situation, I will next turn, in order to make a more detailed -examination of it. For undoubtedly it is the sudden appearance of Jewish -<i>Bolshevism</i> that has brought things to their present crisis.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p> - -<p class="bold2">BOLSHEVISM</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p> - -<h2><span>CHAPTER VIII</span> <span class="smaller">BOLSHEVISM</span></h2> - -<p>The Bolshevist explosion, which will appear in history I think as the -point of departure from which shall date the new attitude of the Western -nations towards the Jews, is not only a field in which we can study the -evil effect of secrecy, but one in which we can analyse all the various -forces which tend to bring Israel into such ceaseless conflict with the -society around it.</p> - -<p>It merits, therefore, a very special examination, both as an opportunity -for the study of our subject and as a turning-point of the first moment -in history.</p> - -<p>Why did a Jewish organization thus attempt to transform society? Why did -it use the methods which we know it used? Why was that particular venue -chosen? What aim had the actors in view? What measure of success did -they hope to achieve? By what method do they propose to extend their -influence? When we can answer those questions we shall have gone far to -discovering the almost fatal causes of conflict between this peculiar -nation and those among whom they move.</p> - -<p>The answers usually given to these questions by the avowed enemies of -the Jewish race are always inadequate and often false. When they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> -contain an element of truth (which they often do) that truth is quite -insufficient to account for the full phenomena. But the accretions of -falsehood and exaggeration render the whole thing inexplicable—indeed, -these explanations of the Russian revolution are very good specimens of -the way in which the European so misunderstands the Jew that he imputes -to him powers which neither he nor any other poor mortal can ever -exercise.</p> - -<p>Thus we are asked to believe that this political upheaval was part of -one highly-organized plot centuries old, the agents of which were -millions of human beings all pledged to the destruction of our society -and acting in complete discipline under a few leaders superhumanly wise! -The thing is nonsense on the face of it. Men have no capacity for acting -in this fashion. They are far too limited, far too diverse.</p> - -<p>Moreover, the motive is completely lacking. Why merely destroy and why, -if your object is merely to destroy, manifest such wide differences in -your aims? One may say justly that there is always a tendency to -reaction against alien surroundings, and in so far as that reaction is -intense and effective it is destructive of those surroundings. One may -point out that such reaction in the case of the Jews, as in the case of -all other alien bodies, is in the main unconscious and instinctive. All -that is true enough; but the conception of a vast age-long plot, -culminating in the contemporary Russian affair, will not hold water, any -more than will the corresponding hallucination which led men to believe -that the French revolution (a thing utterly different in kind from the -Russian) was the mere outward expression<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> of a strictly disciplined -secret body. In the case of the French Revolution everything was put -down (by the forerunners of to-day's Anti-Semitic enthusiasts) to the -secret agency of The Order of Templars acting unweariedly through six -centuries, and finally bringing down the French monarchy. In the case, -of course, of the Bolshevist anarchy a still longer range is given to -the final result: for "Templars" read "Jews," and for "600" read "2,000" -years. It is all smoke.</p> - -<p>More serious is the statement that this combination of Jews for the -destruction of the old Russian society was an act of racial revenge. -There is a great element of truth in that. There is no doubt that the -greater part of the Jews who took over power in the Russian cities four -years ago felt an appetite for revenge against the old Russian State -comparable to that felt by any oppressed people against their -oppressors. Probably it was more intense even than any other example -that could be quoted. We are all witnesses to the way in which the -Russian people, religion, and government, and particularly the person -and office of the Emperor—were attacked and decried by the Jews in -Western Europe, of the way in which the Jews ceaselessly conspired -against the Russian State, and of the brutal repression to which they -were subject. When you release a force of hatred so violent it may run -to any length. That sudden release, that sudden opportunity for -satisfying the thirst for vengeance, must explain a very large part of -what followed. But even that does not account for the whole. It would -account for mere massacre and mere chaos. It would not account for the -attempts—rather pitiful attempts—at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> construction and for the -obviously designed system of direction which has continued on the same -lines since the Jews first assumed power and is still fully manifest -after nearly five years of that power.</p> - -<p>Still less is it sufficient to say that the Jew is everywhere the -organizer and leader of revolution and that we only see him at work in -Russia with greater vigour and thoroughness because the opportunity is -there greater.</p> - -<p>The Jew is not everywhere a revolutionary. He is everywhere discontented -with a society alien to him: that is natural and inevitable. But he does -not exercise his power invariably, or even ordinarily, towards the -oversetting of an established social order by which, incidentally, he -often largely benefits.</p> - -<p>You do not find the Jew in history perpetually leading the innumerable -revolts which citizens in the mass make against the privileged or the -superior conditions of the minority. He has sometimes benefited by these -movements in the past; more often suffered. We often find individual -Jews sympathizing with the revolutionary side, but we also find many -individual Jews sympathizing with the other. The Jew is not, in the -history of Europe, the prime agent of revolution: quite the contrary. -The great acts of violence, successful and unsuccessful, which have -marked our society from the agrarian troubles of pagan Rome to the -French Revolution, the land war in Ireland, the Chartist Movement in -London, or whatever modern movement you will, have appealed much more to -the fighting instincts and political traditions of <i>our</i> race than they -have to the Jews. They are marked everywhere by an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> attitude towards -property and patriotism which are the very opposite of the Jews' -characteristics. The Revolutions of the past were for the better -distribution of property and for the betterment of the State. Often they -were openly undertaken because patriotism had been offended by defeat in -war and because the Nation was thought to be betrayed. Usually they were -jingo and always for distribution of wealth.</p> - -<p>It is the unique mark of the Russian revolution and of its attempted -extension elsewhere that it repudiates patriotism and the division of -property. In that, it differs from all others; and it is markedly, -obviously, <i>Jewish</i>. But why had the Jews a chance of action in Russia -which they lacked elsewhere?</p> - -<p>What were the special characters in the Russian opportunity which made -the Jew the creator of the whole movement?</p> - -<p>There are, I take it, three main factors present in this case peculiarly -suitable to the Jewish effort.</p> - -<p>In the first place, this revolution fell upon, and was directed towards, -a particular social phenomenon in which that profound instinct in the -European, the desire for settled property, had decayed. It fell upon the -state of affairs called <i>Industrial Capitalism</i>, the chief mark of which -is the destruction in the mass subjected to it (or, at any rate, the -atrophying) of that essential part of the European soul—ownership. The -Jew is, undoubtedly, unable to sympathize with us in that central core -of our civic instincts. He has never understood the European sense of -property and I doubt if he ever will.</p> - -<p>But in Russia <i>Industrial Capitalism</i> was quite new. The resentment -against it was keen. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> victims were the sons of peasants, or had -themselves been born peasants, so that this proletarian mass in the -Russian towns, though less than a tenth of the whole nation, was -peculiarly open to propaganda against its masters. And an attack -successfully conducted, on that weakest point of modern Capitalism, -might easily succeed and <i>then</i> spread to neighbouring industrialized -centres in Poland, Germany, and so westward.</p> - -<p>Now the attack on this international phenomenon, an attack directed -against Industrial Capitalism, required an international force. It -needed men who had international experience and were ready with an -international formula.</p> - -<p>There are two, and only two, organized international forces in Europe -to-day with a soul and identity in them. One is the Catholic Church, and -the other is Jewry. But the Catholic Church, for reasons which I will -discuss in a moment, cannot and never will directly attack industrial -capitalism. It will undoubtedly attack that system in flank and -indirectly destroy it in the long run wherever the Faith has a strong -hold upon masses of people. But it will not and cannot directly attack -it. The Jew, on the other hand, is free to attack it precisely because -our sense of property means nothing to him, is to him something strange, -and even, I think, comic. Further, the Jew was present, he was on the -spot. The Church was not.</p> - -<p>Of the two international forces present, therefore, the Jews alone could -act.</p> - -<p>Here I must digress and say why the other great international force, the -Catholic Church, has not been able—and will never be able—to attack -Industrial Capitalism as a whole and directly, though,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> as I have said, -it acts indirectly as a solvent of this evil and will destroy it -wherever society remains Catholic. The Catholic Church, not only in its -abstract doctrine, but acting as the expression of our European -civilization, is profoundly attached to the conception of private -property. It makes the family the unit of the State and it perceives -that the freedom of the family is most secure where the family owns. It -perceives, as do all Europeans, instinctively or explicitly, that -property is the correlative of freedom, or, at any rate, of that only -kind of freedom which we Europeans care to have: that it is the -safeguard of spiritual health (the mark of which is humour), of breadth -and diversity in action, of elasticity in the State, of permanence in -institutions. Property, as widely distributed as possible, but sacred as -a principle, is an inevitable social accompaniment of Catholicism.</p> - -<p>Apart from this, it is also a definite feature of Catholic doctrine to -deny that private property is immoral. No Catholic can say that private -property is immoral without cutting himself off from the Communion of -the Church, any more than he can say that the authority in the State is -immoral. He cannot be a communist, in abstract morals any more than he -can be an anarchist.</p> - -<p>Now Industrial Capitalism is a disease of property. It is the monstrous -state of affairs in which a very few men derive their vast advantage -from the corresponding fact that most men whom they exploit do not own.</p> - -<p>But it remains true that the sheet-anchor of Capitalism is a sense of -ownership in the mass as well as in the privileged few. The only moral<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> -force remaining to Industrial Capitalism, the only spiritual tie which -prevents its dissolution, is this admission by the European mind that -property is a right—even property in a diseased and exaggerated form.</p> - -<p>The whole of the operations of Industrial Capitalism rely upon the -sanctity of property and the sanctity of contract which develops from -the sanctity of property. And whenever society loses this sense, -industrial capitalism will fall into chaos. The Church cannot deny that -one moral principle. Its action will always be towards the dissolution -of the great accumulations promoted by capitalism. It always will work -indirectly for the establishment of well-divided property, an ideal -defined by the voice of its great modern Pope, Leo XIII, who explicitly -states it in his <i>Rerum Novarum</i>. But the Church can never take the -short cut of destroying Industrial Capitalism root and branch and at -once, by erecting against it the doctrine of Communism or (as many -people call diluted Communism) "Socialism." It never can do so in -theory, and still less will it ever do so in practice. A Catholic -society will always tend to be a society of owners: with all the -elements of co-operation, with the Guild, with masses of corporate -property attached to the State or connected with the city, with the -college, with the corporation. For without such corporate property in a -State, property is never well founded.</p> - -<p>The Jew has neither that political instinct in his national tradition -nor a religious doctrine supporting and expressing such an instinct. The -same thing in him which makes him a speculator and a nomad blinds him -to, and makes him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> actually contemptuous of, the European sense of -property. When therefore we have reached, through Industrial Capitalism, -or any other social disease, a state of affairs in which the practical -denial of property is possible because the mass of men have lost the -desire for it, and when the repudiation of property offers an immediate -solution for intolerable evils, then the Jew can appear at once as a -leader.</p> - -<p>One must find in such a movement an international leader because the -disease is international, and still more because the proposed cure of -that disease, through Communism, <i>must</i> be international if it is to -succeed. A Communist society may stand apart from the general society of -owners in other countries, but if it is to succeed in competition with -them it must convert them to its own creed.</p> - -<p>The Jew took international action for granted. He took the narrow and -false economic view of property—that it was a mere institution to be -modified indefinitely, and, if necessary, abolished. He had an obvious -opportunity for leadership accorded to him when international action -against property was demanded. Again, our national sense, patriotism, -which is incomprehensible to the Jew save on the false analogy of his -own peculiar nomadic and tribal patriotism, is a check upon Communism, -and, indeed, against revolution of any kind. The process of thought in -the patriotic citizen—largely unconscious but none the less -efficacious—is somewhat as follows:</p> - -<p>"I cannot function save as a citizen of my nation, and, what is more, -that nation made me what I am. It is my creator in a sense and so has -authority over me. I must even give up my life in its defence if -necessary, because but for its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> existence I and those like me could not -be. My happiness, my freedom of individual action, my self-expression -are all bound up with the existence of the civic unit of which I am a -part. If something which appears to me good in the abstract, or which -apparently will procure for me a material good, involves danger to that -civic unit, I must forego the good, regarding the continued existence -and strength of my people as a greater good to which the lesser should -be sacrificed."</p> - -<p>That, I say roughly, is the expression of the patriotic instinct in the -European man. That is what he has felt for many and many a great State -in the past and for every polity to which he has ever belonged; that is -what he feels to-day for his country.</p> - -<p>The Jew has the same feeling, of course, for his Israel, but since that -nation is not a collection of human beings, inhabiting one place and -living by traditions rooted in its soil, since it has not a strong, -visible, external form, his patriotism is necessarily of a different -complexion. It has different connotations and our patriotism seems -negligible to him.</p> - -<p>The implied fallacies current in the modern industrial revolutionary -formulæ, in such phrases as "What does it matter to the working man -whether he is exploited by a German or an English master?" or, again, -"Why should the individual Tom Smith be sacrificed for an abstraction -called England?" or again, "Nationalism is the great obstacle to the -full development of humanity"—all that sort of thing, which we feel by -instinct and can, if it is necessary, prove by reason to be nonsense in -our case, sounds, in Jewish ears, as very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> good sense indeed. For in his -case these things involve no fallacies at all; they apply to <i>him</i> -vividly and exactly. Why should the Jew be sacrificed for England? In -what way is England, or France, or Ireland, or any other nation -necessary to <i>him</i>? Again, is it not obvious in his eyes that these -terms, "France, Ireland, England, Russia," are but abstractions? The -<i>real</i> thing in his eyes when he thinks of us, is the individual and his -certain needs, especially his physical and material needs; because upon -these there can be no doubt; upon these all are agreed; these are -visible and tangible. "England," "France," "Poland" are whimsies.</p> - -<p>It is true that if you were to put his special case to the Jew with -similar force and say, "No Jew should run any risk for Israel," "no Jew -should suffer any inconvenience by trying to help a fellow Jew in -distress," "the idea of Israel is a vague abstraction—all that counts -is the individual Jew and especially his physical requirements"; if you -said that sort of thing you would be offending the most profound -instincts of Jewish patriotism and you would, in fact, clash with the -overt and covert action of the Jews throughout the world. But the Jew -would answer that, as his was an international polity, the argument -applying to our national polity did not apply to him; that his feelings, -though analogous to ours, were of a different kind, and that, at any -rate, he cannot sacrifice a fine idea of his like Communism for our -provincial and local habit, called by us Europeans "the love of our -country."</p> - -<p>There is more than this in the business. Even those truths which we know -to be truths have little effect upon us, unless they enter into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> the -practice of our lives. There are, no doubt, a number of Jews who would -admit at once the truth of any nationalist statement made by a European. -When a Frenchman, or an Englishman, or a Russian says to him, "My first -duty is to my people; I must keep them strong as well as in being and I -must sacrifice my interests to theirs when it is necessary," there are -many Jews who would answer: "You are quite right. The theory is sound. -Man can only function as a part of a particular society," and so forth; -but it is one thing to recognize a truth and another thing to experience -it in one's bones, as it were, and these truths, even where he is -admitting them, are truths indifferent to the Jew.</p> - -<p>Therefore when, as in the particular case of Russia, a national feeling -stood in the way of an abstract ideal, it seemed the most natural thing -in the world to the Jew that the national obstacle should go to the wall -in order that <i>his</i> ideal of Communism might triumph.</p> - -<p>There lay behind this great change in the Russian towns, and the capture -of what remains of Russian government by the Jewish Committees, a force -most positive. It was the sense of social justice, the indignation -against indefensible evils.</p> - -<p>That sense of social justice, that indignation against indefensible -modern evils, we all feel. There may be men among the wealthier classes -of Western Europe who are so ignorant of the past, or so stupid, that -they do honestly believe Industrial Capitalism to be an inevitable and -even perhaps a good thing. But such men must be very rare. Not only must -they be rare, but they cannot have any wide social experience. A man has -only got<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> to live the life of the poor in the great industrial cities -for a day to see the enormity of the wrong that has to be righted. There -are, of course, not a few but many thousands of individuals who try to -find arguments for Industrial Capitalism, either because they benefit -themselves through the system and are the richer by it, or because they -are the hired servants of those who so benefit—and of this kind are the -writers in the capitalist press. But all these, who are hired advocates, -or advocates with a direct proprietary interest in the continuance of -the modern disease, may be neglected; for they are not in good faith. -They are not really arguing that the thing is good in itself, they are -only trying to find arguments as lawyers do for something which they -have to defend and which in their hearts they admit is evil; or to the -evil of which they are indifferent so long as it gives them a -disproportionate share of material enjoyment.</p> - -<p>We must add to these the sincere man who will admit the domination of -Industrial Capitalism because he honestly believes that, bad as it is, -it is <i>now</i> become inevitable and that to tamper with it would bring the -whole State into anarchy. "Such as it is," he would say, "the structure -of our society now depends upon it. We may palliate its evils, we may -try very gradually to transform its worst features. But in its essence -it must remain as it is, or our last state will be worse than our -first."</p> - -<p>Of this kind are those who argue that any social experiment antagonistic -to Industrial Capitalism, if pushed sufficiently far, would result in -famine and chaos and even physical evils far worse than the physical -evils which the mass of men have to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> suffer in the great towns which -capitalism has produced.</p> - -<p>Apart from these categories, the masses of men, I say, to-day are -convinced that Industrial Capitalism is an evil, an evil of the grossest -sort; an evil of a sort unknown to the greater part of human history and -unknown to-day in the greater part of the human race; an evil which -those peasant societies, or societies of well-divided property -throughout Europe, are happy to have escaped; and an evil from which we, -who are caught in it, are trying to escape as best we may.</p> - -<p>In that modifying phrase "as best we may" lies the crux, for the great -mass of Europeans feel that any attack on Industrial Capitalism which -denies the nation its supreme place, or which impedes the superior task -of keeping the nation strong and wealthy, is barred; they also feel -instinctively that any attack which denies the general right of private -property and the value of that institution to the healthy conduct of our -affairs is also barred. The great mass of our race, when faced by the -problem of Industrial Capitalism, feel that it has to be solved in some -way that will neither destroy property nor the nation through which the -individual alone can function.</p> - -<p>But this, which is true of the great mass of our race, is not true of -the Jews. Therefore they were able, in the case of the Russian -Revolution, to go straight for their object, and that object was (apart -from the obvious object of revenge, of love of power, and the rest) the -destruction of an economic inequality.</p> - -<p>These Jews who have destroyed what we knew as Russia were undoubtedly -possessed of a political<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> ideal: the ideal of Communism. No doubt many -individuals among them (all ultimately) would prefer the good of Israel -to the good of any Russian. No doubt the wreaking of vengeance upon -former oppressors was strong, as also the appetite for destroying a -general and a national sentiment alien to them and even repulsive to -them; but there remains, as a positive motive behind the whole affair, -the ideal of Communism. The Jews alone of the forces present were -capable of heartily entertaining that ideal, and were free of all -obstacles against the achievement of it—the obstacle of patriotism, the -obstacle of religion, the obstacle of the sense of property.</p> - -<p>These considerations, I take it, are what explains the Jewish character -of the upheaval in the East, with its destruction of the Russian nation, -its enormous experiments in social economy, its inevitable -impoverishment of the State as a whole, its enthusiastic support by the -minority which accepts its doctrine.</p> - -<p>Those very few men and women who have been witnesses of the Jewish -experiment in Russia (excluding those engaged in propaganda upon one -side or the other) give us a picture which is much what we should have -expected of the situation.</p> - -<p>It seems that the great mass of the nation has affirmed the instinct of -private property with the greatest vigour, and that some nine-tenths of -the Russians have settled down upon the land to which they always -claimed ownership and in which their sense of ownership is more fierce -than ever. In the towns the unnatural system—unnatural because it -opposes all our instincts as Europeans—works more and more slackly as -the original system of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> terror weakens. For it is clear that Communism -needs a despot, and the active rule of a despot is necessarily short: it -is a system incapable of transition and therefore of duration.</p> - -<p>The perfectly explicable but deplorable exercise of vengeance by the -Jews has been directed against what we euphemistically term the -governing directing classes, who have been massacred wholesale and whose -remnants are subjected to perpetual persecution.</p> - -<p>The productivity of the industrial masses has naturally sunk to a very -low level, because under Communism it can only work through something -like military discipline, and work done under those conditions is on a -much lower productive level than free work.</p> - -<p>But the real interest in the Jewish revolution in Russia, to which is -now permanently affixed the name of Bolshevist (which is nothing more -than the Russian for "whole-hogger"), lies in these two points: first, -the continued propaganda of Communism throughout the world (which -propaganda in organization and direction is in the hands of Jewish -agents); secondly, and much more important, the effect of the Jewish -revolution in producing hostility to the Jews throughout the world.</p> - -<p>I say this second fact is much more important because it is the more -real and the more enduring. You will never make a Communist of the -highly-civilized, tenacious, intelligent and humorous Occidental -European. You will no more make a Communist of him than you will make -him walk on all fours or permanently abjure the use of good liquor. You -may get middle-class faddists to accept Communism as a mere creed, and -of course you can easily<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> get exasperated men, ground down by -capitalism, to accept <i>any</i> theory, <i>any</i> system, which promises them -relief. But you will not get Communism working in men who boast the old -European blood, in the descendants of those who created our past and its -monuments. They will certainly preserve their traditions and their -character. Though the peril must be combated, and is being successfully -combated everywhere, it is not a peril of great magnitude to the West.</p> - -<p>The other effect of the Jewish revolution in Russia—the peril into -which it has put the Jews themselves—<i>is</i> permanent and <i>is</i> of the -first magnitude. I know no way to meet it except to explain why that -revolution was almost necessarily a Jewish revolution, to emphasize the -sincerity of the Jews who have led it, to exculpate them as far as -possible, and, at any rate, to shield their unfortunate compatriots -abroad from the consequences of what was certainly a very bad piece of -tactics so far as the future of this people was concerned.</p> - -<p>We ought, I think, not to nourish a new and special hostility against -the Jew on account of what he has done in Russia, but, on the contrary, -to excuse him, especially because he is a Jew. We ought, as it seems to -me, to say: "He had reasons for action and excuse for action which men -of our race would not have had, and though we must prevent that action -from spreading, we must not allow what seemed quite natural under the -circumstances to the Jew to warp our attempted solution of the Jewish -problem. We ought to work for its solution as impartially and as soberly -as though the provocation of Bolshevism had never been given."</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span></p><p>That sounds an extreme thing to say, and I fear it will be ridiculed by -most of those who (as they tell us) have had their eyes opened by the -Bolshevist explosion and who are now confirmed enemies of the Jewish -people. But though it sound fantastic, I am convinced that it is a right -attitude. To lose one's judgment on a permanent problem through panic or -heat, to forget the elements of such a problem merely because it has -been presented to us suddenly in an acute form, is the negation of -reason. As well might a man who is dealing with the problem of fermented -liquor, and trying to get people to use it rationally, let his judgment -be overcome by a case of delirium tremens and rush thereupon into some -scheme of prohibition. The very test which distinguishes good -statesmanship from bad is the power to keep one's head under -provocations like these; to maintain a middle course and to aim at -whatever solution our reason tells us to be just under <i>normal</i> -circumstances. We who saw the gravity of the Jewish problem long before -the recognition of it was general, and who studied it under calmer -conditions for many years, have a right to be heard now: now that the -tide is making against these people and that the fear of anarchy -threatens to turn men's heads.</p> - -<p>We were long blamed for attacking the Jews, we are already blamed for -defending them. It is a proof that our attitude is well grounded and -unaffected by fashion.</p> - -<p>The Bolshevist revolution will not last. Its Jewish character was -inevitable. It had a side to it of Jewish enthusiasm for a sort of -incorporeal justice, and, in any case, it ought not to be allowed to -deflect us from a conclusion which the much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> larger lines of history and -all general considerations of reason impose.</p> - -<p>Our conclusion, as I have said, is a recognition and protection of the -Jewish nation as something quite different from ourselves and yet -necessarily inhabiting our society. Such a full recognition leaves us -fore-armed against the tendency in the Jew (which we cannot avoid) to -forget our national feelings and to misconceive our sense of ownership. -It would render impossible the conspiracies and the vengeance which have -destroyed Russia, and I believe that had the former Russian Government -treated the Jews as I say they should be treated, it would be in power to-day.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span></p> - -<p class="bold2">THE POSITION IN THE WORLD AS A WHOLE</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p> - -<h2><span>CHAPTER IX</span> <span class="smaller">THE POSITION IN THE WORLD AS A WHOLE</span></h2> - -<p>The danger of the Jewish nation in the world to-day may be summed up in -this phrase:—</p> - -<p>"The Jews are obtaining control and we will not be controlled by them."</p> - -<p>That is the simplest formula, and the one which would be immediately -subscribed to by the whole mass of those outside the Jewish community -who are alive to the question at all. Being the simplest form of the -truth, it needs, when applied to a highly complex situation, detailed -modification.</p> - -<p>This modification proceeds from three sources:—</p> - -<p>First, the extent of the Jewish control and the extent of the resentment -against that control vary very largely from one community to another.</p> - -<p>Secondly, the civic tradition of each community in its treatment of the -Jewish question also differs from that of every other, though these -various traditions fall into certain fairly well-defined groups.</p> - -<p>Thirdly, the position is modified according to the presence, in varying -degrees of strength in different communities, of certain international -forces even more powerful than the Jews themselves. The four principal -of the international forces are:—</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span></p><p>(1) The Catholic Church;</p> - -<p>(2) Islam;</p> - -<p>(3) The forces of international Capitalism; and</p> - -<p>(4) The international reaction against it of the industrial proletariat.</p> - -<p>We must in the first line of this inquiry make an important premise. The -fact from which we proceed, namely, the uneasy feeling that the Jews are -getting control and the determination not to tolerate that control, will -be denied by the Jews themselves. It is denied sincerely—I have entered -upon too many discussions with them and heard too many of their -protestations to doubt that; and if the denial were valid, not only the -particular survey I propose in this chapter, but the whole of the -argument of this book, would fail. For if there is a Jewish question -to-day, and if it is present in the acute form in which we all know it -to be present, it is not due merely to the contrast and friction between -the Jews and their hosts, but especially to this feeling of domination.</p> - -<p>But the Jewish belief in this matter is not valid, sincerely as it is -held. To the great majority of Jews it will, of course, seem -common-sense. What has the unfortunate poor Jew in the slums of our -great cities to do with controlling the modern world? How in his eyes -can the phrase have any meaning at all? If you pass from him to the -comparatively small Jewish middle class, you would hear a denial almost -equally vigorous. The Jewish scientist will tell you that he is -concerned with his researches and laughs at the idea of interfering with -his neighbours; the Jewish historian that he is concerned with his -documents, that nothing is further from his thoughts than interfering -with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> people outside his trade; the little Jewish shopkeeper will tell -you that he is in active competition with his non-Jewish neighbours and -by no means always successful in that competition; the Jewish lawyer -will tell you that he is concerned with the system of law in which he -happens to be immersed—the Napoleonic Code, the English Common Law or -what not—and that any idea of his personally wanting to control the -vast non-Jewish majority among whom he lives is moonshine: and so it is.</p> - -<p>The great Jewish banker, though he is fully aware of his power, would -tell you that in his daily business he comes up against forces to which -he is subject, and has competitors who are at the best neutral, and more -commonly hostile, to Israel; and even the man who is to-day more -powerful—if that be possible—than the Jewish banker, I mean the Jewish -monopolist, and especially the Jewish monopolist in metal, though he -would be extremely annoyed to have the extent of his control exposed, -will feel that it is due to his superior abilities and in no way -designed for mastery.</p> - -<p>All these individual replies are true; but if you make of them a -composite and general reply, if you put it as a reply of all Israel to -all the world outside, crying, "I have no desire for supremacy; I never -act in such a fashion that my domination can be felt or shall increase; -the motive is not present, even subconsciously, among my people"—then -that general reply would be false.</p> - -<p>In point of fact the Jew has <i>collectively</i> a power to-day, in the white -world, altogether excessive. It is not only an excessive power, it is -inevitably a <i>corporate</i> power and, therefore, a semi-organized power. -It is not only excessive and in the main<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> organized, it was, until the -recent reaction began, a rapidly increasing power—and most people -believe it to be still increasing. To that the whole world outside the -Jewish community will testify.</p> - -<p>The criterion by which we may judge whether any form of power is -irritant to those whom it affects is not the testimony of those who -exercise the power, but the testimony of those over whom it is -exercised. There never was a tyranny in the world, not even one of those -personal tyrannies (which have been so much more highly organized and so -much more direct than this power of the Jews), there never has been a -despotism in history, which would not tell you that it was accidental, -or necessary, or, in any case, innocent of any motive of oppression. And -history universally replies: "To judge <i>that</i>, you must ask those who -felt the pressure; not those who exercised it."</p> - -<p>Now those who feel the pressure in the matter we are now examining are -unanimous. They differ in the degree of their resentment from those to -whom the thing is so intolerable that they are already in active revolt -against it, to those who feel it merely as a distant though an -approaching discomfort. But everybody feels it in some degree. It is a -universal sensation running throughout the nerves of the modern world -and it is growing too fast in degree and extent to be ignored.</p> - -<p>I have already quoted the effect upon those hundreds of educated men -taken into the temporary Civil service during the late war, when they -found, holding the locked gate of one monopoly after another, the -international Jew. His control of finance needs no discussion. If the -individual banker or financier is not aware of it, the most of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> those -who are affected are acutely aware of it. Men exaggerate in giving it a -sort of conscious personality, but they certainly do not exaggerate when -they point to its effects. The Jew must remember, what it may be -difficult for him to accept and what is certainly true, that not only is -his domination very bitterly resented but that his presence in any -position of control whatsoever is odious to the race among which he -moves. Everybody feels that about any form of alien control, much more -do they feel it about that form which they instinctively know to be most -alien of all. Every one has noticed this control exercised in the form -of keeping silence upon what it was to the disadvantage of Israel to -have known; in the form of the advertising of what it was to the -advantage of Israel to have advertised; in the form of the giving and -withholding of credit; in the form of attack in the Press against -nations with whom Israel had a quarrel and the defence in the Press of -those (they have now almost disappeared) upon whom Israel, in the -immediate past, relied for defence. And everybody has discovered—what -is not unjust, indeed, what is inevitable, but what is none the less a -source of exasperation—the solidarity of the Jewish race where the -interests of any member of it were concerned.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> - -<p>But if the thing were felt everywhere as acutely and as consciously as -it is felt in special groups to-day—as it is felt, for instance, in one -particular section of English opinion already represented in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> Press, -is felt in a wider section of French opinion, and in a still wider -section of Polish opinion—then the matter would be simple. We could -then say that an issue of the clearest kind had arisen, and forbid a -small alien minority to decide the destinies of those among whom it -lives and of whom it is not. The answer would be obvious, and the only -difficulty would be how the Jewish control might be lessened without -grievous injustice to innocent individuals.</p> - -<p>But the thing is not so felt. It is modified, as I have said, by the -varying degrees of intensity in which it is recognized and by the other -international forces which come into play.</p> - -<p>If we consider the varying political traditions and the varying -international forces, if we examine the world's national groups, we -shall find something like this: In the vast body of Russia a position -most paradoxical. For years the Jew was everywhere openly attacked and -hated in those parts of the Russian Empire where he was allowed to live -in large numbers. These were nowhere within Russia proper but upon the -western outskirts of that empire, within what was once the old Polish -kingdom and largely within what is now the restored Republic of Poland. -But the Russian traditional antagonism to the Jew changed in a few weeks -of chaos to something not opposite but novel and different. The Russian -allowed a prodigious revolution to be made by the Jews, he accepted the -loot of that revolution which the Jew secured to him; he has submitted -wholly in the towns, partly in the country, to a tyranny exercised by -Jews ever since that complete reversal of his national history, now four -years old.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p><p>The external political power of what was once the Russian Empire has -disappeared. The Jews have killed it. But the great mass of Russian -humanity remains strongly affected by this curious change. Where popular -instinct works untrammelled the old and violent passionate antagonism -between the Russian and the Jew survives. You see it in the hotch potch -of the Ukraine, the inhabitants of which, in spite of all theories, are -of Russian race and tradition, and the central town of which is the -sacred region of Russia as a member of Christendom. There, for all the -Jewish Committees with large towns under their complete control, there -have been repeated revolts. But in the greater part of European Russia -at least, and in much of what was once the Asiatic Empire, the Jews hold -what is left of the Executive government.</p> - -<p>So far as we can judge from the very imperfect accounts which reach us -(for nowhere is the weapon of secrecy more ruthlessly used), the mass of -the Russians, that is, the peasantry, are in two minds. To the action of -the Jewish despotism in the town they are indifferent, but to his early -attempts against themselves they were bitterly opposed. They have -suffered at his hands and they thought him a tyrant. But the Jew seems -to have dropped this interference and the Russian soil to have settled -down as a peasant proprietary. On the other hand, it was a revolution -guided by those same Jewish Committees which secured the peasant in the -possession of his land. The Russian peasant has always regarded the land -as his own. He had, I understand, regarded that odd, pedantic measure, -"The Liberation of the Serfs," as only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> another name for the robbing him -of his land; and when the organization of Russian society dissolved in -the strain of war, he poured over the great estates and took back what -he thought was his own.</p> - -<p>For the strange Jewish conception of Communism, a million miles removed -from our European racial instincts and our high civilized traditions, -the Russian peasant could have nothing but a bewildered contempt. None -the less he was conscious that the Jewish revolution had permitted him, -if not to take the land (he did that himself), at least to hold it; and -the revolution is indistinguishable from the Jewish control of the -towns.</p> - -<p>Within the towns, again (our information is most imperfect and I can -only piece together what eye-witnesses have told me), although the Jew -is, of course, individually hated, yet his control does stand for -certain things which the mass of the people still support. He organized -the resentment of the poor against the rich. He erected before their -eyes the pleasing spectacle of a social revenge. He carried out, fairly -consistently, his Communist programme, one aspect at least of which is -practical enough; for the man that works with his hands finds that he is -as well, or better, fed out of the meagre common stock, than those who -were once his masters.</p> - -<p>In general I think it true to say that the Jewish control over -Christians, if, in a way, stronger in what was once the Russian Empire -than anywhere else, is also there least resented. I do not say it would -not be resented if it were to excite action again against the peasants, -but we cannot forget that the peasants were eager to fight for the new<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> -Russian regime because they identified it with their new property in -land. The situation is absurd enough. Men in hundreds of thousands -willing to fight for Communist masters because by so doing they believe -they can secure themselves in an absolute form of property! But that is -what the "red" army was.</p> - -<p>In that belt of nations, vague in boundary, which used to constitute the -Marches of the East and which now stand between what was once the -Russian Empire and the Germanies, the position would seem to be this.</p> - -<p>There are in these countries everywhere a very large proportion of Jews. -The largest by far are in Lithuania and Galicia, where, of whole towns, -from a third to a half and sometimes up to two-thirds, of the population -are Jewish. Very large also is the proportion within the admitted -frontiers of modern Poland; very large in Roumania, and considerable in -Hungary.</p> - -<p>In all these countries the Jewish problem is something quite different -from what it is farther West. The Jews are in these countries admittedly -a separate nation. Even as I write I hear the complaint, sounding -strange in our Western ears, proffered by the Polish Jews who have been -appealing to the West against what they claim to be the oppressive -practice of writing them down as Poles! In Roumania for two generations -it has been the fixed principle of the State, now latent, now overt, but -always acted upon in social practice, that the Jew is not a Roumanian at -all and cannot be one. Of course he cannot be one really, any more than -he can be an Englishman, or a Frenchman, or an Irishman. (Fancy a Jew an -Irishman!) But I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> mean, not even one by fiction or by convention. In -Poland the greater part of these people have a different language and -all of them have a different social custom and a different life from the -world around them. In Hungary, where the numerical pressure of the Jew -is less, there is, of course, a most lively memory of the attempted -revolution under Cohen in 1918, the massacres of Hungarians, the setting -up of an ephemeral Bolshevism and the necessity of its suppression. In -Bohemia the pressure is far less and in the Balkan States south of the -Danube and the Drave. It is only present as a pressure of numbers in the -group of States which lie between the Baltic and the Black Sea South and -North and between the Russian people and the German people East and -West.</p> - -<p>When we come to Occidental Europe, in which must be included, though it -is hardly a true part of it, Germany beyond the Elbe; when we come to -the Scandinavian countries, to France, Britain, Italy, Spain, -Switzerland and the Low Countries, the problem changes. The numerical -proportion of Jews sinks enormously. Fairly large in one or two Dutch -towns, it is almost insignificant in Scandinavia, and though we have had -into the great English towns and to some extent into the northern French -towns (particularly Paris) a considerable recent influx of Jews, yet the -total number of these people in the West remains far, far smaller than -the great masses of the East of Europe. The same is still more true of -Italy, and, in spite of the absorption of a great deal of Jewish blood -in the past, of Spain.</p> - -<p>But while the numerical proportion of Jews in these western countries is -much smaller, and while<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> therefore the peril of Jewish domination is -very different in <i>form</i> from what it is farther East, it is clearly -marked. It is exercised primarily through finance; next through the -sceptical Universities, the anonymous Press and the corrupt Parliaments, -and, lastly, in a more general form, by the presence of institutions -which greatly favour the rise of the Jew in competition with his hosts; -each favours international knowledge; each favours anonymity; each still -favours the old Liberal nonsense which called itself "toleration" and -was really an indifference to that most fundamental of all social -motives—religion—save, of course, where an exception is made to permit -attack upon the Catholic Church.</p> - -<p>Under influence of this sort, both sincere and hypocritical, both -generous and mean, the Jew acquired in all the larger communities, and -especially in France, Italy, Germany and England, a power out of all -proportion to his numbers, and I may add, without, I hope, offending any -Jewish reader, out of proportion to his abilities; certainly out of -proportion to any right of his to interfere in our affairs. It was a Jew -who produced the divorce laws in France, the Jew who nourished -anti-clericalism everywhere in that country and also in Italy; the Jew -who called in the forces of Occidental nations to protect his -compatriots in the East, and the Jew whose spirit has so largely -permeated the Universities and the Press.</p> - -<p>Ireland is an exception. In Ireland the Jew (outside the little -industrial corner in the north-east) is nobody. And here it must be -remarked that the migrations of the Jew which give him numbers here for -a time and afterwards numbers elsewhere,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> in places where previously he -had not been known; which give him influence here for a time, and sees -it followed by the decline of that influence, do not seem to obey any -law which we can trace, and are certainly not the product of any -conscious action. It is one of the strangest phenomena in history, this -odd, spasmodic flood movement of the Jewish race. Is it concerned with -commerce? That is one element undoubtedly; that is what explains the -exploitation of England by Jews after the Conquest, of Spain in the -later Middle Ages, of the Valley of the Rhine; but then, why not other -commercial centres as an attraction? Venice was not one, though the Jew -was well tolerated there; nor was Paris after the early Middle Ages, and -while some of the Dutch towns formed such centres of attraction the -Belgian towns did not.</p> - -<p>Was it asylum? That would account, of course, for the great influx of -Jews into mediaeval Poland, but then why not into eighteenth century -England? Why not until very late in the nineteenth century? England, -which gave the Jews a more complete civic position than he could find -anywhere else in the world, was not invaded by them. Why these very -recent influxes into the United States, which has for now a century and -a half been perfectly open by its Constitution, and was by all its civic -tradition an ideal asylum for the Jews? Until quite recent times the Jew -was hardly known there, and to this day he is not known outside a few -great cities.</p> - -<p>No. There would seem to be no law, or at least no discoverable law, for -this mysterious movement, the ebb and flow of Israel—but that is a -digression. To return to the national situations.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p><p>If we leave the Old World and turn to the United States, we find a -novel condition of affairs still in process of development and very -puzzling to the foreign observer. I do not pretend to analyse it -completely in a few lines, nor even accurately, for I am dependent upon -the observation of others, and the United States are so utterly -different from us that we have difficulty in following their -contemporary history; but something of this sort would seem to be -passing there.</p> - -<p class="center">* * * * *</p> - -<p>In the United States the Jews were present, till the last few years, in -numbers even smaller in proportion to the population than their numbers -in France, England and Italy, far smaller than their numbers in what was -formerly the German Empire. In the agricultural part of America, which -is still, I believe, one half of the population, the Jew was almost -unknown. You find him here and there, as a lawyer or a storekeeper, but -that world was not familiar with him any more than our English -country-sides are familiar with him to-day. With the growth of the great -industrial towns, of course, the Jew came, but he was still no "feature -in the landscape." There was a certain social prejudice against him -among the wealthier classes in the East, and—this is very -important—<i>the truth was always told about him</i>. There was in America -no convention—the Jew was always recognized as a Jew and there was -never any of the nonsense we had over here of pretending that he was -something else.</p> - -<p>Of that phenomenon of which the history of Europe is full, which is so -marked in the eastern<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> counties to-day and which is beginning to rise in -the West, there is nothing traceable in the early and middle nineteenth -century, nor even till the close of it, in the United States.</p> - -<p>Then came the change. It is a change which has taken place in the -lifetime of men much younger than myself. It is a change, I am told, -most marked since I last visited the United States more than twenty -years ago. A regular and organized Jewish emigration began to pour in, -especially from the Baltic. It flooded New York, where it now forms -probably a third of the population; it created Ghettoes in most of the -large Northern industrial towns, and all the phenomena we associate in -Europe with these movements began to show themselves. There was the -growth of the financial monopoly and of monopolies in particular trades. -There was the clamour for toleration in the form of "neutralizing" -religious teaching in schools; there was the appearance of the Jewish -revolutionary and of the Jewish critic in every tradition of Christian -life. The Jews went also—as they usually do—to the heart of things, -and the Executive was attacked. The last and apparently the most -unpopular of the presidents, Mr. Wilson, seems to have been wholly in -their hands. Anonymity in the Press came, of course. A very marked -example of it is a journal called <i>The New Republic</i>, which, though it -has but a small proportion of Jewish writers upon it, and though its -capital is (I believe) not Jewish, is yet to all intents and purposes -the organ of the Jewish intellectuals, always joins in the boycott of -any news unfavourable to European Jews, always joins in the clamour for -anything favourable to them, and in general adheres to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> Jewish side, -like the <i>Humanité</i> in Paris, or, let us say, <i>The New Statesman</i> in -England.</p> - -<p>But the novel presence in the United States of this phenomenon with -which in the west of Europe we have now been familiar for a long time, -provides a more direct and a very different kind of reaction from what -it has among us. This reaction against Jewish powers was not (to use a -Stock Exchange metaphor) "sticky." There was no hesitation; there were -no uneasy patches of silence. The Jewish question was discussed from the -moment it was first felt and to-day it is discussed beyond all others. -Of political topics I have found it the first in the conversation of the -Americans who have visited Europe since the War and with whom I have -discussed the affairs of their country. It ranges, as that reaction -always does, from the wildest Anti-Semitism to strong and open defence -of the Jewish position, not only by Jews but by the very small minority -of their admirers outside the Jewish community, especially among the -wealthy. The characteristic of the whole thing in the United States is -that it is only just beginning. It is capable of becoming one of those -sudden growths of which the past history of the Republic has made us -familiar, and indeed it is too early yet to judge, even on the largest -lines, what forms it may not take. It is enough to say that there is -behind the reaction against the Jew in that country a growing intensity -of feeling with which we, as yet, in Western Europe, for all the advance -we have made in the matter, are unfamiliar. If a test be required, -contrast the silence about the Jews in '96, during Bryan's great attack -upon the gold standard, with the work of Mr. Ford and all that he stands -for to-day!</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span></p><p>The rest of the world is either of Islam or heathen. In the heathen -world, so far, the Jew has little place. He has a strong grip on India, -of course, but only through the British Raj, not through the native -population; and in China, except as a quasi-European merchant, he has no -power at all; neither has he over the strong and organized nationality -of Japan.</p> - -<p>Such are the degrees, very roughly, of the problem; such the differences -of its quality in the various national groups to-day. Of these the two -most interesting states of the problem by far, because they are changing -with the greatest rapidity, are found in France, in England and in the -United States.</p> - -<p>I have said that the second modifying condition was the difference of -civic traditions of the various nations. Here again you have a -differentiation from East to West. But within it a differentiation, -ultimately due to religion, from North to South. In Russia there was -never any tradition of keeping silence upon the Jew, or of respecting -the Jew at all. He was, until the recent revolution, the national enemy, -and there was the end of it. Similarly in Poland, Roumania and the -vaguer populations of their borders, and even in the old Hungary, the -Jew was talked of openly as belonging to a separate nationality and, on -the whole, a hostile one.</p> - -<p>But as one got west another spirit emerged, another tradition. It was -"the thing" to treat the Jew as a citizen. This fashion was weaker in -the Germanies than in the Low Countries, France, or England; it was -everywhere present west of the Elbe.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span></p><p>It was a tradition flowing from two sources: the commercial and -protestant England of the seventeenth century, the sceptical France of -the eighteenth. The Jew (according to this spirit) merited special -protection and special respect. He must be protected and respected even -in his passion for secrecy; so that at last the mere mention of his -existence in the cultivated and directing classes of the west became -something of an oddity.</p> - -<p>From this spirit proceeded the Liberal fiction or convention which I -dealt with in the second chapter of this book. It was clinched, it was -given permanent form, by the enthusiasm and severe doctrine of the -French Republicans, which arose at a moment when Israel was regarded as -a religion and its national quality was forgotten. Since all religion -was thought to be dying, since, further, an enthusiasm had arisen -against almost any religion which exercised civic power (notably the -Catholic Church), this Jewish religion, formerly regarded as inimical to -the State, or at any rate separate from it, was naturally accorded a -special privilege. That strange system arose, the death of which we are -now watching after its brief life of somewhat more than a century, -whereby the Jew was permitted to wear the mask of nationalities other -than his own, and to function everywhere as though he were a citizen, -not of Israel, but of the nation in which he chanced to find himself.</p> - -<p>Against this attitude arose at last the powerful plea of nationalism. In -England, as we shall see in the next chapter, this plea was less strong -than elsewhere, because the interests of international Jewish finance -and of British commerce were for so long nearly identical. In Italy, -where the Jew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> was naturally closely connected with the nationalist -movement on account of its antagonism to the Papacy, national feeling -clashed little with the anomaly of the Jew. But in France, especially -after the defeat of 1870, the contrast became stronger and stronger, -just as it is strengthening to-day in Germany after the defeat of 1918.</p> - -<p>It was that clash between the "city" of Israel and the other "cities" in -which we Europeans function, to which allusion has been made on a former -page. It would be very convenient, no doubt, to the "City" of Israel if -all other "cities" disappeared and left an open field for Jewish -operations. But they do not propose to disappear; and though our -devotion to them may seem inexplicable to the Jew, he must accept it as -a permanent force; for the patriotism of the European will not weaken.</p> - -<p>In the United States this Liberal tradition or convention, this -conception that the Jew must be treated as a full citizen, was far -stronger even than it was in the West of Europe. It was in the very soul -of the Constitution, and, what is more important, in the very soul of -the people. For such a spirit was nourished not only in doctrine but in -practice by the appearance, in vast quantities, of immigrants from many -different countries, all of whom were absorbed in and merged by the -American spirit. If ever there was a field in which the false conception -that a Jew could be a Jew and at the same time the full citizen of -another nation, that field was the United States of America. Yet it is -there that the problem is now reaching its most acute form; and the -reason is that side by side with this strong civic tradition there goes -a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> complete freedom of speech and a very active public opinion. The -reality became too much for theory and the Jew was recognized as -something apart. He will never fall into the background again.</p> - -<p>There remain to be considered the international forces which modify this -general truth that the quarrel with the Jew is a quarrel with his -increasing control over our affairs.</p> - -<p>Those international forces are Religion—Islam and the Catholic -Church—the force of Modern Capitalism, and the Reaction against that -force of the Industrial Proletariat, the Reaction summed up in the term -Socialism. All four are international.</p> - -<p>The position of the Jew in Islam can be simply defined. In Islam he is -treated with less method and therefore with less continued oppression -than in Christendom, but always and permanently as something base and -inferior, save in a few rare moments when he has the favour of -particular rulers or is necessary to some special society, or is admired -in a moment of intellectual brilliance.</p> - -<p>Normally the Jew in Islam is an outcast. I know very well that the game -is played of pretending that Islam is in some way kinder to him than we -are. It is but a game: the playing of one party against another—of -Islam against Christendom—by Israel, which is of neither. In Islam his -superior position in Christendom is equally famed. History is too strong -for such pretences. All the history of Islam, all the social spirit of -Islam, to which there are countless witnesses to-day, give the same -verdict about the general treatment of the Jew in that society.</p> - -<p>So it was in independent Islam. But Islam,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> politically controlled -to-day by the Western Christian powers, is another matter. Under that -unstable state of affairs (no one can say how long it will last; the -conflict between Islam and Christendom seems eternal and the rise and -fall of that tide is indefinitely successive) the problem takes on quite -another shape. France and England appear in Islam as the artificial -supporters of the Jew.</p> - -<p>Until quite lately it was the French who bore the worst odium of this in -the eyes of the Mohammedans. Under the French the Jews in North Africa -were often given a special, a superior position, which was an insult to -every Mohammedan and which is still an insult to him. It is the weakest -point of the French regime. In Algeria the Ghetto Jew may vote. The Arab -may not. Even in Morocco, where things have been done more wisely than -in Algiers, the difficulty is felt. How are you to treat a Jew -differently in Morocco from the way in which he is treated in France? He -is common to the two countries. If you treat him as if he were French, -and therefore a member of the governing power, what of the pride of -those lords of the Atlas and of Fez?</p> - -<p>In the vastly larger field of Mohammedan control exercised by Britain, -which, directly and indirectly, is ten times that of France, there was -until lately less of this friction; but the tables have been turned, and -to-day it is Britain which stands to the Mohammedan as the thruster-in -of the Jew. It began with the support of Jewish finance in Egypt; it -went on with the extended control over Indian commerce by Jews; it -continued in the control of Indian currency by Jews. It has ended in the -grotesque appointment to the Indian Viceroyalty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> and the extraordinary -experiment of Palestine.</p> - -<p>To-day, at the moment in which I write, there is no doubt on the matter -whatsoever: From Rabat on the Atlantic to the Bay of Bengal, the Western -Powers are regarded as the agents of a Jewish intrusion which is -intolerable to Islam. And whereas the chief blame lay, until quite a few -years ago, upon the French, to-day it lies upon the British Government.</p> - -<p class="center">* * * * *</p> - -<p>The rôle of the Catholic Church in the debate between the Jews and -Christendom is the most discussed, the worst understood, of any point -connected with the general problem. But it is capable of simple -definition. Wherever the Catholic Church is powerful, and in proportion -as it is powerful, the traditional principles of the civilization of -which it is the soul and guardian will always be upheld. One of these -principles is the sharp distinction between the Jew and ourselves. The -Rationalist would say that this distinction was racial, and that it only -found religious expression on account of its racial reality. His -opponent would say that the origin of the quarrel was mainly religious; -that it was a difference in religious tradition which formed the -contrast between the Jew and Christendom. The former can cite as -evidence the violent original contrast between the Roman Empire and the -Jew, the latter the truth that religion, philosophy, is the formative -force in every human society.</p> - -<p>But whichever theory you adopt, the fact is there. The Catholic Church -is the conservator of an age-long European tradition, and that tradition -will never compromise with the fiction that a Jew can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> be other than a -Jew. Wherever the Catholic Church has power, and in proportion to its -power, the Jewish problem will be recognized to the full.</p> - -<p>On the other hand, there never has been and never will be, or can be, -admission by Catholic morals of warfare against the Jew. Those morals -are plain. That doctrine has been defined over and over again and acted -upon throughout history. If indirect hostilities are opened against the -majority by a minority in its midst, they may be repressed and punished. -Still more important, insincere and pretended conversion, used as a -cloak, may be repressed and punished. But though a community has the -right to determine its own life, and (if it think it possible) even to -eliminate (with justice, not with cruelty, violence or injustice in any -form) an alien, a hostile minority; yet that minority has its own right -to live, if not there, then elsewhere. It has its right—once it is -rooted and traditional—to its own convictions, to its own tradition. If -you allow it to live among you, you must allow it to live its own life -save where that life threatens yours. The Catholic Church will always -maintain reality, including the reality of that sharp distinction -between the Jew and his hosts.</p> - -<p>The opponent of the Catholic Church will tend, other things being equal, -to support the Jew, because, under that distinction, the Jew may find -himself ill at ease. The whole Protestant tradition of the North was for -more than 300 years favourable to the Jew, partly indeed on account of -its reliance upon the Jewish Scriptures, its absorption in the inspired -Jewish folk-lore, but more because the alliance with the Jew was an -alliance against the Catholic Church. Strong traces of that spirit -still<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> remain. What has warred against it has been the sheer necessity -in every country, Catholic or Protestant, Liberal or anti-Liberal, to -preserve society against what each began to feel as a disruptive and an -alien domination.</p> - -<p>There remain the two novel forces—Modern Capitalism, and, protesting -against it, its victim, the Modern Industrial Proletariat.</p> - -<p>A few years ago anyone would have said that the opposition to the Jew -was an opposition to capitalism alone; the Jew was the representative of -capitalism, and Jewish finance was the particular aspect of Jewish power -in which that power was universally hated. But we have seen all that -change. To-day the strongest force against the Jew is on the other side. -It is mainly aroused, not by the fear of capitalist forces, but by the -fear of revolutionary forces.</p> - -<p>I make bold to say that when the feeling against the Jew comes to the -point of action, the Jew will necessarily, and in self-defence, fall -back upon the leadership of the proletariat against industrial -capitalism. He will—he must, from mere instinct, quite apart from -calculation—use the line of cleavage which divides a society hostile to -him. He will rely on the line of cleavage driven by the vast modern -quarrel between the few possessors in the modern industrial world and -their victims, the exploited millions.</p> - -<p>So put, the opportunity of the Jew, if he be driven to extremities to -raise an army in his defence, seems a great opportunity enough. It would -seem easy for him to deflect all animosity against himself into -animosity against the rich—safeguarding, of course (as he has done in -Russia),<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> the Jewish rich. But we must remember three formidable -conditions which weaken that opportunity.</p> - -<p>The first condition is this: The industrial millions are still quite a -small minority and will probably in the future be an even smaller -minority of the civilized white world. The war dealt them a heavy blow. -The fact that the industrial proletariat is a town population, and -therefore less and less productive, is another cause of weakness; their -decline in health another. The fact that industrial capitalism depends -upon the machine being kept going, and that its serfs are less and less -willing to keep the machine going, is another.</p> - -<p>Secondly, the area (and that is important) occupied by industrial -capitalism is but a very small area of the surface of the civilized -world.</p> - -<p>Thirdly, the revolt of the Industrial Proletariat, if the Jews provoke -it, will be short-lived. Either it will be defeated, or after destroying -its masters it will, under Jewish leadership, destroy its own powers of -production, as in Russia.</p> - -<p>When the fury is exhausted, in a very short time the Jewish problem will -reappear.</p> - -<p>The proletarian battle may rage intensely, but it will be far from -universal, and will not be sufficient, I think, to distract mankind from -that other cross-problem of Jew and non-Jew, to which his attention is -being more and more steadily directed.</p> - -<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Except, of course, an outlawed member. The case of Dr. Levy -turned out of this country by his compatriots in the Government for -having written unfavourably of the Moscow Jews will be fresh in every -one's memory.</p></div></div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p> - -<p class="bold2">THE POSITION OF THE JEWS IN ENGLAND</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p> - -<h2><span>CHAPTER X</span> <span class="smaller">THE PRESENT RELATION BETWEEN THE ENGLISH STATE AND THE JEWS</span></h2> - -<p>The various nations of Europe have every one of them, in the course of -their long histories, passed through successive phases towards the Jew -which I have called the tragic cycle. Each has in turn welcomed, -tolerated, persecuted, attempted to exile—often actually -exiled—welcomed again, and so forth. The two chief examples of extremes -in action, are, as I have also pointed out in an earlier part of this -book, Spain and England. Spaniards, and in particular the Spaniards of -the Kingdom of Castile, went through every phase of this cycle in its -fullest form. England passed through even greater extremes, for England -was the only country which absolutely got rid of the Jews for hundreds -of years, and England is the only country which has, even for a brief -period, entered into something like an alliance with them.</p> - -<p>Though it is the present position of the British State—that is, the -position of official British politics towards the Jew—with which we are -concerned, it may be of service to introduce the matter by a word upon -past relations.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p><p>The Jewish element in this island, whatever it may have been during the -Roman occupation, was of small account during the Dark Ages. Things -changed at their close in the eleventh century. The Jew is the camp -follower of each new economic movement among us and that is why one -finds him in the wake of the Norman Conquest. Throughout the economic -development which it began appears the secondary rôle of the Jew. Every -one knows the mediaeval rule of Jewish Status. It was established here -as everywhere else in Christendom. The Jew was the King's; that is, -under the special protection of the State. If he were the subject of -popular attack, that attack was an attack on the King's peculiar, and -liable to speedy repression. The individual attacker was punished with -special severity because the danger of mass-movement is always great -where the populace is free to act in masses as it was throughout the -middle ages, and the necessity for preventing individual attacks from -spreading was correspondingly great. Now and then the popular feeling -got out of hand and the monarch had to deal with numbers which he could -not control; but as a rule the Jew, especially the rich Jew, enjoyed a -privileged position, both in Northern France and throughout England. The -Jew of the early Middle Ages in England was normally a well-to-do man -and often an exceedingly rich man. Then, as now, a small number of Jews -were much the richest men of their time.</p> - -<p>He had most of the finances in his hands, and this immense privilege -(which he has lost), that he alone was allowed to practise usury. Here -we must pause a moment to define usury.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p><p>Usury then (as now) signified the receiving of interest upon -unproductive loans. It is a practice which all moralists and all -philosophers have condemned and which the Church in particular condemns. -If you lend money to a man for a productive purpose: if, for instance, -he is to buy a ship and trade with the money you advance, or to buy a -farm and grow produce, then, of course, you are perfectly free to -stipulate for a portion of the profit. But if you lend the money for a -purpose not directly productive, as, for instance, to a man in grave -necessity, or in lieu of charity, or to build such a building as a -church, which will not produce a rent, or if in any other fashion you -lend money to one who (to your knowledge) will not spend it in some -reproductive agency, then it is immoral to demand interest.</p> - -<p>Now an exception was made in mediaeval Christendom in favour of the Jew. -He was allowed to lend money at interest, even in the most grievous -cases of necessity, and for services as unproductive as religion or war. -The only stipulation was that the moneys saved from this lucrative -practice returned to the Crown (in theory) upon the death of the -licensee. In practice no doubt a very large part remained with the -accumulator, who during his lifetime was enjoying the income he had -acquired by usury, who could give it to his heirs while still living, -and could use opportunities for secret investment, or pass it to the -custody of others throughout international Jewry. But liquid sums left -by him, the product of his usury, returned to the Crown upon his death. -This was a great advantage to the Crown, not only in protecting the Jew -from the native hostility of his alien hosts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> (and particularly of the -populace), but in giving him that great privilege—a monopoly.</p> - -<p>The rate of interest was enormous. It varied from nearly 50 per cent to -over 80 per cent. When Jews lent money on security the King was party to -the safe custody of the security, and their privilege extended so far -that they were exempt from the common law, and a case between an -Englishman and his Jewish creditor could only be tried by a mixed jury -in which the Jew's own compatriots were present in equal numbers with -the English.</p> - -<p>All during the Angevin period Jewish financial domination continued, up -to the end of the twelfth century and even into the beginning of the -thirteenth. But with the first half of the thirteenth century, for some -reason of which I have never seen a sufficient historical analysis and -of which, perhaps, the full causes have been lost, the Jewish power -began to decline very rapidly, so far as England was concerned.</p> - -<p>And here it may be noted that the misfortunes of the Jews in any country -never begin until their financial position is shaken. As long as they -are the financial masters of the Government they are protected; but woe -to them when they begin to lose their financial power! Then there is no -longer any reason for supporting them either on the part of the -governing classes in general or of the Executive in particular. Popular -passion is let loose and disaster follows.</p> - -<p>At any rate, the thirteenth century saw in England a rapid decline of -Jewish financial power and at the same time a rapid rise of official -animosity towards them. They got poorer and poorer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> as the century -proceeded. Their activities were at the same time more and more -restricted. They had lent money largely upon land and yet, in the public -interest, were at last forbidden to foreclose upon it. The final step -came when their special licence to practise usury was withdrawn by -Edward I in the earlier part of his reign; and at last, in 1290, after -increasing severities, they were all expelled the country under penalty -of death.</p> - -<p>The unhappy people, already reduced by two generations of falling -fortune, were hurried out of the country, carrying, by permission, their -money and movables. They were protected, indeed, at the ports by the -royal officers, who even paid the passage of the indigent among them; -but they were plundered at sea and some even murdered. The murderers -were punished, but the memory of the persecution remained in the Jews' -mind and England became a natural object of their hate. The Jewish -community expelled by the English was surprisingly small, not 17,000, -and suggests the historical truth that in the Middle Ages, and indeed -until quite modern times, the Jewish community in Northern France and -England was a community of people in the main well-to-do. It so remained -until quite modern times.</p> - -<p>There followed three and a half centuries and more during which England -was the one example in Europe of a State that would not tolerate the -Jews upon any terms whatsoever. There certainly remained throughout this -time, or at any rate visited the island, not a few of what the Jews -themselves called "Crypto-Jews," that is, Jews who outwardly deny their -nationality and practise our religion for the purpose of private gain. -These,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> when they could defeat the law successfully, remained within the -British seas. But their effect was slight; and the English people during -the whole of their great military advance in France, during the whole -period when their language and culture was forming, during the whole -great national episode of the Tudors and of the Reformation, formed the -one great exception out of all Europe in that the Jew remained unknown -to them and was rigorously excluded from their Commonwealth.</p> - -<p>They returned, as everybody knows, under Cromwell. Their numbers, and -still more their wealth, increased at the end of the seventeenth century -and concomitantly with this, partly as an effect of it (but here we must -not exaggerate), a number of novel financial features appeared in the -English State each of which shows the increased power of the Jews. The -institution of the Bank, of the National Debt, of speculation in -Exchange and in the fluctuation of stock.</p> - -<p>But the real causes of that alliance between the English and the Jews -which is seen in the late seventeenth century, which quickened -throughout the eighteenth and became so very marked in the nineteenth -century, was the cosmopolitan position of England as the leading -commercial State. This it was which led to something like identity -between the interests of Israel and the interests of Britain, an -identity which has lasted so long that now, when divergence is beginning -to appear, it still seems odd and novel to the older generation that -there should be any Jewish action which is not favourable to England. -They cannot understand what the new indifference to Jewish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> interests, -let alone the new hostility to them, can mean.</p> - -<p>There were, of course, many other causes contributory to the peculiar -position which the Jew came to enjoy in modern England, a position which -he has not yet lost in external circumstance, though it is so badly -shaken morally. There was the fact that England was the Protestant power -of the West.</p> - -<p>This religious motive played a great part. Between the Catholic Church -and the Synagogue there had been hostility from the first century. In so -far as it was possible to take sides in that quarrel it was natural for -the Protestant power to take sides against the Catholic tradition and -therefore in favour of the Jews. Again, the English were not only -Protestant, their middle classes were steeped in the reading of the Old -Testament. The Jews seemed to them the heroes of an epic and the shrines -of a religion. You will find strong relics of this attitude in -Provincial England to this day. One should add a certain national -distaste for violence, which feeling was exasperated by hearing of the -Jewish persecution abroad. One should also further add the pride which -modern Englishmen take in the feeling that their country is an asylum -for the oppressed.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile there was not, until quite lately, any considerable body of -poor Jews in the country to excite the animosity of the populace. That -was an important negative factor in bringing the Jew within the -boundaries of the English State. But with all these factors fully -considered, it remains true that the main cause of the accidental Jewish -position in England was the cosmopolitan <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>character of English commerce -and the essentially commercial character of the English State. As -English export and English shipping began to cover the globe, the -English financial system covered it as well. London became after -Waterloo the money market and the clearing house of the world. The -interests of the Jew as a financial dealer and the interests of this -great commercial polity approximated more and more. One may say that by -the last third of the nineteenth century they had become virtually -identical.</p> - -<p>Every new economic enterprise of the British State appealed to the -Jewish genius for commerce and especially for negotiation in its most -abstract form—finance. Conversely, every Jewish enterprise, every new -conception of the Jew in his cosmopolitan activities (until these became -revolutionary) appealed to the English merchant and banker.</p> - -<p>The two things dovetailed one into the other and fitted exactly, and all -subsidiary activities fitted in as well. The Jewish news agencies of the -nineteenth century favoured England in all her policy, political as well -as commercial; they opposed those of her rivals and especially those of -her enemies. The Jewish knowledge of the East was at the service of -England. His international penetration of the European governments was -also at her service—so was his secret information. With the -consolidation of the Indian Empire after the Mutiny the Jews were again -an ally from their traditional hatred of the Russian people, which -hatred has led them in our time to wreak so awful a vengeance upon their -former oppressors. The Jew might almost be called a British agent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> upon -the Continent of Europe, and still more in the Near and Far East, where -the economic power of England extended even more rapidly than her -political power.</p> - -<p>And the Jew pointed to the English State as that one in which all that -his nation required of the <i>goyim</i> was to be found. He here enjoyed a -situation the like of which he could not hope to enjoy in any other -country of the world. All antagonism to him had died down. He was -admitted to every institution in the State, a prominent member of his -nation became chief officer of the English Executive, and, an influence -more subtle and penetrating, marriages began to take place, wholesale, -between what had once been the aristocratic territorial families of this -country and the Jewish commercial fortunes.</p> - -<p>After two generations of this, with the opening of the twentieth century -those of the great territorial English families in which there was no -Jewish blood were the exception. In nearly all of them was the strain -more or less marked, in some of them so strong that though the name was -still an English name and the traditions those of a purely English -lineage of the long past, the physique and character had become wholly -Jewish and the members of the family were taken for Jews whenever they -travelled in countries where the gentry had not yet suffered or enjoyed -this admixture.</p> - -<p>Specially Jewish institutions, such as Freemasonry (which the Jews had -inaugurated as a sort of bridge between themselves and their hosts in -the seventeenth century), were particularly strong in Britain, and there -arose a political tradition, active, and ultimately to prove of great -importance,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> whereby the British State was tacitly accepted by foreign -governments as the official protector of the Jews in other countries. It -was Britain which was expected to interfere, within the measure of her -power, whenever a persecution of the Jews took place in the East of -Christendom: to support the Jewish financial energies throughout the -world, and to receive in return the benefit of that connection.</p> - -<p>We shall have a most imperfect picture of the causes which gradually -made the Jews regard this country as their centre of action if we omit -one essential point.</p> - -<p>England was secure.</p> - -<p>During the whole period which saw the rise of the Jews to eminence in -this island and their ultimate alliance with its political and -commercial system, English society enjoyed a profound peace. Save for -the petty incidents of the '15 and '45 (the first of no effect south of -the border, the second ephemeral and confined to the North), no -hostilities took place upon English soil between the rebellion of -Monmouth under James II and the bombarding of London by the Germans from -the air during the late war. There has been (save for some quite -insignificant local riots) complete security for property and especially -for large property. There have been since the middle of the eighteenth -century no confiscations, and of commercial fortunes none since the -middle of the seventeenth: no invasion, no civil war, and therefore no -loot: no personal danger from violence.</p> - -<p>Such conditions formed an environment ideal for the permanent -establishment and rooting of Jewish power, and for the organization of a -Jewish base.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span></p><p>The political situation reflected itself, as it always does, in -literature. The Jew began to appear in English fiction as an exalted -character, quite specially removed to his advantage from the mass of -mankind. He is already a hero in Sir Walter Scott, but the full -development was much later. You could still have a Jewish villain as -late as <i>Oliver Twist</i>, but with writers as different as Charles Reade -and George Eliot we reach a time where the Jew is impeccable. The worst -any writer dares do at the end of the process is to be silent. The best -is to flatter the Jewish type out of all knowledge. This singular -interlude was in part due to the divorce between literature and popular -feeling in the middle and latter part of the nineteenth century; at -least, it was permitted by that divorce. But the active cause of it was -the reflection of the Jew's political position upon the mind of the -educated class as expressed in its literary art.</p> - -<p>At the same time a parallel movement appeared on the historical side of -literature. A convention arose that in the clash between the Jews and -the English of the Middle Ages the Jews were invariably right and the -English invariably wrong. Where the struggle was between the Jew and the -non-Jew abroad, the historian exceeded all bounds. The European hostile -to the Jew was a senseless monster, and the Jew hostile to the European -was a holy victim.</p> - -<p>The whole story of Europe and of this country, in so far as it was -affected by this very considerable factor, was distorted through -suppression, and false emphasis and quite exceptional lying.</p> - -<p>The general reader of history neither knew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> what part the Jewish -question had played nor the claims that could be advanced for his own -race in the conflict. And as historians live by copying one another, the -legend was established in every school and college.</p> - -<p>At the end of the process the Jews, in proportion to their numbers, held -a power in this country beyond anything that has been seen in any other -of the world. Poland at the end of the Middle Ages, when that country -was most nearly comparable to Britain for the harbouring and support of -the Jewish people, is the only parallel, and that a remote one.</p> - -<p>Every English Government had (and has) its quota of Jews. They had -entered the diplomatic service and the House of Lords; they swarmed in -the House of Commons, in the Universities, in all the Government offices -save the Foreign Office (and even there representatives of the Jewish -nation have recently entered); they were exceedingly powerful in the -Press: they were all-powerful in the City. No custom unsympathetic to -their race, from the duel to popular clamour, survived. They could boast -that England was not only the country where no distinction whatever was -made in practice, let alone in law, between the Jew and the native, but -that England was the only country where the Jew was always well -received, where his natural defects counted least and where his natural -abilities had most scope.</p> - -<p>Such a state of affairs could not last. It was not natural. It was not -consonant with hidden but deep popular tradition or with popular -appetites; it corresponded only to the mood of one European community in -its wealthier classes. A divergence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> between the cosmopolitan financial -interests of the Jew and the particular national interests of Britain -was bound to come. War on a large scale, though it did not imperil the -country itself, was a warning of change. It appeared with the South -African campaign before the end of the century. The position of the Jew -was altered. Some dissatisfaction with his power began to stir. It was -already muttering and beginning to show itself with the rise of -commercial and maritime competition in the new German Empire which, in -its turn, had become led, upon all its commercial side, by Jews. There -was bound, I say, to be a reaction and a permanent one. While it was yet -taking place, in the heat of the Great War, before it had reached the -official world, that one of the English politicians who was best fitted -to speak for the Jews, who was most intimate with them through manifold -ties of friendship and hospitality, Mr. Arthur Balfour, was chosen to -make the famous pronouncement in favour of Zionism. It came within a -month of the great crisis of the war. Its object was to divide the -general influence of the Jews throughout the world, which had hitherto -been upon the whole opposed to the cause of the Allies, because, like -every other neutral, the Jews were more and more convinced, as the -campaigns dragged on, that the Central Empires were certain of victory.</p> - -<p>Though this was the motive, the effect was to tie the British state yet -closer to the fortunes of Israel, for here was England pledged to -support, to defend, to act as a special protector over, the peculiar -interests of the Jews, just where those interests would most challenge -the whole of Christendom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> and of Islam, just where it would be most -acutely difficult to confirm Jewish claims.</p> - -<p>The declaration in favour of Zionism, the solemn pledge of the forces of -the British State to an exceptional support of the Jew in a matter -wholly to his benefit and not in any way to that of England, coming -though it did after the climax of Jewish power had been reached and -passed, was the last stage of that long process of alliance between the -British commercial policy and its ruling classes on the one hand and the -Jews upon the other.</p> - -<p>Already, as I have said, that alliance was morally shaken. The great -influx of poor Jews had shaken it. The mere effect of time, the -inevitable revolt of the human conscience against an unnatural pretence -and an obvious fiction, was bound to come, and was overdue. But although -the alliance was already shaken, the English State remained officially -closely interlocked with Jewry, and its last action, the demand for the -establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine, was, as has so often -happened in the story of human development, at once the term and the -turning-point of a process which had reached its conclusion; for it will -be remarked throughout history that any force is most expressive, its -manifestation of power most crude and most emphatic, in the perilous -interval <i>after</i> its real strength has begun to decline and <i>before</i> its -first open defeat.</p> - -<p>But the problems presented by this experiment in Palestine merit a -separate examination. To this I will now turn.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span></p> - -<p class="bold2">ZIONISM</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p> - -<h2><span>CHAPTER XI</span> <span class="smaller">ZIONISM</span></h2> - -<p>The question of Zionism has been discussed from every possible aspect -save one, and that one is the only factor which relates to the thesis of -this book.</p> - -<p>It has been argued, as a purely Jewish matter; there has been debate -upon its justice or injustice among the Jews themselves, as to its -advantage or disadvantage to their race; debate among the various -non-Jewish forces concerned as to the advantage or disadvantage it would -be to them; debate upon the rights and wrongs of the native population -among which the Jews might find a home; debate as to whether that home -should be in Palestine or elsewhere—and so on.</p> - -<p>All these discussions avoid the ultimate issue. Some of them, of course, -are of evident importance within the Jewish community, but so far as the -essential problem we are discussing in this book is concerned, they do -not apply. The one question which is at issue from the point of view of -our thesis is this:—</p> - -<p><i>Whether the Zionist experiment will tend to increase or to relax the -strain created by the presence of the Jew in the midst of a non-Jewish world.</i></p> - -<p>That, and that only, is our concern, and from that point of view we may -examine the theory of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> Zionism which has now emerged into an attempted -practice.</p> - -<p>First let us consider its necessary general implications: the -implications which Zionism involves, no matter where or how the -experiment were tried.</p> - -<p>The Zionist theory is that Israel would benefit if of its many millions -(some twelve millions, counting those of the partly Jewish fringe, who -are sufficiently Jewish to make one with the race) a core—say a -tenth—were to have a fixed territorial "city," a country of their own, -a habitation. This country, wherever it might be chosen, should be, as -far as possible, a purely Jewish State: "as Jewish," one of its -exponents has said, "as England is English."</p> - -<p>Now, suppose the place chosen were (to-day we may say "had been") an -empty or almost undeveloped country, and supposing the Jews had found -that their own people could bear the expense of reaching that place with -sufficient capital, and of colonizing it in large numbers. Supposing a -small State of a million to a million and a half inhabitants to be thus -formed, to be wholly Jewish in character, and independent in the fullest -sense. The question immediately arises: <i>Would the Jews throughout the -world be:—</i></p> - -<blockquote><p>(a) <i>permitted to regard themselves as citizens of that State?</i></p> - -<p>(b) <i>regarded in any case as citizens of that State, whether they willed -or no, and registered as such, with or without the consent of the -registered person?</i></p></blockquote> - -<p>If not, what would be the status of the Jew outside this territorial -unit, which he had chosen to be much more than a symbol of his national -unity—its actual seat and establishment?</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p><p>That is the question which, so far as I have watched the discussion, -everybody hesitates to face; yet that is the question which will have to -be faced sooner or later as the main political crux of the whole affair.</p> - -<p>Observe that there is no question of establishing a State wherein the -whole or even the great mass of the Jewish people shall reside. No one -would repudiate such an idea more vigorously than the chief pioneers of -Zionism. The great mass of Jews would, of course, ridicule it as -impracticable and refuse it as extremely undesirable. They live and they -desire to live following their present interests in the nations among -whom they are dispersed. They live and they desire to live the -semi-nomadic life, the international life, which has become theirs by -every tradition, and which one might now almost call instinctive in -them. Also the greater part of them desire to pursue those careers which -go with such a life, especially the careers of negotiation and of -intermediary work. They not only feel the advantage of such a position, -they also feel a need and appetite for such a condition.</p> - -<p>Whatever form Zionism might have taken before it appeared in its present -experimental form, whatever was said of the theory in the past, <i>this -point</i> was always capital:</p> - -<p>The Jews as a nation would remain as they were, moving among all the -peoples. The new Zion was to be no more than a fixed rallying point, an -established but small territorial nationhood, which should do no more -than proclaim their unity. It follows, therefore, necessarily, that the -great mass of Jews, outside the territorial settlement, would have, -after such a settlement had been formed, to obtain a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> definition of -their political character. What is that definition to be?</p> - -<p>I think myself the Jews would answer: "It is to be precisely what it is -to-day, or, rather, what it has been in the Occidental nations during -the past generation." That is, the Jew is to be regarded as the full -national in the nation in which he happens to be for the time. Nothing -shall debar him from any position whatever in that nation. He shall be -regarded in exactly the same light as all the other citizens, and, -conversely, he shall obtain no privilege. In countries where there is -conscription, for instance, he shall be a conscript like anybody else; -where a nation in which he happens to find himself goes to war, he shall -be compelled to risk his life for it like any other citizen. If he -happens a year or two before the war to have settled in the enemy's -country, then he shall be equally compelled to fight for the enemy -against his former country. He shall in every respect be regarded, by a -legal fiction, as identical with the community in which he happens to be -settled for the moment, <i>but at the same time he is to have some special -relation with the Jewish State</i>.</p> - -<p>He and he alone is to be (certainly in practice and, of right, in legal -decisions) eligible for admission to that city, for office in it. His -opinion is to count in the conduct of that State, wherever he may -personally be placed in the world. He is to regard himself—indeed that -is inevitable from the definition of the new State—as personally allied -to it, if not a member of it. He cannot dissociate himself from its -fortunes nor be indifferent to its success or failure. He must in effect -be <i>loyal</i> to it. He owes it allegiance of a moral kind. He will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> -necessarily be in much the same position as are men of Irish descent in -the Colonies, in England, and in the United States, to the surviving and -now increasing remnant of their race which has clung to its native land. -But in the particular case of the Jew this allegiance will not diminish -with time. It will remain ever vivacious. The race, as its individual -components pass from one country to another, will make one body, -generation after generation, with the fixed polity settled in the New -Zion. That certainly is the ideal, as I hear it expressed on every side -in conversation and in writing by the Jews who support it.</p> - -<p>Well, if the ideal is left in that condition (and it is admitted to be -in practice in that condition), it will result in a grievous prejudice -to the Jewish people, and will be a source of more permanent evil to -them than any other policy they could have undertaken. It will emphasize -that very point of dual allegiance which it must be their object to -soften if the Jewish problem is to be solved.</p> - -<p>The existence of a Zionist State will bring into relief the separate -character of the Jew. The Jewish nation will no longer be able to depend -for one of its defences upon the indifference or the ignorance still -widely present among its hosts. Whereas before the experiment was -attempted, many of those hosts could forget the difference between him -and them, many had no experience of it and many remarked it without its -affecting their attitude towards the Jew; after the experiment has been -put in practice there must necessarily be a change.</p> - -<p>To give a concrete instance, no one could in his anger say to a Jew, -"You disturb our repose;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> you are an alien element in our community; you -must leave it." For if he meant that, he was at the same time condemning -his victim to universal exile. But once an established national State -exists, once you have in the world a considerable number—say a million -and a half Jews—who are not the nationals of any other nation, but are -the citizens of a Jewish nation with a known locality, an organized -State, <i>then</i> the suggestion of exile changes its meaning. The opponent -of the Jew is now able to say: "Go back to your own country," and you -may be very certain that he <i>will</i> say that unless some other solution -than the legal fiction of full citizenship in one country and of moral -allegiance to another is dropped.</p> - -<p>The presence of the new Zion will do for the Jewish people what a frame -does for a picture. It will not be universal to them; it will not cover -the whole field of Jewish activity. It will be but a fraction of the -whole. But it will inevitably emphasize the separation, the individual -and alien character of the whole. It will concentrate attention upon all -those things which the nineteenth century—in what I have called "the -Liberal solution"—carefully put in the background and tried to forget. -It will militate against an honest solution which would recognize the -completely distinct character of the Jew and yet refuse to subject them -to any indignity or suffering on that account.</p> - -<p>There is more than this. The various nations, taken as a whole—the -Roumanians as a whole, the Poles as a whole, the French, the Italians, -the English as a whole—take up very different attitudes at any one time -toward Israel, and in each the attitude varies from generation to -generation;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> there is always, at any one time of history, including our -own time, a certain number of national units which are openly hostile to -the Jew, regretting his presence among them, restricting his activities -and determined, above all, to separate him, by a sharp legal definition -if possible, at any rate by universal social practice, from the rest of -the community.</p> - -<p>Now these hostile peoples cannot possibly be prevented from using the -weapon put into their hands by the existence of a new Zion, with the -implications I have just defined. It is difficult enough even now for -the countries where Jewish finance controls the politicians (and these -are still the most powerful countries) to restrain the anti-Jewish -feelings in the lesser nations. It is only done by elaborate rules which -are imperfectly obeyed and which are felt in these smaller nations to be -imposed by alien interference with their domestic rights. The protection -by the French, English and American Governments of what are called by a -euphemism "national minorities"—which means, of course, everywhere the -Jews—is a perilous affair, and one which can only be carried out most -imperfectly even as it is. But the one foundation for that task, the one -argument which its promoters appeal to, is the fact that the "national -minority"—that is, the Jews present in a hostile community—can plead -universal exile.</p> - -<p>If you turn them out in order to suppress them, they can only leave for -another country. They have none of their own to go to. Or again, if your -treatment of the Jews is harsher than that of your neighbour, you are -virtually directing a Jewish emigration over your neighbour's borders, -and to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> that your neighbour has a right to object. But once an -independent Jewish seat is established, this argument falls to the -ground. It is no reply <i>then</i> to tell these nations that the new Jewish -State cannot contain the whole Jewish race. It will answer that it is -not concerned with the whole Jewish race but only with its own section -of that race.</p> - -<p>Further, it will of course always be to the interest of those who desire -to be rid of the Jewish element in their midst to argue that the Jewish -State could be more peopled and that there is plenty of room for more -citizens. Again, those hostile to the Jews in their midst can say: "Very -well. Since there is no room for the whole mass of our Jews in your new -State, we will not deal with the whole mass; allow us to suggest that -such and such individuals shall leave our State, where they are not -wanted, and shall go to their own." And they would pick out the Jews -whose exile would most weaken the Jewish community in their midst.</p> - -<p>In the present state of affairs, with the Cabinets of Rome, Washington, -London and Paris still heavily influenced by Jewish finance, they have, -for the moment, a military force behind them sufficient to impose their -orders in some measure upon the reluctant nations of Eastern Europe and -in some measure to create an artificial protection for the Jews there. -Even if this protection were to last another generation (which is -unlikely), the presence of Zionism, interpreted in the sense I have just -quoted, would be enough to undermine its work. On any change in the -situation, in case of any conflict between these Western powers, or of -any change by one or more of them in its attitude<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> towards the Jews, -Zionism, thus interpreted, would be the ruin of the Jews in the Centre -and East of Europe. The danger is of such great practical importance -that it ought to be the very first matter for discussion. It is only our -acquired habit of falsehood and secrecy upon the Jewish problem which -has thrust it in the background. In the nature of things it must come to -the front, and it would be far better to have the lines of some solution -laid down before it becomes insistent.</p> - -<p>What are those lines to be?</p> - -<p>Their general character is clear enough.</p> - -<p>Whether it be of advantage or no to have a purely Jewish State (I mean -whether it be of advantage to Israel or no) may be safely left to the -Jews themselves to discuss. But one thing is certain: if they decide in -favour of its continuance, then they must decide also in favour of some -form of recognition for the purely Jewish nationality of the Jews -<i>outside</i> that State.</p> - -<p>Thus only will the situation become open and therefore innocuous. If -they try under the new conditions to maintain the old fiction that a Jew -is at the same time a Jew and yet not a Jew, that he can be at the same -time a Jew and an Englishman, or a Jew and a Russian, or a Jew and an -Italian, they will be trying to maintain it under conditions quite other -than those of the past, and under conditions where the falsehood will -break down in practice.</p> - -<p>Suppose you were to make such recognition partly voluntary, and leave it -to the Jew wherever he might be to claim or not to claim his nationality -as a Jew; to be regarded, if he so willed, as a national of the Jewish -nation in Zion, or as a national<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> of the people among whom he happened -to be living for the moment. You may say that under this purely -voluntary system (which would, I suppose, be more just) very few would -choose for Zion. The great majority would like to go on under the old -fiction. That is certainly true of the West; but would it be true of the -East? Would it be true of either East or West in a moment of -persecution? I think it would not. Even if it be true of the East -to-day, it certainly would not be true of any body of Jews suffering -there, in the future, any degree of molestation.</p> - -<p>But apart from that: Supposing but a small minority availed themselves -of this voluntary form of recognition, supposing only a small minority -to claim Jewish nationality as defined in the terms of the Zionist -State, there would still be the contrast between those who had thus -publicly proclaimed themselves nationals of Zion and those who hung -back. In other words, short of a general admitted maintenance of the old -fiction (of which Zionism more than any other force must accelerate the -breakdown), you must have, through Zionism, an accelerated tendency to -treating Jews throughout the world as being, whether without the New -Zionist State or within it, a separate people. And they are a separate -people, they cannot be other. My whole plea is that this truth should be -recognized and acted upon; for if it is shirked or denied it will take -its revenge. Reality always takes its revenge upon unreal pretence.</p> - -<p>There remains in connection with Zionism another consideration which is -also of importance, though of a very different kind. Is the new Jewish -State to rely upon its own military strength and its own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> police—though -perhaps guaranteed (for what that may be worth) by international -agreement—or is it to be a protected State occupied, defended and -policed by the strength and fighting qualities of some other kind of -men, not Jews—Englishmen, Frenchmen or what not?</p> - -<p>As we know, the particular solution attempted, the particular Zionism of -which the experiment is now being made in Palestine, plumps for the -<i>second</i> solution. The protection of Jews from natives is to be -undertaken by a garrison of Englishmen. It plumps for this solution -under conditions as adverse as they well can be. The present experiment -is, as we noted at the end of the last chapter, not an independent -Jewish State, national, guaranteed, standing in its own strength; but a -<i>protected</i> State; and that State protected by one nation: Great -Britain. The new Zion does not depend for its internal peace, for its -establishment against highly hostile forces, for the ex-propriation of -the local landowners, for the keeping of the peace between local -elements highly hostile to itself, upon Jewish soldiers and Jewish -courage. It depends upon British soldiers, British organization and -British sacrifice. Those who have promoted the Zionist experiment have -deliberately chosen the very worst moment for such a folly.</p> - -<p>Granted that whoever was to be the Protector he must be a friendly -Protector, no worse solution could have been devised. A little nation is -always morally guaranteed in its independence, if only by the balance of -the greater nations. The violation of the neutrality of Belgium offers -nothing of a rule; on the contrary, it was an odious exception. And an -exception it would have been just as much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> if the neutrality had not -been officially guaranteed under Prussia's own hand. The smaller -nations, of which the modern world is full, will have, we may be very -certain, a long lease of life. The larger nations envy but applaud their -security and happiness. They will not be allowed to disappear. The same, -I think, would be true of the Jewish national seat, could it be -established, inhabited wholly or mainly by men of the Jewish race, -religion and culture; presenting to the world the same aspect as does, -for instance, Denmark to-day. But to depend for its establishment upon -the superior power, upon the military and financial sacrifice, of -another and totally different people, is a challenge and a provocation. -It is the building of the pyramid upwards from its apex. It is an -experiment in the most unstable of unstable equilibriums.</p> - -<p>The matter is, of course, being discussed everywhere from the point of -view of Great Britain, and nowhere more eagerly than among those who -have to do the policing and the armed protection. But we are not here -concerned with the ill effects such a situation must have on Great -Britain—effects so ill that the experiment as a merely British -Protectorate is bound to break down—we are rather concerned with the -effect it may have upon the Jews themselves. No great nation will -sacrifice its foreign policy, will admit a point of acute weakness, -simply to please the Jews. Sooner or later such a nation is bound to -say: "<i>We</i> cannot sacrifice our interests to yours. Look after -yourselves." And that is where the peril to the Jews of this system, a -protectorate, comes in.</p> - -<p>If there were any reason to suppose a natural alliance between the -British Army and the Jews;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> if we could imagine British officers and men -taking a natural pleasure in ousting the Arab and making way for the -Jew, it would be another matter. If there were something in the nature -of things which made that alliance permanent and stable, if the Jews -were a fully accepted part of the British Commonwealth as are, for -instance, the Scots or the Welsh, some permanent arrangement might be -possible. But they are nothing of the sort. The position is wholly -unnatural. It cannot last. And if it cannot last with the British -connection, how should it last with any other? How shall the transition -be made from a British Protectorate to another protectorate? Or how, -seeing what violent hatreds have already been roused by the mere -beginnings of the experiment, shall the conflict which makes the -protectorate necessary be avoided?</p> - -<p>So far the dislike of the position, which is very far-reaching, and -already very deep in England, is a passive dislike. No English soldier -has yet been killed; there has been but little necessity, as yet, to -repress the Arab and create hostility, though even what little necessity -there has been was odious to the troops concerned. But things cannot -remain in that state. The conflict is inevitable. When the conflict -comes the feeling which has hitherto been passive will become active. -People will not tolerate the loss of sons and brothers in a quarrel -which is none of theirs, which cannot possibly strengthen the British -State; which, if anything, must weaken it; which is felt to be -precarious and ephemeral, and which will be undertaken against those -with whom British sympathy naturally lies, and in favour of those with -whom the average<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> soldier and citizen—unlike the professional -politician—has no ties and no sympathy.</p> - -<p>The matter can be very plainly put thus:</p> - -<p>If a Zionist experiment is necessary, or advisable, then let it be made -in such a fashion that it can be dependent upon Jewish police and a -Jewish army alone. Let it not rely upon a foreign protectorate, which -will not last long, which is a weakness to the directing power, and -which creates a false position.</p> - -<p>If it be answered that the Jews are not capable of producing such an -army or such a police, that they would inevitably be defeated and -oppressed by the hostile and more warlike majority among whom they would -find themselves, then let them make the experiment elsewhere. But it is -certain that the present form of the new Protectorate is the most -perilous form which could have been chosen for it, so far as the Jews -themselves are concerned. I appeal confidently to the near future to -confirm this judgment.</p> - -<p>From one most poignant aspect of the matter which we all have in mind I -deliberately abstain—I mean the effect of the experiment upon Christian -and Mohammedan feelings throughout the world of an attempt to establish -Jewish control over the Holy Places. I abstain because of the emotions -aroused by it, which are violent and universal, and are of the sort I -have deliberately determined, as my Preface has informed the reader, to -keep out of this essay. Things indeed are not yet at the point of open -quarrel in this most perilous of all the results of Zionism. We must -trust for a solution before it is too late, but that solution will not -be reached if we select for discussion matters upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> which there can be -no agreement, and on which there is now aroused the most passionate -feeling.</p> - -<p>Still, though I abstain from discussing that point, I would beg the -Jewish readers of this my book to bear it in mind. If they believe the -religious emotions to be dead in the modern world, or even to be -lessening, they may find themselves terribly disillusioned.</p> - -<p>I also refrain from making comment here—I have made it strongly enough -elsewhere—upon the strange selection made by the Jews for their first -ruler of the Arabs and Christians in Palestine. I will do no more than -to say that a desire to shield the less worthy specimens of one's race -is natural and even praiseworthy. One may even take a certain glory in -that one is able to protect them from outsiders. But to give them too -great a prominence is a mistake, and it is indeed deplorable that of the -whole world of Jews—from crowds of Jews eminent in administration, and -political science, known for their upright dealing and blameless -careers—Mr. Balfour's Jewish advisers (whoever they were) should have -pitched on the author of the Marconi contract and the spokesman of the -famous declaration in the House of Commons that no politician had -touched Marconi shares.</p> - -<p class="center">* * * * *</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span></p> - -<p class="bold2">OUR DUTY</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span></p> - -<h2><span>CHAPTER XII</span> <span class="smaller">OUR DUTY</span></h2> - -<p>The solution which I propose, which I believe could be made stable, and -which I further believe is the only stable one, demands a greater, a -more necessary effort upon our side than upon that of our guests.</p> - -<p>It is the average man who must do his duty in the matter, and it is upon -him that the responsibility will fall, if we take up once again that -wretched sequence of ill-ease, persecution, reaction, which has marked -so many centuries.</p> - -<p>We are the vast majority, we are the organism within which this small -minority moves. We are, or could be if we chose, the makers of our own -laws, and we are certainly the makers of our own political moods.</p> - -<p>I know it is the custom to throw all the responsibility upon the other -side, to be perpetually devising instruments for their guidance which -soon become instruments for their oppression, and in general to imagine -a problem wherein the part of the European is purely negative and all -the work has to be done by the Jewish stranger.</p> - -<p>That attitude is not only false but grossly undignified. When men accuse -some one weaker than themselves of interference with, and even of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> -acquiring power over, them they condemn themselves. It is in the main -our fault if an equilibrium has so rarely been reached in all these -sixty generations of debate. For however alien, however irritant the -foreign body be, it is we who have in our hands the solvent of that -irritant and of relieving the strain which it causes.</p> - -<p>Here let me recall at the risk of repetition (for repetition is -necessary to lucidity in such arguments) the logical process with which -I opened this essay. I say that the vast majority, the fixed race -through which in fluid and nomadic form Israel goes moving from century -to century, is not free to discharge its responsibility by any one of -those attempted solutions which I have condemned. No man, I trust, will -have the cynicism to say that mere persecution, let alone its horrible -extreme, is or should be a solution. No man can predict the same of -exile either. No man can discharge our responsibility by pretending that -any solution arrived at must be for our good alone and may disregard -that of those who live among us.</p> - -<p>It is a statement one hears frequently enough that the masters of house -have alone to decide what shall be done under their roof: that the -interloper, the alien element, has no standing and no right to complain -of whatever measures may be taken for the protection of the household. -The thing so put sounds plausible. It is essentially false. It is -comparable to the argument applied to private property—that because -private property is a right, and that because a man "may do what he -likes with his own," therefore he may use it to the manifest hurt of -others. Moreover, the analogy is false; for when a man is talking of -"the master of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> house" having the right in his household to decide -its own way of living and of treating its guests, he is considering a -very small unit in a great community; his household in the whole nation: -a little body which, if it discharge or in any other way deal with -something alien to itself, will inflict no great injury upon that -foreign body, since there is all the world for it to turn to outside. -But in the relations between the Jew and Christendom, or the Jew and -Islam, the parallel fails. It is precisely because there is no "outside" -to which the exile can turn that a duty is imposed on us.</p> - -<p>It is true indeed that when a small and alien minority assumes to -dictate the policy of the rest, to regard its own advantages alone and -subordinate to those advantages the life of all, the claim is grotesque -and must be disallowed. But we should remember upon the other side that -it is only by exaggerating its claim that a minority can live at all. It -is only by fierce insistence upon its right to survive that its survival -is guaranteed. We can arrive at justice in this matter by the process of -putting ourselves in the shoes of those in relation to whom we propose -to act.</p> - -<p>Put yourself in the shoes of the Jew and ask how this doctrine of "doing -what one likes with one's own" and being "the master of one's own -household" would look to you.</p> - -<p>A public example which very rightly made a stir a few months before this -book was published, may serve as text. A learned and distinguished Jew, -Dr. Oscar Levy, a man who was an asset to any community, was turned out -of the country under circumstances which many of my readers will recall. -He pleaded with perfect justice that as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> a Jew such an exile left him -homeless; that the original country of which he was nominally a citizen -(under the broken-down fiction that Jews can be Germans, or Austrians, -or what not, and cease to be themselves) would not have him; that his -interests, his livelihood had attached him to this country; he had never -hidden his true nationality nor changed his name, nor used any of those -subterfuges which, even when excusable, are dangerous and contemptible -in so many of his compatriots. There was no conceivable reason why such -rigour should be used against this man, save indeed that he was a Jew.</p> - -<p>Put yourself in his shoes and see how the thing looks. There is no -nation to which you could have returned: there is no society to receive -you as a member of it. You are not permitted to remain in the atmosphere -with which you have grown familiar, in the surroundings which have -become those of your later life, and your consonance with which it is -too late for you to change. Could there be a grosser cruelty or a -grosser injustice? It is the very core of the whole problem that -<i>somewhere</i> the Jew must be harboured, and therefore to some one of us -the question must be put, "Will you harbour him, and if so upon what -terms?" If each man answer, "No, I will not," then all collectively -become oppressors. It is no answer to say, "These men are not of us, and -therefore they may conspire against us," or "Their interests are -divergent from ours and therefore may and do clash with ours." All that -is granted. That is merely stating the problem, not solving it. What do -we say in daily life of men who merely state their grievances, harp upon -them, and make no effort to put them right?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> What do we think of men who -perpetually complain of something naturally weaker than themselves, make -no effort to understand its necessities and attempt only to rid -themselves of the nuisance without considering reciprocal duty and -mutual relations? The same should we think of those who so act towards -the Jewish community in our midst which, for all its domination and -exaggerated modern power, is ultimately at our mercy, far weaker than we -are in numbers and situation. Without further elaboration of what should -be an obvious political and moral principle, let us consider our part in -the task.</p> - -<p>It consists, I conceive, in two very different determinations: two very -different but allied lines of conduct to which we must pledge ourselves. -The first, until recently the most difficult, is the determination to -speak of the Jewish people as openly, as continuously, with as much -interest, with as close an examination as we speak of any other foreign -body with which we are brought in contact.</p> - -<p>The second, which will perhaps be the more difficult duty to practise in -the future, will be to avoid, in the individual public recognition of -those with whom we must live, all futile anger and all mere reaction. I -mean by mere reaction, blind reaction. The instinctive thrusting back -against a thing which presses on us, the uncalculated and animal return -blow, the consequences of which, either to ourselves or to others, are -not weighed when it is delivered; the futile complaint, the futile rage, -the futile cruelty.</p> - -<p>Unless those two duties are undertaken together, unless the -determination to practise both be of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> equal weight, the solution I -propose will fail. To discuss the problem presented by the presence of -the Jewish people, to talk of them as one would of any other, openly and -frankly, to interest oneself in their history and in their present -doings: all this is only to aggravate the trouble if we use that open -dealing for the purpose of doing them a hurt, or if, in the course of -it, we allow ourselves (merely from irritation or contrast, from the -sense which all must have of opposition to things alien) to react -against them without consideration of the immediate and ultimate -consequences not only to themselves but to us.</p> - -<p>Conversely, the determination to regard their interests and to avoid -every possible occasion of conflict, to hold a just measure with them, -is quite useless if we falsify the whole relation by secrecy and false -convention.</p> - -<p>The moment that comes in, there comes in with it a secret -dissatisfaction with oneself and with the whole situation. The position -is falsified, the seed of animosity greatly stimulated, the danger of -mutual contempt made inevitable.</p> - -<p>Now let us look at these two branches of what we have to do in the -matter, and see what difficulties lie in the way.</p> - -<p>In the way of frankly recognizing, examining, taking an open interest in -the Jewish minority in our midst there lie three very powerful -obstacles. First the inherited convention of polite society; secondly, -and much the most powerful, fear; and thirdly, the very reputable desire -to avoid offence.</p> - -<p>The first of these, the fear of convention, has many roots—the -necessity for harmony in a leisured<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> life, that is, the desire to avoid -friction even at the expense of truth, the mere momentum of a quiet -habit, the fear of misunderstanding which may come from one side casting -ridicule upon the other, which may offend the person whom we have -misunderstood, or make us ridiculous in his eyes and those of our -audience.</p> - -<p>There is also, of course, as a cause, more powerful than any other, the -force which lies behind all convention, the force which makes a man take -off his hat in a church, which forbids his walking without boots in the -street on the driest day, that is, the pressure of general practice. But -the thing to realize is that in this form—I mean as distinct from any -feeling of fear or of charity—the thing is a convention and a -convention only. Difficult as it is to break with conventions, unless -<i>this</i> convention is broken once and for all, the Jewish problem remains -with us unsolved and growing in acuteness and peril.</p> - -<p>You can meet an Irishman and discuss with him the conditions of his -nation. You can ask an Italian when he was last in Italy, or -congratulate a Frenchman upon his acquisition of your tongue or tell him -that it is difficult for him to understand your own customs: but a -convention arose under the Liberal fiction—to which I have devoted so -much space in the earlier part of this book—that to do any of these -very natural things in the case of a Jew is monstrous. Your audience is -shocked if you ask some learned Jew at a public table a question upon -his national literature or history. It is a solecism to refer to his -nationality at all, save perhaps now and then in terms of foolish -praise—in nine times out of ten praise not to the point and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> not -desired by its recipient. And even praise must be approached most -gingerly. You may not ask a Jew in London, however keen your desire for -information, whether he had cousins in Lithuania or Galicia who have -told him of the conditions of those distressed countries. You may not -ask him when his family came to England, nor, if he be a recent arrival, -what he thinks of the country. The whole thing is <i>taboo</i>.</p> - -<p>More than this: you must, you are expected (or were until quite recently -expected) to emphasize in a most extravagant manner the complete -identity of your Jewish guest with the people among whom he lives. I do -not take offence if some chance acquaintance, noting my French name, -talks to me about France, and is interested in my experience as a -conscript long ago in that country. Mr. Redmond did not feel himself -insulted when those he met in London discussed Irish matters with him, -from the most acute difficulty in politics, to the most general allusion -to the Abbey Theatre. The editor of an Italian review visiting England -is not shocked if you ask him when he left Florence, nor are those -around you horrified at the ill-breeding of your question. But in the -matter of the Jew there stands this convention cutting you off from any -such straightforward and simple way of dealing with a fellow-being. That -convention, I say, must be broken down if we are to get any results at -all and to establish a permanent peace.</p> - -<p>The thing was not, of course, entirely irrational in origin. No custom -is. It was to be excused upon several grounds.</p> - -<p>First, there was the fact that many people were known to cherish so -strong an hostility to Jews that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> to emphasize the Jewish character of -anyone present might awaken that hostility.</p> - -<p>Then there was the peculiar rapid transition both of Jewish movements -and of Jewish fortunes. In the case I have suggested, of asking a London -Jew whether he had relatives in Galicia or Lithuania, you might be -stumbling upon relations much poorer than himself in the East End of -London; or, again, you might seem to be emphasizing the nomadic -character of the race and thereby also emphasizing the contrast between -it and our own.</p> - -<p>But much the strongest excuse for the convention was the well-founded -idea that its exercise pleased the Jews themselves. Men avoided direct -mention of Jewish nationality because it was felt that such direct -mention was almost an insult. It was a thing which the Jew in whose -presence you found yourself desired to have kept in the background; and -though we might not understand why he desired it, yet we respected his -desire as we do that of anyone with whom we wish to preserve harmonious -relations. Most men, for instance, are indifferent upon, say, the matter -of smoking. Most men are quite at their ease when they are asked whether -they smoke or not, and if they do, whether they prefer this or that -brand of tobacco. But now and then one comes across a man who, from some -accident of training (as, for instance, a man whose mother brought him -up to think smoking a mortal sin), does not like to have it alluded to.</p> - -<p>I myself know the case of a man of the highest culture and of -considerable social position to whom you may not say anything about pigs -either in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> connection with farming or in connection with food; for his -sympathies are Mohammedan. In these exceptional cases, when we know of -our guest's particular desire, we yield to it for the sake of harmony -and of right living. So is it in this matter of the former convention -against alluding to Jewish nationality or Jewish interests in any form. -Whether the Jews were wise or not to cherish that convention, as they -undoubtedly did, does not concern this part of my argument. I am talking -of our duty and not of theirs. But I say that unless the convention is -softened and at last dissolved, nothing can be done. Both parties should -know that it only does harm. It renders stilted and absurd all our -relations; it fosters that suspicion of secrecy which I have insisted -upon as the chief irritant in those relations, and it creates a feeling -of exception, of oddity, which is the very worst service that could be -rendered to the Jews themselves.</p> - -<p>Some little time ago the convention went so far that even a mention, a -neutral—nay, a laudatory mention, of anything Jewish in a general -company led to an immediate awkwardness. Men looked over their -shoulders, women gave downward glances right and left. A sort of hunt -began, to see whether anyone present could possibly in any remote -connection be offended by the monstrous deed. If a man said, "What a -poet Heine was and how thoroughly Jewish is his irony!" and said it in a -room full of people, the adjective "Jewish" acted like a pistol -shot—could anything be more absurd! Yet so it was.</p> - -<p>But the point I make is not against the absurdity of this convention but -against its peril.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> It is an obstacle to all right handling of what is -becoming daily a more and more insistent and acute difficulty.</p> - -<p>It is obvious that the getting rid of such a convention is not to be -effected by violent methods, nor immediately. But our duty is to -accelerate its decline and, within reason, to enlarge every opportunity -for treating the Jewish nationality precisely as one treats any other. I -mean precisely as one treats any other in conversation or in writing. We -all know the insane type which loves to break convention merely because -it is a convention, and we shall certainly have to be on our guard -against this sort of person in the near future, as this particular -convention begins to break down. But without encouraging such -eccentricities there is ample room for an increasing ease in the -recognition of what after all we know to be reality, a reality which -requires open discussion for the good of us all. The danger is lest even -this merely conventional obstacle should by too long a resistance dam up -forces which tend to break it down and therefore lest, when it is pulled -down, we should admit the other extreme of licence, with its opportunity -for insult and damage. That is what has happened in the case of other -much more reasonable Victorian conventions, and we must not have it -happen in the case of the convention which for so long forbade us to -admit that a Jew was a Jew or to take any open interest, when he was -present, in the things which he himself thinks the most interesting of -all.</p> - -<p>And if anyone shall answer that convention is necessary, lest on its -decline open hostility should follow, I can only say that this is to -despair of any equitable solution at all. But my whole thesis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> in this -book is that such a solution need not yet be despaired of.</p> - -<p>There is one more thing to be said in this matter of the old <i>taboo</i>. -However long it may linger in the small educated class, it has gone for -ever among the populace, and it is the popular instinct we shall have -mainly to deal with in the difficult times ahead of us.</p> - -<p>The populace in this country talks upon Jewish matters with a frankness -which would astonish the drawing-rooms, and has so talked upon them for -a generation past—ever since the great novel influx of poor Jews began -to pour into our towns. It not only talks thus openly to and of Jews -upon its own level, but it is thoroughly alive to the presence and power -of Jews in government. Those who think that a continuance of the -convention can put off the necessity for a solution would be -disillusioned if they would spend a few days east of Aldgate, and mix -with their fellow-citizens there.</p> - -<p>Allied to this obstacle of convention is the very real obstacle of -charity.</p> - -<p>Now we are here dealing not with a positive charity but with a negative -one and with a form of charity uncommonly like slackness.</p> - -<p>The man who honestly thinks that any allusion to Jewish races in -contemporary art, history or letters in the presence of a Jew is -offensive and therefore to be avoided, from goodness of heart, <i>and who -also practises the same virtue where any other foreigner is concerned</i> -is rare indeed. There are such men, for men of exceptional goodness -coupled with exceptional stupidity are to be found. But the excuse of -charity as it is generally put forward is not wholly ingenuous. Where it -is ingenuous our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> reply to-day must be that even at the risk of -occasional ill-ease, the danger of offence must be risked; for unless we -risk it there is increasing peril of a much greater offence against -justice. For whatever reason open discussion is burked, even for the -reason of charity, we only put off the evil day, and charity so used may -be compared to the charity which refuses to take action in any other -critical problem of increasing gravity. The charity which hesitates to -control the supplies of a spendthrift, or to wage a defensive war in a -just cause, or to defend an oppressed man at the risk of quarrelling -with his oppressor, is a charity misdirected.</p> - -<p>But, as I have said, with much the greater part of men who plead this -motive the plea is, if they would only examine their own consciences, -found to be false. And the test of its falsity will be apparent when the -convention slackens. When it is no longer conventional to avoid all -mention of Jews, how many will remain silent merely from the love of -their fellow-men? One might go further and say that when the convention -has gone, any need for this kind of charity will go with it. There is an -exception, of course, in the case of the man whose dislike of Jews is so -violent that he fears himself if he gives any rein to his tongue. That -mania is exceptional; but where it is found certainly its victim will do -well to keep silence. If a man cannot mention the Hebrew alphabet -without a sneer, or the economics of Ricardo without betraying his ill -feeling for Ricardo's lineage, then certainly he had better hold his -tongue when Jews are there. So, too, a Frenchman who raves against the -English had far better not discuss the British<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> Constitution or the -genius of Newton in any society where an Englishman may be present.</p> - -<p>There remains the chief obstacle—that of fear.</p> - -<p>There is no doubt that the strongest force still restraining an -expression of hostility to the Jew is fear.</p> - -<p>In a sense, of course, there is a "fear" of breaking convention—but -that is fear only in metaphor. I mean not this, but the very real dread -of consequences: the feeling that an expression of hostility to Jewish -power may bring definite evils on the individual guilty of it, and a -panic lest those evils should fall upon him. How strong this feeling is, -anyone can testify who has explored, as I have, this most insistent of -modern political ills; and doubtless the greater part of my non-Jewish -readers will recall examples to the point.</p> - -<p>It is a fear of two consequences, social and economic, and even of both -combined. Men dread lest hostility to the Jew Domination should bring -them into the grip of some unknown but suspected world-wide power—some -would call it a conspiracy—which can destroy the individual who shall -be so rash as to challenge it. Some perhaps have gone to the length—the -insane length—of reading the word "destroy" in its literal sense and of -fearing for their lives. Such an illusion is laughable. But very many -more are affected by the reasonable conception that they will have -against them, if they provoke it, an intelligent, combined action which -they cannot meet because there is no organization upon their side: -because it is international; because there is behind it a great -intensity of feeling; because through finance it controls the political -machines of all the nations, because it is all-powerful in the -Press—and so forth.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p><p>They dread, I say, the social consequences. They also (and that with -more definition and more sense) dread the economic consequences. They -recognize (they also exaggerate) the grip of the Jew over finance. They -conceive that if they speak they will be dragged down, their enterprises -ruined, their credit dissolved. And that is the most powerful instrument -which can be brought to bear. When supernatural motives disappear the -strongest motive remaining after appetite is avarice; and avarice is -more universal than appetite and more continuous. Nor is it only avarice -which is at work here, but also the respectable desire for security. -There are to-day innumerable men who would express publicly on Jews what -they continually express in private, but who conceal their feelings for -fear that their salaries may be lost or their modest enterprises -wrecked, their investments lowered, and their position ruined. Above -them are a lesser number, equally convinced that their large fortunes -would be in peril were they so to act.</p> - -<p>The characteristic of all this feeling is two-fold. In the first place, -as would seem to be the case with convention, though in a much greater -degree, it dams up and enormously increases the latent force of anger -against Jewish power both real and imaginary. It is like the piling up -of a head of water when a river valley is obstructed, or like the -introducing of resistance into an electric current. The suppression of -resentment, though that suppression is the act of the men who themselves -feel the resentment and not directly of their opponents, is a fierce -irritant and accounts for the high pressure at which attack escapes when -once it is loosened.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p><p>I speak only of hostility and of attack, for it is in these least -rational examples that the strength of the thing is to be found. But it -applies also to mere discussion. There is hardly anyone to-day who does -not desire to discuss as an urgent political problem the present -position, the present power, the present disabilities, the present -claims of Israel. But for one that will openly discuss these things -there are ten who, in varying degrees, forbid themselves so plain a -freedom of speech in dread of what consequences might follow. It has, -like all panic, a ridiculous element. It is informed by the most absurd -illusions; it suffers from grotesque imaginings and phantasms. In some -this dread of the Jewish power has very plainly passed the line which -divides the stable from the unstable mind and even the sane from the -insane. But it is none the less a formidable element in our problem. -This obstacle, much more than that of convention, bears a character of -rigidity. It works for a certain time, then it breaks down and releases -a flood.</p> - -<p>That is why the first expressions of hostility in our time were so -exaggerated and ill-proportioned. That is why so many of them were -plainly mad. This very character of exaggeration, this very wildness in -proportion, rendered those against whom the attack was delivered more -contemptuous of it than they should have been.</p> - -<p>The forerunners of the present movement—I mean, of the movement hostile -to Israel—were not calculated to excite the respect of their opponent -or even to carry with them the men on their own side. They lacked that -"common" sense which is the first quality of leadership. For the power -of leadership implies a soul in common with those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> who are led. The -enthusiast can lead permanently, but the extravagant man never for long.</p> - -<p>I say that these first attacks were on that account despised: they were -unduly despised by those whom they menaced.</p> - -<p>There lay in reserve behind all the exaggeration and wildness a great -bulk of very different opinion; the opinion of men normal in their -appreciation of values and of proportion, not given to "seeing things," -fully in touch with reality; men who know that they have hitherto only -been silent through the action of fear, who despise themselves on that -account and who are the more ready to act. For the sense of fear not -only degrades but angers: at least in our race. The European who admits -to himself that he has restrained an instinct not from religion, nor -from a general sense of right, but from cowardice, is always angry with -himself and awaits the moment when he can take his own revenge upon his -own past and clear himself of reproach in his own eyes.</p> - -<p>Herein lies the peril to Israel of such a state of affairs. But with -that I am not here concerned. I am only concerned with its effect upon -ourselves. So long as we degrade ourselves, so long as we humiliate -ourselves by our own cowardice, so long as we shirk all reasonable -discussion, let alone all expression of hostility because we dread the -consequences at the hands of our opponents, so long there are present in -rising intensity two evil things: first, the postponement of the right -solution; secondly, the turning of a reasoned policy into mere hatred -with all the consequences that flow from such evil emotion.</p> - -<p>The longer we maintain whatever remains of that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> barrier to free speech -(happily it is already crumbling) the longer do we produce the two fatal -results of postponing justice and of creating enmity. The destruction of -that barrier, the ridding of ourselves of fear in the matter, is, as is -always the case in the exercising of this unmanly thing, a matter for -individual effort. As the proverb goes, "Some one must bell the cat," -which is another way of saying that if each man waits upon his -neighbour, things will only grow worse and worse.</p> - -<p>It is for each in his place, before it is too late, to approach the -Jewish problem and to discuss it openly; to preface that discussion by a -frank interest and a general expression upon all those things in the -minority which directly concern its relations with the majority; to deal -with the Jewish nation exactly as one would with any other.</p> - -<p>It used to be a dictum in those who pleaded a lifetime ago for the open -criticism of Scripture, that "the Bible should be approached like any -other book."<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> The result is not of good augury to my present argument -and I rather dread the parallel; but since the phrase is well known I -will use it as a model. It is time, I say, to be rid of treating the -Jewish nation as something closed, mysterious and secret. Let us treat -it "like any other nation." It is no wonder if men, moved by nothing but -a blind hatred, feel some hesitation upon the consequence of that -hatred. But I am convinced that if we on our side get rid of this absurd -modern fear, take the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> Jew in his right proportions, rid our mind of -exaggeration in his regard—especially of the conception of some inhuman -ability capable of conducting a plot of diabolical ingenuity and -magnitude—we shall be met from the other side.</p> - -<p>The Jews are not the only force which is international nor the only -international force the dread of which has disturbed men's judgments. -They are not the only international force which has some degree of -organization and cohesion. If you desire to vent your active dislike of -the Scotch or of the Irish you must be prepared for a certain amount of -Scotch or Irish hostility. You will come across something of an -organization and suffer accordingly; but if you cherish the conception -of a vast subterranean force, Scotch or Irish, watching you with a -malignant power and capable of your destruction, you are, I think, out -of the real world.</p> - -<p>If you desire to vent your active dislike of the Catholic Church you -will find ubiquitous opposition. But if you conclude from this that you -are at grips with a monster then you are out of touch with reality.</p> - -<p>So it is, surely, with this dread of the Jewish power, which has sullied -so many men's minds, postponed the right discussion of the problem and -nourished ill-ease everywhere. If we simply act as though that dread -were despicable like any other dread, and turned to perfectly open -discussion of the whole affair, even to an open expression of hostility -where hostility is deserved, we shall be the better for it. In any case -it is our duty to ourselves as well as to the State to get rid of fear -in the business, for until we are rid of it no advance towards a -solution can be made.</p> - -<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> I beg leave to introduce an anecdote. An undergraduate once -said to Dr. Jowett, the Master of Balliol, "I take up the Gospels and -treat them as an ordinary book." The Master answered: "Did you not find -them a very extraordinary book?" So it will prove, I think, with the -fascination of Israel.</p></div></div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span></p> - -<p class="bold2">THEIR DUTY</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span></p> - -<h2><span>CHAPTER XIII</span> <span class="smaller">THEIR DUTY</span></h2> - -<p>Where positive causes have been found for an evil it is obvious that the -cure of that evil consists in the removal of the causes, in so far as -they can be removed.</p> - -<p>In the particular case of the friction between the Jewish community and -their hosts the causes of that friction are the foolish and dangerous -habit of secrecy and the irritating expression of superiority. The -causes the Jew can remove if he will. The matter is in his own hands: we -can do nothing: he can do everything.</p> - -<p>But beyond this negative duty which is incumbent upon the Jews if they -would achieve a peaceful issue of the perils which menace their future, -there is a positive action also incumbent upon them. They must foster, -they must even propose, institutions which will the better mark them off -from a society not their own and restore to them the dignity of a -nation. I shall in the last chapter of this book contend that the policy -leading to a solution must repose not upon direct laws of our own -imagining, not upon reactions which will almost certainly prove -oppressive, and almost certainly be evaded, but upon a general spirit -recognizing the separate nationality of the Jews. But though this is -true of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> every Christian Western State in which they find themselves, it -is not true of their own nation. They on their side may well come -forward with propositions which they have the capacity for making, -because they will know how to frame them (as we cannot) after a fashion -consistent with their own dignity and their own tradition. There is a -beginning of such things already present in the Jewish schools, the -Jewish guardians and the considerable separate organization which the -Jews have openly set up for their community in this country. These -beginnings have but to be extended.</p> - -<p>Those who are openly hostile to Jews will say that any proposals coming -from their side will conceal a trap. "This people" (they say) "will -always suggest things which will seem innocent enough and apparently do -no more than define their position plainly for the future; but we shall -find ourselves caught in an obligation and the Jews more our masters -than ever. They will," say these objectors, "remain as they are to-day, -and while they claim every privilege as a separate community, they will -also insist upon the full citizenship which is incompatible with this -attitude. We shall find that, whatever institutions we ask them to -frame, those institutions will work not only in their favour but also -heavily against us."</p> - -<p>I doubt it. The special Jewish institutions already at work have no such -effect. On the contrary, they already relieve the strain. One of those -institutions, for instance, is the Jewish press: the newspapers -specially devoted to Jewish interests and acting as spokesmen for Jewish -ideas. They are not always as polite as they might be. I have had myself -at times to lodge a complaint against the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> way in which they have -treated sincere efforts for the settlement of our difficulties and an -honest attempt at finding a way out. They have left a handle to their -enemies sometimes by too insistent or, as those enemies would call it, -too arrogant a claim, and they do write now and then as though we, the -vast majority, had no rights and the only thing worth considering was -the advancement of their own people.</p> - -<p>But, after all, it would be absurd to expect anything else. A small -minority vigorously fighting its own hand must exaggerate its claim; an -organism defending itself against very heavy pressure from without -cannot but appear aggressive, and I shall always maintain that the -presence of an openly Jewish institution speaking for Jewish interests, -no matter how insistently, is an excellent thing. It presents a healthy -contrast with the converse attempt to present Jewish arguments under the -cover of neutrality, and to spread Jewish ideas anonymously through what -are very far from being neutral agents.</p> - -<p>If I be asked what institutions I have in mind I can only repeat that it -is for the Jews themselves to make the first proposal, but I suggest an -extension of the system, which is already present in embryo, whereby -disputes between Jews shall be arbitrated before a Jewish tribunal. Not -only its extension but its confirmation at the request of the Jews -themselves, might be a good thing. It would also not be a bad thing -if—some time hence when things were ripe for the change—disputes -between Jews and non-Jews could be tried in Courts where the special -character of such disputes, the distinctive difference between them and -disputes between the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> fellow-citizens of the country in which they live, -should come before tribunals of a mixed character. To attempt this -to-day would, of course, be a very new departure in procedure, indeed a -revolutionary one; and there is no prospect of it for a long while; but -with the growing number among us, and the growing influence, of Jews it -will, I think, when it does come at last, be of advantage to both -parties. It would be fatal if it were imposed upon them. It would not be -accepted. It would not work. But if it were suggested by the Jewish -community spontaneously, and started and developed by them, it would -succeed. And it would add a great deal to the relief already experienced -for the functioning of the other institutions I have mentioned.</p> - -<p>There is little more to be said under this head. Apart from the duty of -open dealing and this specific policy of fostering separate institutions -we have no claim to press.</p> - -<p>All the main part of the mutual Duty is on <i>our</i> side. Therefore have I -given it the space it seems to deserve and confined to no more than -these few lines correlative suggestions for those who, after all, are -not responsible to us for their actions and may properly resent the -airing of <i>our</i> views on the domestic details of their alien -organization.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span></p> - -<p class="bold2">VARIOUS THEORIES</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></p> - -<h2><span>CHAPTER XIV</span> <span class="smaller">VARIOUS THEORIES</span></h2> - -<p>Before approaching my conclusion it may be well to review certain -subsidiary theories which I have not hitherto touched in my discussion, -because they stand apart from its argument.</p> - -<p>There is a whole group of historical and other theories upon the -position of the Jews which either imply that there is no problem, or if -there is one that it cannot be solved, or even that if there is a -problem it is of a sort that does not need solution, because that -solution would be of no practical value.</p> - -<p>There come in the first place those theories upon the international -position of the Jews which are frankly non-rational, and which vary from -those which may be defended with some show of reason from the history of -the past, to those which are wholly imaginary. None of these, even -though some one of them should be true, can find much place here because -none lends itself to discussion.</p> - -<p>Thus there is the conception of a curse; the conception that Israel -must, until its conversion, suffer a perpetual pilgrimage and perpetual -hostility. It is a statement bound up with that other popular prophecy -that in the last days Israel will be reconciled with the Universal -Church. Those who have these ideas at the back of their minds (they are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> -more numerous than modern thought would like to admit), at heart despair -of any solution, and would not attempt to urge it with any hope of -success. They say, "The thing is fated and must continue." But even -they, I think, must admit that just as philosophy admits a paradox of -determination and free will, so political effort must admit a paradox of -foreseen failures and our duty, in spite of them, to aim at a political -good.</p> - -<p>Whether it be indeed true or not, that reconciliation is impossible and -that in the long run the quarrel must drag itself out, it is certainly -profoundly immoral to look on at the spectacle with no attempt to -ameliorate its evils.</p> - -<p>There is again the theory (which I mention in passing and leave to its -adherents) that the British and the Jews are in some way mysteriously -allied by Providence, so that any solution which does not give the -fullest satisfaction to Israel (no matter at what cost to poor Japhet) -is treason. These people mystically regard Britain as the handmaid of -Jewry, and there is a section of them who further regard their -fellow-countrymen as the ten lost tribes. I have in my library some -specimens of their literature.</p> - -<p>There is an opposite and, to me, detestable theory (but I must mention -it because it exists), that the antagonism hitherto found perpetually, -whether latent or active, between this people and the world about them -is the use of the one as a necessary and divine oppressor of the other. -To those who hold such a theory I can only reply that two can play at -that game, and it certainly absolves those whom they would oppress from -any obligation whatever of seeking a solution on their side. If a man -thinks he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> can do harm to Israel wantonly, without suffering the -reproaches of his own conscience, he is in error; and I confess that -were I free (as I am not in a book of discussion and argument) to -indulge in mere affirmation I should be inclined to say that those who -set out with this remarkable object in view will catch a Tartar.</p> - -<p>There is the opposite theory that a special and Divine protection is -still exercised, not only for the preservation of the Jews but for -judgment upon their enemies. <i>That</i> theory, I think, lies at the back of -many a Jewish action in history and of much Jewish policy to-day. -Non-rational, religious in origin, it is, I fancy, to very many of the -race which has suffered so much, a consolation and a support.</p> - -<p>Now all these non-rational theories (I use the word without any bad -connotation: the non-rational—what is often inaccurately called the -mystical—attitude towards any problem may well be more practical than -the rational approach to it) I leave on one side as improper to rational -discussion.</p> - -<p>I have heard it maintained, again, by both parties to this debate, that -the presence of an alien force, migratory, intense, full of tradition, -experience and cohesion, was essential to the height and the activity of -our own civilization.</p> - -<p>These are not content to discover individual instances of Jewish -excellence in the mass around them, or to extend the renown of -individual Jewish genius. They are rather concerned with the general -proposition that <i>some</i> such flux is necessary to the full action of a -high and diverse culture. They tell us that but for the Jew the -civilization of Europe would have grown torpid, would have settled into -a fixed groove, incapable of change and of creative<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> progress. The Jew, -by this theory, is regarded as a sort of activating principle, who, -whether as an irritant at the worst, or an inspiration at the best, -keeps all our European life agog, and is necessary to its continuous -business. These also incline to see the Jew at the origin of every great -movement in European thought. They see him indirectly producing the vast -transformation of the Roman Empire from a pagan, not indeed to a Jew but -to a Christian, that is (in their eyes) to an Oriental mood. They see -the Jew at the root of the great revolutionary philosophy which springs -from the eleventh century and reaches its culmination in the great -scholastics of the thirteenth. They insist upon the name of Averroës -(Ibn Roshd), the philosopher of the twelfth century, the Kadi of -Cordova: the exponent of Aristotle, the expositor—whom the Jews -preserved: upon the great Moses ben Maimon, our Maimonides. These also -put Nicolas de Lyra at the root of the Reformation: "<i>Si Lyra non -lyrasset Luther non saltasset.</i>" But I may remind them that the Jewish -character of this man is at least doubtful, that he was of the religious -Orders of Christendom.</p> - -<p>These also will certainly and with some reason ascribe to Jewish -influence the great economic revolution of the seventeenth century, -which has been followed by so vast an extension of wealth and of -population, though hardly of human happiness.</p> - -<p>Now for all this there is certainly something to be said as an aspect of -historical truth. How far it may be extended to cover, as its exponents -would make it cover, the whole historical field, may be debated, but I -would ask my readers to consider what change we should have seen in the -<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>development of Europe if by some magical instrument Jewish influence -had been upon some one date removed. It is a theory fascinating, in a -way applicable, and arresting. It is, at any rate, not nonsense.</p> - -<p>It is particularly true that something in the continuous exercise of -analysis by the Jewish intelligence perpetually moves European -intelligence to action—The great disputations of the Early Middle Ages -were, largely, either directly disputations with Jews or disputations -provoked by the intellectual attitude of the Jew; and the Jew, in the -famous name of Spinoza, stands at the origin of that merely natural, -that Lucretian interpretation of the world which continued through -Descartes to its great expansion in the present day. You find that -element in economics as you do in philosophy, in political science as -you do in economics; and, talking of economics, it must not be forgotten -that the greatest name at the foundation of modern economic science is -the name of a Jew, Ricardo, while the most prominent name in the -development of its most prominent direct application is also a Jewish -name—the name of Karl Marx.</p> - -<p>It is not without significance that any one of these names recalls, side -by side with its Jewish origin, an aloofness from the general community -of the Jews. That community, I think it is fair to say, abandoned -Spinoza; Ricardo and, I believe, Karl Marx were alien to the national -religion, and the latter married out of his people and exercised his -enormous influence extraneously to the blood from which his family -sprang. For though it is true that the <i>direction</i>, the <i>staff</i> of -Communism is Jewish, yet its convinced adherents are in the mass of our -blood.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span></p><p>And in that connection I am reminded of another theory or fact -attaching to the history of Israel, which is that the intellectual -independence of the Jew has been as marked throughout the ages as his -solidarity. There are many, I know, of that nation who regard such -exceptions as vagaries and almost condemn them as traitors; yet they are -no small asset to the reputation of their people and their names, -however much they may be repudiated by their compatriots, shed lustre -upon the whole body from which they sprang. These include (let it be -remembered) not only the "sceptical" philosophers, not only the -materialists, but also those extraordinary exceptions who have lent the -vigour, the tenacity and the lustre of the Jewish intellect to the -service of the Catholic Church. I make bold to say that in no one of the -Faith has there been more devotion than in those who, like Ratisbonne -(and he was but one among many), have put such qualities at the service -of what they have discovered to be alone divine. A cynic might add St. -Paul, but, for that matter, the whole origin of the Church was -intermixed with the intense individual efforts of such men.</p> - -<p>In this connection also every wise man will admit that there is no -greater error than to exaggerate the consciousness of Jewish action -whether the error proceed from those who admire or who detest it. To -hear their modern opponents talk one might imagine that the Jewish -people formed a small club of which every member knew every other while -each worked in the unison of a disciplined body. That aberration I have -dealt with more than once upon former pages. The truth is that no nation -on earth presents so many surprising exceptions to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> its general action -as does this nation, and that no nation on earth, when it moves in one -general direction, as it often does, is actuated by a common motive less -conscious. We who stand outside the Jewish body may mark its cohesion, -and will mark it, I hope, to its honour; but its own members complain -rather of its lack of cohesion. I have heard them complain—I know not -how often—of the way in which the wealthier Jews left their society for -that of an alien body, sneered at the general body of Israel, and -remained indifferent to the common cry of the race. It is this -unconsciousness in action, this frequent replacement of motive by -instinct which accounts for what all observers have noticed, especially -in times of persecution. I mean the bewilderment of the oppressed at the -action of their oppressors.</p> - -<p>I remember once listening to a most eloquent speech delivered in the -course of a debate in which, with that long recollection which is -characteristic of his people, an Israelite passionately declaimed the -gratitude of that people to St. Bernard who saved their remnant upon the -Rhine from the popular fury. I remember also how another in a debate -(for I have attended many such up and down the country and have heard -from as many aspects as possible what the Jewish attitude towards us is) -stated simply, in reply to my description of the Jewish financial -position in this country after the Conquest: "Your cathedral and your -abbeys and even your castles were built with <i>our</i> money." The phrase -was significant of the way in which what the English community of the -time regarded as a tolerated abuse, those fortunes which <i>they</i> never -thought of as Jewish at all, but as moneys<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> temporarily unjustly wrung -from the people at large, were regarded in contemporary Jewry as private -property legitimately acquired, held in full possession.</p> - -<p>I could wish in this connection that some learned Jew would produce a -History of Europe from the point of view of his people: a short -textbook, I mean, intended for our consumption; to show us ourselves -from a standpoint very different from our own. It may be that such a -book exists. I am certain it would be more useful than those indirect -attacks (for they are attacks) upon the Christian tradition which -pretend to a spirit of impartiality but are none the less hostile to -that tradition in every line. I would much rather read the story of -Europe as it was seen by a practising Jewish scholar than a so-called -impartial and agnostic account which grotesquely represents the Church -as something external to the body of Europe and even inimical to it.</p> - -<p>In this connection also we should have (what now we lack), and that is a -conspectus of the Jewish action over Christendom and Islam combined. We -are aware of the tolerance, or rather favour, displayed to their Jewish -subjects by the Mohammedans of Spain. It was neither universal nor -continuous. What we do not sufficiently hear, what we have to piece -together from chance allusions, is the connection between the Moorish -Jews, before and during the Reconquista, and their fellows to the north.</p> - -<p>Before I leave these cursory and sporadic notes on what I have called -the "theories" upon our problem, I should mention one which would -unhappily seem to have acquired widespread support<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> to-day and which is -surely the least satisfactory of all—even less satisfactory than the -now dying fiction which pretended that the Jewish nation was not present -in our midst, but consisted only of a mass of individuals already -absorbed by their alien surroundings. I mean the theory that it is -possible to continue in a sort of simmering atmosphere of partial -repression, with the Jew treated as something alien and hostile, yet his -presence unceasingly tolerated. That would seem to be the imperfect -conclusion implied, if not stated, in a hundred modern pamphlets and -discussions, the authors of which repudiate the name of Anti-Semite -though they sympathize apparently with action even less logical than the -politics of the Anti-Semite. There is no such equilibrium possible, even -if its establishment were as moral as it is in fact immoral. If a frank -solution be not found, nothing firm can be established. All we shall be -establishing will be a violent and successive fluctuation. It is -impossible to maintain an attitude permanently hostile to one's -neighbour, yet count on that hostility remaining permanently repressed. -You fall inevitably along the slope of such a tendency into those -excesses which it should be our whole object to condemn, to foresee and -to prevent.</p> - -<p>You cannot continue, as so many modern men seem, from their -conversation, to wish, with political equality on the one side and a -living spirit of enmity upon the other. You cannot get peace by giving a -mere legal definition to the status of a minority, which is also -necessarily your neighbour, and refusing a social action consonant with -the legal definition. If you try to do that you are trying to do two -things, one of which will destroy the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> other. No one can doubt which -will be victorious in a conflict between a living sentient motive and a -mere definition in public law.</p> - -<p>One attitude towards the question which I have heard fairly often in the -mouths of Jews and seen in their writings is something like this: "Our -affairs have nothing to do with people outside our nation. This -discussion of what you call 'the Jewish problem' is an impertinence upon -your part. There is a Jewish problem indeed, but it is a domestic -problem, and we request you (with some asperity) to mind your own -business."</p> - -<p>If this attitude were sound, the search for what I have called a -solution, though it might satisfy the intelligence, would be a breach of -civic morals. In the same way it would be a breach of civic morals for -me to work out a solution for the quarrel between Mr. Jones and his -mother-in-law, neither of whom I have ever met and with whom I have no -relations, and then to press this solution upon the contending parties. -But the flaw in this attitude is that the problem is essentially one -involving two parties, the Jews and the non-Jews. The problem we are -attempting to solve is a problem expressed in terms of both. Some would -even say that there is hardly a domestic question within the Jewish -nation which does not have its reaction upon society outside it, and -which it is not the business of that society outside to inquire into. -That would be pressing things rather far. But the main problem is -intimately concerned with both parties and as much with the one as with -the other. It is true, indeed, that the consequences of a false -solution, or of shirking the solution altogether, would be more acute -for the Jew than for us; but we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> should both suffer, and even on our -side the suffering would be grievous.</p> - -<p>Even if there were no question of suffering in the ordinary sense of the -term, there would still be the question of justice. The Jews who resent -a statement of the problem and an attempt at solving it are not doing -their own people any good and are at the same time denying us the right -of putting our own affairs in order, which denial is, of course, -intolerable: for the position of the Jews in our great States and in -Islamic society is something which those States and that society have to -determine. They cannot leave it in the air. To some conclusion they -<i>must</i> come, and soon, and on the nature of that conclusion depends -their peace.</p> - -<p>Two theories, proceeding from very different states of mind, the -opposite each of the other, but each exclusive of any solution, spring -from the root idea that there is something inexorably malignant in the -relations between the Jew and his surroundings. In the one form this -takes the shape of affirming that the unfortunate Jew is invariably -ill-treated by his wicked hosts and always will be so ill-treated. In -the other it takes the form of saying that the wicked Jew will always be -conspiring and trying to hurt his good, kind hosts and always will be so -conspiring. In either case it is no good trying to find a solution, for -it is affirmed that the quarrel is in the nature of things. People will -say to one, "Why attempt to change something which cannot be changed? -Why talk of your material as something other than what it is? Cats will -always quarrel with dogs, and if you want to avoid a quarrel the only -thing to do is to keep the dogs and cats of your household apart."</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span></p><p>It is precisely because I do not believe either form of this idea to be -true that I have sought for a solution. I do not believe either form of -doctrine to be true because the evidence is against it. That evidence is -to my hand and can be examined by my own unaided powers, as it can be -examined by any other person in our modern society. I cannot recollect -one single case in all the hundreds of Jews I have come across—not one -in the score whom I can count as intimates—who showed any sign of this -malignant hatred. I have heard many outbursts of exasperation which, -when we think of the past, are natural enough; but of some persistent -and evil desire to hurt those among whom they live, some instinctive -desire unconnected with past suffering, and acting as a sort of -instinct, I have seen no trace. If such were to be discovered in some -exceptional Jew out of a large acquaintance I should conclude that it -might be true of a small minority, but common sense and common -experience are sufficient to show that it does not affect the mass.</p> - -<p>Of the causes of friction, even of acute friction, which I have -enumerated in former pages, there is the habit of secrecy, there is the -mutual contempt, arising in each from a sense of superiority over the -other; there is the quarrel between what is national and what is -international, between what is of us and what is alien. There are, in a -word, plenty of elements suggesting accidental antagonism, but of -intrinsic antagonism there is no evidence—there is no evidence, I mean, -that the Jews would still desire to destroy a society in which they -found themselves at their ease.</p> - -<p>And, if we examine ourselves, we shall be equally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> convinced that there -is no corresponding desire upon our side to do a wrong to the Jew. We -also are exasperated by the memory of insult in moments of quarrel, of -international action opposing our national interests and of friction -between what is native and what is alien; but that is a very different -thing from permanent and necessary antagonism. I know very well what is -called "modern thought" gives to the unconscious part of man a large -place and reduces, as much as it can, the field of reason. I cannot -agree with it. It seems to me that man is essentially rational; and his -political relations can be arranged consonantly with his conscious -morals and his conscious logic.</p> - -<p>At any rate, if they cannot, there is an end of all statesmanship and of -all useful political action even in details.</p> - -<p>Next, there are the two converse attitudes towards the question which -certainly are affecting, the one an increasing audience upon our side -and the other perhaps an interested though but secret audience upon the -other; I mean those two converse theories whereby, on the one side, -there is the Messianic idea of the Jew ultimately controlling the world, -on the other an extreme dread of that idea and a belief that it is being -actively pursued to the destruction of our institutions and religion.</p> - -<p>I can understand that, with the traditions of his race behind him and -with the tone of their sacred writings in his ears, a Jew should lean in -some degree to such a conception, or at any rate that some Jews should -lean towards it. Certainly in face of the ridiculously exaggerated power -of the Jews in recent times (it is now declining, for secrecy was of its -essence and it has now been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> brought into the arena of open discussion) -it was natural that men should fall into the exaggeration of panic. They -saw the Jew, a tiny fraction of most communities, not more than a -twentieth of any community, exercising a power quite out of proportion -to his numbers or, indeed, to his ability; and they saw that power -directed towards ends which were Jewish ends and therefore hostile or -indifferent to the rest of mankind. But my reason for rejecting not only -exaggerations of this idea but its fundamental implication is that it -seems to me practically impossible. It connotes abilities upon the -Jewish side, a continuous will upon the Jewish side, both of which are -obviously absent. And you have only to look at history to see that long -before things come to anything like a struggle for supremacy it is the -Jew who suffers most from the suspicion of holding such a design, not -we. Indeed, that is one of the important elements in the dangerous -situation which has been created to-day.</p> - -<p>That large and greatly increasing body of men who so fear Jewish -domination, and are vigorously reacting against the Jews under the -influence of that fear, are much more likely to end with injustice to -the Jew than with subservience to him. It is from this atmosphere that -the great misfortunes of the past have arisen. It is of the essence of -any solution that this mood should be exorcised upon the one side as -upon the other.</p> - -<p>There is another theory which I have read of in more than one learned -Jewish treatise and which has been repeated (after Jewish authors -themselves had launched it) by many non-Jewish societies and historians, -to the effect that the very survival of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> the Jews, their very existence -as a separate community, was due to conditions common in the past, now -disappeared, and that therefore the present difficulties can safely be -left to time.</p> - -<p>This is, of course, to make the general assertion that the Jewish race -can be absorbed, and that absorption is the solution. That conclusion I -summarily rejected in the earlier pages of this book on the historical -ground that it has had the most favourable circumstances for success and -yet has always failed. But in the particular case stated it has an -argument of its own and one needing very special examination: it is -this:—</p> - -<p>Those who defend this theory tell us that however favourable the -opportunities for absorption were in the past they are nothing to the -opportunities of the present and the future, and that therefore the -argument from history fails. In the past (they tell us) the Jews were -exclusive and even made of their exclusiveness a religion. They on their -side mixed as little as possible with the world around them and we on -our side maintained that exclusion by an equal insistence upon the -difference between ourselves and them. We had in those days, it is -maintained, a religion based upon the Incarnation and therefore -abhorrent to the Jew; that religion is dead or dying, and with it the -tendency to exclusion from outside has disappeared; while on the Jewish -side there is also a great weakening of the old religious bond, less of -the old Messianic dogma, and on both sides the enormous melting-pot<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> -that makes for absorption with an intensity and rapidity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> quite unknown -in the past. It was one thing to absorb the Jew when it took a month to -go as an ordinary traveller from London to Rome, it is another thing -when it takes three days. It was one thing to absorb the Jew when in the -greater part of cases there was a bar to the mixing of the races, based -upon the nerves of religion, it is quite another thing to absorb the Jew -when those most powerful of emotional forces have disappeared—and so -forth.</p> - -<p>Now the reasons which bring me to reject this theory are two-fold.</p> - -<p>In the first place, I think it exaggerates the contrast between the past -and the present. In the second place, I know that in the actual world -before me and precisely under those conditions where the fusion, the -action of the "melting-pot," ought to be most complete, the most violent -reaction against absorption is to be observed.</p> - -<p>As to the contrast between the past and the present, I think it is based -upon an imperfect apprehension of what our past has been. It comes of -that "telescoping up" of history to which I alluded in another -connection in my second chapter.</p> - -<p>The long story of our race between the Roman occupation of Judæa and the -modern local and ephemeral industrial phase of the great modern towns is -not divided into two chapters, the strange past and the comprehensible -present. It is much of a muchness. The constant developments which -astonish us to-day in physical science, for instance, are not more -remarkable than the vast new developments in architecture and philosophy -which marked the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The disturbance of -thought which may be called "modern<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> scepticism" is not anything like so -important a spiritual change as that tremendous revolution which we call -the conversion of the Roman Empire. The area of scepticism is not larger -to-day than it has been in many special periods of the past. The feeling -of strong religious emotion which forbids this or that action is still -present among us, sometimes attached to its older objects, sometimes (as -in the craze for prohibition) to some novel object. The indifference -which you will find to the particular religious barrier between Jew and -non-Jew is not peculiar to our times. It has come and gone in the past; -after a wave of such indifference you have had a wave of the most acute -reaction, and I think you are observing a wave of such reaction to-day.</p> - -<p>Nor do I see how the rapidity of mere physical communications affects -the matter, nor even how the volume of emigration affects the matter. -You can get a million Jews from Lithuania to New York—a distance of -5,000 miles—in less time than you could get a million Jews from the -Valley of the Rhine into Poland some centuries ago; but the million Jews -seem to remain Jews just the same under modern conditions as they did in -the past. Indeed, the toleration of Jews, the friendly reception of -them, and therefore the opportunities for their absorption were -indefinitely greater in mediaeval Poland than they are in modern -America. It seems to me that the whole of this part of the argument is -based upon that prevalent view of history which comes from reading our -little modern text-books: and our little modern text-books are very -rubbishy. It is a view which comes from that absurd emphasis upon -whatever is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>contemporary. The modern advance of physical science is -regarded as having totally changed the world inwardly as well as -outwardly. We have only to look at the modern world and to compare it -with any <i>two</i> distant, special periods we know, to discover that the -difference between any pair of these three is equally striking. In many -ways the modern world is much more like the world of the Antonines than -it is like the world of Innocent the Great. In many ways the world of -Innocent the Great is much more like the Roman Empire than the modern -world. In many ways the world of Innocent the Great and our world have -more in common than either has with the pagan Roman Empire. The general -lesson is, therefore, that our time, with all its remarkable -specialities, is but one specimen out of a great number equally -individual, and certainly there is nothing in it either of religious -scepticism breaking down old religious barriers or of rapidity of -communication, or of any other fundamental factor, which specially -suggests the absorption of the Jew.</p> - -<p>For instance, the Jews mixed much more readily, on a much more equal -footing and with far less friction among the Mohammedans at particular -periods during the Islamic occupation of Spain than they do even in -England to-day. Yet they were not absorbed there, any more than they -were absorbed in Poland. They were not absorbed into that older, -tolerant, very denationalized pagan Roman world where they so often had -full civic rights and where they even manipulated, as they manipulate -to-day, the finances of the community.</p> - -<p>As for the decay of exclusiveness on their part, I see no sign of it. -For this exclusiveness proceeds<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> not so much from a particular -observance which may relax at one period and tighten up at another, as -from an invariable national tradition which fluctuates in intensity but -never sinks so low as to jeopardize the continuance of the people.</p> - -<p>If we turn from argument to observation, the falsity of the theory -stares us in the face. We have but to take one point, where the metaphor -of the "melting-pot" most applies (and to which it was originally -applied), the city of New York. What has been the effect of this great -influx of Jews into New York, this turning of New York into a city a -third Jewish under our eyes and in so short a space of time? As we all -know, the effect has been the uprising, in that once indifferent -atmosphere, of such a feeling against the Jews as would appal us did we -see it in the Old World. It is red hot. It is an intense reaction -expressing itself with greater and greater violence every day; and the -spirit of that reaction cannot be better expressed than in a phrase -which we owe, I think, to Mr. Ford and his famous propaganda against the -Jews, through his paper the "Dearborn Independent." "It is all very well -to talk of the melting-pot," says he, "but so far from the Jews melting -in that pot, <i>it looks as though they wanted to melt the pot itself</i>."</p> - -<p>There you have, in New York, if anywhere, an opportunity for the theory -of absorption to prove itself. You have present in the field a score of -different races, including great masses of a race so utterly different -from ours as the negro. You have a certain small proportion of Chinamen -and you have of European stocks an indefinite variety—most of them in -large numbers. You have not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> only in local establishments or even only -in civic theory, but in actual practice—in enthusiastic practice—a -complete equality and a positive pride in the reception of no matter -what elements of immigration, in the certitude that all can rapidly be -moulded into the American form. Most of these elements were absorbed, -and absorbed rapidly; where they were not absorbed there was at least -peace between them. Then arrives the Jew and a totally new situation at -once appears. A situation of challenge, of provocation, of admitted -exclusion, of violent debate and even of clamour: but no sign of -absorption. In presence of all the elements that should make for -absorption, difference and hatred between Jew and non-Jew is growing in -New York with the vitality of a tropical plant.</p> - -<p>There is yet another theory which, if it were not widely held and if it -had not been advanced by so many Jews themselves, I should leave aside -as something comic, something unfit for serious discussion. But it has -been advanced and it must be met. It is no less than the theory that -there are no such people as the Jews, that the whole thing is illusion.</p> - -<p>This monstrous affirmation is based, I need hardly say, upon what is -called a "scientific" examination of the affair: for that word -"scientific" has come to be associated with every kind of unreason. Men, -especially Jewish men, have been found to affirm most solemnly that they -had measured skulls, taken sections of hair, catalogued the colours of -eyes, established facial angles, analysed blood, and applied I know not -how many other tricks, with the result that no Jewish type could be -discovered! People who can reason thus do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> not seem to appreciate the -fundamental quarrel between nominalism and realism, or to have heard of -the old philosophic joke on the definition of "a thing."</p> - -<p>We know a horse to be a horse, an apple to be an apple, a Chinaman to be -a Chinaman, or a Jew to be a Jew by some process on which philosophers -can debate, but upon the virtue of which no sane man doubts and upon the -right action of which we base all our lives. The chemist may tell me -that the chemical analysis of a lump of coal gives the same result as -the chemical analysis of a diamond, to which any man capable of using -his reason at all will reply that upon a very large number of other -lines of analysis, colour, touch, combustibility, hardness and softness, -economic value, prevalence (and so on indefinitely), the two are <i>not</i> -the same. No analysis is complete, and if we had made no conscious -analysis at all, we could still perceive at once that a lump of coal is -not a diamond.</p> - -<p>It is just the same with these pseudo-scientific attempts to disprove -obvious truth. They pullulate and they are all equally ridiculous -because they deduce from insufficient data. The existence and -differentiation of the Jewish people as a race ethnically and as a -nation politically is as much a fact as the existence of coal or -diamonds. They are a nation politically because they act as a nation, -because their individual members feel and exercise a corporate function. -We know them to be a separate race because we can see that they are. -When you meet a Jew, whether you are his enemy or his friend, you meet a -Jew. He has a certain expression, a certain manner, certain physical -characteristics which you may not be able to analyse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> at the moment you -see him, but which give you the impression and the certitude that you -are dealing with a particular thing, to wit, the Jewish race. It is -true, of course, that the type, like all general types, fades off at the -edges, and there will always be cases where you may be in doubt of -whether you are dealing with a Jew or with a non-Jew, but there is a -marked central type round which the Jewish racial type is built up. That -is as certain as that there is a Mongolian type, or a negroid type, and -so forth.</p> - -<p>I do not take the objection very seriously. I only note it because it -<i>has</i> been made, and may crop up in the course of any discussion on this -grave political issue.</p> - -<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> I borrow the metaphor from Mr. Zangwill, who applied it to -New York particularly. I apply it to the whole modern industrial world.</p></div></div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span></p> - -<p class="bold2">HABIT OR LAW?</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span></p> - -<h2><span>CHAPTER XV</span> <span class="smaller">HABIT OR LAW?</span></h2> - -<p>If it be true that the friction between the Jew and the civilization in -which he lives is aggravated by his habit of secrecy and by our -disingenuousness, by his expression of a sense of superiority which -galls us, and on our side by a lack of charity and of intelligence in -dealing with him, it would follow that no solution can be more than -approximate: that whatever arrangement be come to the contrast will -remain, and with it a certain latent friction, which always accompanies -contrast.</p> - -<p>But there is between a simmering of that kind and the active boiling of -the question to-day (with the threat of its boiling <i>over</i>) all the -difference in the world. But even though the solution be imperfect, it -might be reasonably stable: we might at least have peace, though not -friendship. It further follows from the elements of the problem that the -solution lies along the lines of either party modifying whatever in its -action is an irritant to the other; whatever, that is, can be modified -by the will, and is not mixed up with something ineradicable.</p> - -<p>The Jew cannot help feeling superior, but he can help the expression of -that superiority—at any rate he can modify such expression. He can -certainly, though it be at a great expense of tradition<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> and habit, get -rid of that pestilent pseudo-defence of secrecy which poisons all the -relations between him and ourselves. We on our side can drop what is the -converse of that secrecy, the disingenuousness, the lack of candour, -into which we are fallen in our relations with the Jew. That cannot but -mean a great breach with our tradition and with habit also, but the -advantage is worth the sacrifice. We can (it must be the work of each -individual, it cannot be a corporate work) approach the Jew with more -respect and yet with more frequency. We can, I think, advance by many -degrees from the lack of charity we now show, even if we despair of -living in real intimacy with a people so different in their deepest -qualities from ourselves.</p> - -<p>Personally, I am not sure that such closer intimacy might not be -established; I have never found any difficulty in reaching and retaining -intimate acquaintance with the Jews of my own circle—but I may have -been fortunate. I know that with most of my fellows it is not so, and -perhaps the Jew will always remain to the mass of those about him -something strange and unapproachable, and I fear, repulsive. But there -is no reason, why we should mix with that hesitation in our relations an -element of indifference, still less of contempt, still less, again, of -cruelty.</p> - -<p>I repeat the formula for a solution: it is recognition and respect.</p> - -<p>Recognition is here no more than the telling of the truth: there is a -Jewish nation. Jews are citizens of that nation; and recognition means -not only the telling of this truth on special occasions but the use of -it as a regular habit in our relations on both sides.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span></p><p>This statement is, upon any just analysis of the Jewish question, so -obvious and so simple, that it needs neither insistence upon it nor -development. Its plain statement is sufficient. But there attaches to a -solution so determined a much more active and complicated question, upon -the uncertainty of which not only this reform but many another has made -shipwreck. The question must be answered rightly, because, if we answer -it wrongly, the whole scheme fails.</p> - -<p>The question is this: Should the social habit, the general method in -writing and speaking and in all relations, precede in this case the -institutional action, legal changes, constitutional definitions? Or -should the legal changes, the new institutions, the constitutional -definitions come first?</p> - -<p>To decide rightly is of great moment, for this reason, that a wrong -decision may destroy all the effect of goodwill.</p> - -<p>In my judgment the wrong decision would be that which would give -precedence to legal change, to new definitions, to new institutions, and -attempt out of them to build a new spirit. I take it that this reversal -of the true order would make all stable peace impossible.</p> - -<p>It must be admitted, of course, that changes suggested by the Jews -themselves, the development of their own institutions, a voluntary -segregation of their community in other fields than those in which they -have already effected that segregation, stand in another category. These -new and definitely Jewish institutions we should always welcome. But the -attempt at framing public regulations, which are to defend the community -as a whole against an alien minority, when that minority must<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> live with -one permanently and as a regular feature of the life of the community, -invariably tends to oppression, if such regulations are made the first -steps in a settlement instead of being left, as they should be, to the -last. Any separatist legislation should arise naturally out of a long -practice and full recognition of the Jews as a separate people and of -the accompaniment of that recognition with respect. If the advance is -made on our side, the Jew may refuse any such bargain. He may dig his -heels in and insist, as many another privileged class has insisted -before him, that he will continue to enjoy all that he has ever enjoyed, -that he will continue his demand for a dual allegiance, that he will -insist on the very fullest recognition as a Jew, and at the same time on -what is fatal to such recognition, the fullest recognition as a member -of our own community.</p> - -<p>If he does <i>that</i> (and there are those who tell us he will certainly do -so, and will refuse all reform), then the community will be compelled to -legislate in spite of him. It will be perilous for him and for us; it -may even be the beginning of grievous trouble for both, but it will be -inevitable. It will appear in a mass of legislation all over Europe, -which will affect this country with the rest.</p> - -<p>The present situation cannot last indefinitely. It is already uncertain -even here, in England; it has reached further stages on the road to ruin -elsewhere. But if the Jew sees the peril in time, and appreciates the -nature of that change, the beginnings of which we have all seen and -which is proceeding at so great a pace, then relations can be -established out of which (later) formal rules, acceptable to both -parties, should proceed. And in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> that case it would be, I repeat, the -gravest of errors to initiate new positive laws and a new status before -a foundation had been prepared by the re-establishment of honest -relations; and that can only be done by a frank admission of reality, by -the open and continual admission everywhere that Israel is a nation -apart, is not, and cannot be, of us, and shall not be confounded with -ourselves.</p> - -<p>There is great temptation to delay, because the acuteness of the problem -is not felt here as yet, among the well-to-do, and still more because it -differs in different communities. The peril seems still far distant from -us, though it may be at the very door of our neighbours. Routine, the -inheritance of the immediate past, the false security produced by the -conventions of that past, may well tempt those who dislike the effort of -a change to shirk that change. But I would ask any intelligent and -thoughtful Jew who still thinks he can rely upon the false position of -the nineteenth century whether the same forces are there to support him -to-day as were present then?</p> - -<p>Take a particular example. In Poland and in Roumania the old fiction has -been temporarily imposed by force. The Jew, who in both these countries -is felt to be more alien than any other foreign European could be, is -imposed upon the Government and society of each country by the Western -Governments as a full citizen. The strain here is immensely aggravated -because it arose not from the nature of society but from the action of -outsiders; the English, the French, the American Governments (but -particularly the American and the English) have erected in Eastern -Europe this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> unstable, unjust and artificial state of affairs. It cannot -last, for it is unreal.</p> - -<p>The communities in question may make no laws which recognize the Jew; -alternatively, the door is open for oppression: and the moment the hated -foreign interference weakens, oppression will come.</p> - -<p>Well, when under the pressure of a real social difficulty and a crucial -one, the unreal settlement is torn up, by the passing of new laws -recognizing the Jew (but harshly, and under no agreement with him) or by -actual hostility, does the Jew in his heart of hearts think that he -would have the same support from the West now as he would have had -thirty years ago? He knows very well he would not.</p> - -<p>Thirty years ago you would have got from all the traditional Liberalism -of France, from the great bulk of its governing class and the whole of -its academic organization, from what was then the solid and still -respected body of old Republicans, an immediate answer to the Jewish -appeal. In England that answer would have been unanimous and -enthusiastic. You would have had torrents of leading articles, great -public meetings, Cabinet Ministers speechifying all over the place in -the sacred cause of toleration. Every one knows that to-day the appeal -of the Eastern Jews, though it might still be supported officially, -would be received by the public with indifference. Ten years hence it -may be received with derision.</p> - -<p>Or take another example. Let us suppose—it is highly probable—that the -Zionist experiment breaks down, that Englishmen refuse to have their -soldiers' lives risked in a quarrel which is not their own and refuse to -support out of their inordinate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> taxation a top-heavy colony which gives -them no advantage and concerns them not at all. On the breakdown of that -experiment, should it come soon, would there still be the support for -its re-establishment that you would have had even ten years ago? There -certainly would not. Ten years hence it is probable enough that you -would get, not indifference to such re-establishment, but the most -active hostility. All over the world the stream has turned in the same -direction.</p> - -<p>Unfortunately the effect of that change has been to excite hatred rather -than a desire for a settlement and to move men towards blind action -rather than towards a reasoned examination of the difficulty. That is -why the thing seems to me urgent, although there are still large areas -of Western society in which its urgency is masked and half forgotten.</p> - -<p>When I say "<i>urgent</i>" I mean that this my essay, which is to-day still -to the point, and the solution recommended in which is still feasible, -may very well, within the lifetime of its writer, become old-fashioned -out of all recognition. The peaceful settlement here proposed with -deliberate vagueness and softness of outline may seem in a few years as -out of date, as unreal through the intervening change, as do to-day the -old tags about the purity of parliamentary life and the seriousness of -party politics.</p> - -<p>My solution may appear at the end of this generation as mildly -inapplicable to the acute situation <i>then</i> arisen between the Jews and -ourselves as appear to-day the old debates on the very tentative demand -for Home Rule in the '80's. Let us act as soon as possible and settle -the thing while there is yet time. For in the swirl and rapids of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> -modern world, which grow not less as towards a calm, but more intense as -towards a cataract, every great debate takes on with every year a -stronger form, a nearer approach to conflict; and none more than the -immemorial debate, still unconcluded, between Islam and Christendom and -the Beni-Israel.</p> - -<p>But for my part, I say, "Peace be to Israel."</p> - -<p class="center space-above"><i>Printed in Great Britain by</i> Butler & Tanner, <i>Frome and London</i>.</p> - -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<hr class="full" /> -<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JEWS***</p> -<p>******* This file should be named 50556-h.htm or 50556-h.zip *******</p> -<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/5/0/5/5/50556">http://www.gutenberg.org/5/0/5/5/50556</a></p> -<p> -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed.</p> - -<p>Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition.</p> - -<p>Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org</p> - -<p>This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.</p> - -</body> -</html> - diff --git a/old/50556-h/images/cover.jpg b/old/50556-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index dafb06c..0000000 --- a/old/50556-h/images/cover.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/50556-h/images/hebrewtext.jpg b/old/50556-h/images/hebrewtext.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 7adb4b6..0000000 --- a/old/50556-h/images/hebrewtext.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/50556.txt b/old/50556.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 4d0315f..0000000 --- a/old/50556.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8480 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Jews, by Hilaire Belloc - - -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 at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - - -Title: The Jews - - -Author: Hilaire Belloc - - - -Release Date: November 26, 2015 [eBook #50556] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JEWS*** - - -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) - - - -Note: Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive/American Libraries. See - https://archive.org/details/jewsbelloc00bellrich - - - - - -THE JEWS - - - * * * * * * - -_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_: - - -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. - - * * * * * * - - -THE JEWS - -by - -HILAIRE BELLOC - -[Illustration: Hebrew text] - - - - - -Constable & Company, Limited -London Bombay Sydney - -First Published 1922 -Second Impression 1922 - - -To - -MISS RUBY GOLDSMITH - -MY SECRETARY FOR MANY YEARS AT KING'S -LAND AND THE BEST AND MOST INTIMATE OF -OUR JEWISH FRIENDS, TO WHOM MY -FAMILY AND I WILL ALWAYS OWE -A DEEP DEBT OF GRATITUDE - - - - -PREFACE - - -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 that _concealment_ must 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 it is 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 question to-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. - - - - -CONTENTS - - PAGE -CHAPTER I - -THE THESIS OF THIS BOOK 3 - -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 called _Recognition_. 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. - - -CHAPTER II - -THE DENIAL OF THE PROBLEM 17 - -In the immediate past the problem was shirked in -Western Europe by a mere denial of its existence--some -were 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. - - -CHAPTER III - -THE PRESENT PHASE OF THE PROBLEM 43 - -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 was -bound 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. - - -CHAPTER IV - -THE GENERAL CAUSES OF FRICTION 69 - -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 those _general_ which are ineradicable and -proceed from the contrasting natures of the two races, -_particular_ those 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. - - -CHAPTER V - -THE SPECIAL CAUSES OF FRICTION 99 - -I have called "Special" causes of Friction those -which 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. - - -CHAPTER VI - -THE CAUSE OF FRICTION UPON OUR SIDE 123 - -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 is _disingenuousness_ -in 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--unintelligence -in 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 -from _his_ side--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. - - -CHAPTER VII - -THE ANTI-SEMITE 145 - -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 -of _documentation_--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 accumulating _facts_--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. - - -CHAPTER VIII - -BOLSHEVISM 167 - -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) "_a_ Jewish movement, _but not a movement -of 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 cannot _directly_ attack 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. - - -CHAPTER IX - -THE POSITION IN THE WORLD AS A WHOLE 189 - -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. - - -CHAPTER X - -THE POSITION OF THE JEWS IN ENGLAND 215 - -England has gone to both extremes with the Jew. -The Jew in the Roman time and in the Middle Ages--his -monopoly of Usury in _early_ Middle 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. - - -CHAPTER XI - -ZIONISM 231 - -The chief interest of the Zionist experiment lies in its -reaction upon the _international_ position of the Jew--yet -that point is not yet discussed--what will be the -effect of the experiment on the position of Jews _outside_ -Palestine, 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. - - -CHAPTER XII - -OUR DUTY 249 - -This but a consequence of the conditions established in -Chapters IV, V and VI--our double duty of mixing with -the Jews and of recognizing their separate nationality--necessity -of _openly_ admitting 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 -of _Fear_ in 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. - - -CHAPTER XIII - -THEIR DUTY 271 - -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. - - -CHAPTER XIV - -VARIOUS THEORIES 277 - -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 necessary _flux_ of -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 enemy -of our innocent selves, and of our malignant enmity -against the innocent and martyred Jew--both erroneous. - -The theory that the Jewish problem is _now_ solving -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! - - -CHAPTER XV - -CONCLUSION. HABIT OR LAW? 301 - -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 on _our_ side 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 - - - - -CHAPTER I - -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 by an 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 word _recognition_. - -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 of mere 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 centuries that -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, -there are 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 equally unfailing -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 200 B.C. to 200 A.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 the _a priori_ -reasoning, 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, and -_equally openly to admit the necessary limitations imposed by that -expression_; if we on 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 such -violent 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 the _second_ -policy. 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 lead to 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 - - - - -CHAPTER II - -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 ignorance of 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 a _majority_ by the use of Western arms. - -Both actions were the consequence of that confused position I have just -defined (history will call it the _last_ example), which, though much -weakened in public opinion, was still honestly taken for granted by -_some_ of the Parliamentarians who framed the Treaty, and was certainly -felt to be of personal advantage to _all_: 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, the -_official_ political 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 was _not_ a religious but a -national one. Nevertheless (they said) it was necessary _to-day_ to mask -that problem by a fiction and to _pretend_ that 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 if _they_ desired -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 glaring and 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 reluctantly reject 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. -Any treatment 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 L100,000 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 historical perspective -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 what _he_ at any rate has always known to be a very -grave problem indeed. For the 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 of _justice_. 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, an Italian, 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 was _security_; 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 a -_nation_!" 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 point of 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 admit _baptized_ Jews, 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 the word "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 by the privileges they granted him; yet it was always -their policy to admit _citizenship_ as 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 the wealthier 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. - -With the growth of plutocracy the anomaly of treating Jews as -individuals separate from the rest of the community increased. The most -important men in control of international finance were admittedly -Jewish. The Jew's international position made him always useful and -often necessary in the vast international economic undertakings of our -time. The anonymity which had come to be taken for granted throughout -modern capitalism made it seem absurd or impossible, always highly -unusual, and probably futile, to search for a separate Jewish element in -any particular undertaking. - -There is one last argument for this Liberal policy, which has a strong -practical value, though it is exceedingly dangerous to use it in the -defence of that policy because it cuts both ways. It is the argument -that the Jew ought to be thus treated as a citizen exactly like the rest -and given no position either of privilege or disability, because he -does, as a fact, mould himself so very rapidly to his environment. - -When men say--as they are beginning to do--that a Jew is as different -from ourselves as a Chinaman, or a negro, or an Esquimaux, and ought -therefore to be treated as belonging to a separate body from our own, -the answer is that the Jew is nothing of the kind. Indeed, he becomes, -after a short sojourn among Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans or Americans, -so like his hosts on the surface that he is, to many, indistinguishable -from them; and that is one of the main facts in the problem. - -That is the real reason why to the majority of the middle classes in the -nineteenth century, in Western countries, the Jewish problem was -nonexistent. Were you to say it of any other race--negroes, for -instance, or Chinamen--it would sound incredible; but we know it in -practice to be true, that a Jew will pass his life in, say, three -different communities in turn, _and in each the people who have met him -will testify that he seemed just like themselves_. - -I have known a case in point which would amuse my non-Jewish readers but -perhaps offend my Jewish readers were I to present it in detail. I shall -cite it therefore without names, because I desire throughout this book -to keep to the rule whereby alone it can be of service, that nothing -offensive to either party shall be introduced; but it is typical and can -be matched in the experience of many. - -The case was that of the father of a man in English public life. He -began life with a German name in Hamburg. He was a patriotic citizen of -that free city, highly respected and in every way a Hamburger, and the -Hamburg men of that generation still talk of him as one of themselves. - -He drifted to Paris before the Franco-German War, and, there, was an -active Parisian, familiar with the life of the Boulevards and full of -energy in every patriotic and characteristically French pursuit; notably -he helped to recruit men during the national catastrophe of 1870-71. -Everybody who met him in this phase of his life thought of him and -talked of him as a Frenchman. - -Deciding that the future of France was doubtful after such a defeat, he -migrated to the United States, and there died. Though a man of some -years when he landed, he soon appeared in the eyes of the Americans with -whom he associated to be an American just like themselves. He acquired -the American accent, the American manner, the freedom and the restraints -of that manner. In every way he was a characteristic American. - -In Hamburg his German name had been pronounced after the German fashion. -In France, where German names are common, he retained it, but had it -pronounced in French fashion. On reaching the United States it was -changed to a Scotch name which it distantly resembled, and no doubt if -he had gone to Japan the Japanese would be telling us that they had -known him as a worthy Japanese gentleman of great activity in national -affairs and bearing the honoured name of an ancient Samurai family. - -The nineteenth century attitude almost entirely depended upon this -marvellous characteristic in the Jews which differentiates them from all -the rest of mankind. Had that characteristic power of superficial -mutation been absent, the nineteenth century policy would have broken -down as completely as the corresponding Northern policy towards the -negro broke down in the United States. Had the Jew been as conspicuous -among us, as, say, a white man is among Kaffirs, the fiction would have -broken down at once. As it was, all who adopted that policy, honestly or -dishonestly, were supported by this power of the Jew to conform -externally to his temporary surroundings. - -The man who consciously adopted the nineteenth century Liberal policy -towards the Jews as a mere political scheme, knowing full well the -dangers it might develop; the man only half conscious of the existence -of those dangers; and the man who had never heard of them but took it -for granted that the Jew was a citizen just like himself, with an -exceptional religion--each of those three men had in common, aiding the -schemes of the one, supporting the illusion of the other, the amazing -fact that a Jew takes on with inexplicable rapidity the colour of his -environment. That unique characteristic was the support of the Liberal -attitude and was at the same time its necessary condition. - -The fiction that a man of obviously different type and culture and race -is the same as ourselves, may be practical for purposes of law and -government, but cannot be maintained in general opinion. A conspiracy or -illusion attempting, for instance, to establish the Esquimaux in -Greenland as indistinguishable from the Danish officials of the -Settlement, would fail through ridicule. Equally ridiculous would be the -pretence that because they were both subjects of the same Crown an -Englishman in the Civil Service of India was exactly the same sort of -person as a Sikh soldier. But with the Jews you have the startling truth -that, while the fundamental difference goes on the whole time and is -perhaps deeper than any other of the differences separating mankind into -groups; while he is, within, and through all his ultimate character, -above all things a Jew; yet in the superficial and most immediately -apparent things he is clothed in the very habit of whatever society he -for the moment inhabits. - -I say that this might seem to many the last and strongest argument in -favour of the old-fashioned Liberal policy, but I repeat that it is a -dangerous argument, for it cuts both ways. If a food which disagrees -with you looks exactly like another kind of food which suits you, you -might use the likeness as an argument for eating either sort of food -indifferently. You might say: "It is silly to try to distinguish; one -must admit, on looking at them, that they are the same thing"; but it -would turn out after dinner a very bad practical policy. - -There is indeed one last argument which to me, personally, and I suppose -to most of my readers, is stronger than all the rest, for it is the -argument from morals. - -If the Liberal attitude of the nineteenth century had proved a stable -one, omitting that element in it which is a falsehood and therefore a -factor of instability, one could retain the rest; _then_ it would -satisfy two appetites common to all men--appetite for justice and the -appetite for charity. - -Here is a man, a neighbour present in the midst of my society. I put him -to inconvenience if I treat him as an alien. I like him; I regard him as -a friend. To treat such a man as though he were, although a friend, -something separate, not to be admitted to certain functions of my -community, offends the heart, as it also offends the sense of justice. -Such a man may possess a great talent for, say, administration. Like all -men possessed of a great talent, he must exercise it. You maim him if -you do not allow him to exercise it. A rule forbidding him to take part -in the administration of the society in which he finds himself, or even -a feeling hindering him in such activities, creates, not only in him, -but in those who are his hosts, a sense of injustice; and if it were -possible to adopt a policy wherein the separate character of the Jew -should be always in abeyance, so that he could be at the same time an -Englishman and yet not an Englishman, or a Frenchman and yet not a -Frenchman, then we should have a settlement which all good men ought to -accept. - -Unfortunately that solution is false because, like many appeals to a -virtuous instinct, it is sentimental. We call "sentimental" a policy or -theory which attempts to reconcile contradictions. The sentimental man -will equally abhor crime and its necessary punishment; disorder and an -organized police. He likes to think of human life as though it did not -come to an end. He likes to read of the passion of love without its -concomitant of sexual conflict. He likes to read and think of great -fortunes accumulated without avarice, cunning or theft. He likes to -imagine an impossible world of mutually exclusive things. It makes him -comfortable. - -Now we commit the fault of the sentimental man (the gravest of practical -faults in politics) when we cling at this late date to a continuance of -the old policy. You cannot have your cake and eat it too, you cannot at -the same time have present in the world this ubiquitous fluid, yet -closely organized Jewish community, and _at the same time_ each of the -individuals composing it treated as though they were _not_ members of -the nation which makes them all they are. You cannot at the same time -treat a whole as one thing and its component parts as another. If you -do, you are building on contradiction and you will, like everybody who -builds on contradiction, run up against disaster. - - * * * * * - -I am minded to give the reader another anecdote (again taking care, I -hope, to suppress all names and dates to prevent identification, which -might irritate my Jewish readers or too greatly interest their -opponents). As a younger man it was my constant pastime to linger at the -bar of the House of Lords and listen to what went on there. I shall -always remember one occasion when an aged Jew, who had begun life in -very humble circumstances, had accumulated a great fortune and had -purchased his peerage like any other, rose to speak in connection with a -resolution or with a bill dealing with "aliens"--the hypocrisy of the -politician, and the popular ferment against the rush of Jewish -immigrants into the East End between them gave rise to that -non-committal name. This old gentleman very rightly pushed all such -humbug aside. He knew perfectly well that the policy was aimed at "his -people"--and he called them "my people." He knew perfectly well that the -proposed change would introduce interference with their movement and -would subject them to humiliation. He spoke with flaming patriotism, -and I was enthralled by the intensity, vigour and sincerity of his -appeal. It was a very fine performance and, incidentally (considering -what the man was!), it illustrated the vast difference between his -people and my own. For a life devoted to accumulating wealth, which -would have killed nobler instincts in any one of us, had evidently -seemed to him quite normal and left him with every appetite of justice -and of love of nation unimpaired. He clinched that fine speech with the -cry, "What our people want is to be let alone." He said it over and over -again. I am sure that in the audience which listened to him, all the -older men felt a responsive echo to that appeal. It was the very -doctrine in which they had been brought up and the very note of the -great Victorian Liberal era, with its national triumphs in commerce and -in arms. - -Well, within a very few years the younger members of that very man's -family came out in Parliamentary scandal after scandal, appearing all in -sequence one after the other--a sort of procession. They had been let -alone right enough! But they had not let _us_ alone. I ask myself, -sometimes, How would it sound if some years hence any one of those -descendants--having by that time been given his peerage (for they are -rich men and all of them in professional politics)--should return to -that cry of his ancestor and ask to be "let alone"? There would be no -response _then_ in the breasts of the contemporaries who might hear him. -Manners will so much have changed in this regard that he would be -interrupted. But I do not think that my hypothetical descendant of that -rich old Jew is likely to make any such speech. I think that when the -time comes for making it, the whole idea of "letting alone" will be -quite dead. - -I have quoted this old man's speech with no invidious intention but only -as an actual example of the way in which the "letting alone" of this -great question breaks down. I am as familiar as any Jewish reader of -mine with names that have dignified public life in the past, Jewish -names, Jewish peers: and I recall in particular the honoured name of -Lord Herschell to the friendship between whose nearest and my own I -preserve a grateful and sacred memory. - - * * * * * - -But to return to the failure of the sentimental argument. - -The sentimental argument fails because it involves contradictions--that -is, incompatibility of fact. - -Even if one had not this strictly rational principle to guide one, there -is the whole of history to guide one. It is true that the pretence of -common citizenship has worked now for a shorter, now for a longer, -period, but never indefinitely. You always come at last to a smash. The -Jew is welcomed in mediaeval Poland; he comes in vast numbers; all goes -well. Then the inevitable happens and the Jew and the Pole stand apart -as enemies, each accusing the other of injustice, the one crying out -that he is persecuted, the other that the State is in danger by alien -activity within. Spain alternatively pursued this policy, and its -opposite; the whole history of Spain--the original seat of Jewish -influence in Europe after the general exile--is a history of alternating -attempts at the sentimental solution and a savage reaction against it: -the reaction of the man, who, fighting for his life, strikes out -violently in terror of death. That is the history not only of Spain but -of every other country at one time or another. - -Indeed, we have before our very eyes to-day the beginning of exactly -such a reaction in the West of Europe and the United States of America, -and it is the presence of that reaction which has caused this book to be -written. The attempt at a Liberal solution has already failed in our -hands; if it had not failed there would be no more to be said, or, at -any rate, we could postpone the discussion until the actual difficulty -began. But we have only to look around us to see that, after these few -years, this one lifetime, during which the experiment has flourished in -the highest part of civilization, it is already breaking down. -Everywhere the old questions are being asked, everywhere the old -complaints are being raised, everywhere the old perils are reappearing. -We must seek some solution, for if we fail to find it we know from the -past what tragedies are in store for us both. There is a problem, a most -direct and urgent problem. Once it is recognized, a solution of it is -necessarily demanded. - -But it is not enough to show that the mere denial of the existence of -that problem--the old nineteenth century Liberal policy--was false and -bound to break down. It is just as necessary, if we appreciate how -practical and immediate the problem is, to state it and illustrate it -from contemporary events. It is not enough to show that the attempted -Liberal policy has failed. One must also, before trying to discover a -solution, analyse the nature of the problem as it presents itself at the -moment, and that is what I propose to do in the next chapter. - - -THE PRESENT PHASE OF THE PROBLEM - - - - -CHAPTER III - -THE PRESENT PHASE OF THE PROBLEM - - -I said in my last that the old solution of ignoring or denying the -Jewish problem was bound to break down and had broken down, and this was -tantamount to saying that the problem persists. But I said one must go -farther and state the full nature of that problem as it stands at this -moment before one could attempt a practical solution. - -It is not enough to say that a person who imagines himself immortal and -immune from disease is, as a fact, dangerously ill, and that the -break-down of his health has disproved his theory. One must go on to -find out exactly what is the matter with him, and, if possible, what the -cure for the trouble may be. - -The Jewish problem in its larger sense I have defined in the first -chapter of this book, and that as I think every one defines it, -including all the many Jews who have discussed the matter. It is the -presence within one political organism of another political organism at -friction with it: the strains set up by such an unnatural state of -affairs; the risk of disaster to the lesser body and of hurt to both if -it remain unremedied. The true solution therefore is only to be -discovered in some policy which will permanently relieve the strain and -re-establish normal relations. The end of such a solution should be the -functioning, as far as possible, of both parties, at their ease and -without disturbance one to the other. - -But this general statement of the problem--that it is the presence to -each party of an alien body and the consequent irritation and friction -on each--is not enough. We must pursue it more closely and develop it in -greater detail, describing how the friction and the irritation are -increasing: insisting that they have even become a menace. Then only can -we set out to discover as far as possible by analysis what exact -character the disease bears and why it is of this character. Only after -all this can we explore a remedy. - -When we look round the modern world, say the last twenty years, we -discover, in widely separate places, and among very different interests, -and inhabiting the most diverse characters, the presence of what is for -many a new political feeling: it runs from irritation to exasperation, -from grumbling to invective; it is everywhere directed against the Jews. -One activity after another, in which the Jews are variously in the right -or in the wrong, or indifferent, has aroused hostility in varying -degrees--but increasing--and though the danger-spots are still, as I -have said, dissociated in the main, yet they are beginning to coalesce -and to form large areas inimical to Israel. - -It is objected of the Jew in finance, in industry, in commerce--where he -is ubiquitous and powerful out of all proportion to his numbers--that he -seeks, and has already almost reached, dominion. It is objected that he -acts everywhere against the interests of his hosts; that these are being -interfered with, guided, run against their will; that a power is -present which acts either with indifference to what we love or in active -opposition to what we love. Notably is it said to be indifferent to, or -in active opposition against, our national feelings, our religious -traditions, and the general culture and morals of Christendom which we -have inherited and desire to preserve: that power is Israel. - -These feelings grew as one example after another of the Jewish strength, -the Jewish cohesion, arrived to feed them. How violent they were to -become might be seen by taking as a special example their extreme form, -called "Anti-Semitism." When we come, later in this book, to examine -that modern phenomenon, we shall find it to be not only a proof of the -insistence and gravity of the problem we are trying to solve, but also -some explanation of its nature. - -Upon a world thus already exasperated, and in some large sections -exasperated to the point of unreason--for the anti-Semitic drive was, -and is, full of unreason--there suddenly fell the double effect of the -Bolshevist revolution: a revolution which struck both at the benevolent -who would hear no harm of the Jews, and those who had hitherto shielded -or obeyed them as identified only with the interests of large Capital. -It was a blow in flank under which staggered both the supporters of -Jewish neutrality and the dependants upon Jewish finance. - -The old Liberal policy still officially held the field; but when this -shattering explosion came it compelled attention. Bolshevism stated the -Jewish problem with a violence and an insistence such that it could no -longer be denied either by the blindest fanatic or the most resolute -liar. - -Such was, in its largest lines, the recent historical sequence leading -up to the state of affairs we now find. Let us trace that sequence in -more detail and from a little farther back. - -A lifetime ago, when the Liberal policy was founded and when conditions -were favourable to its establishment, the populace might still nourish -its traditional antagonism to the Jew, but in the West of Europe his -numbers were very limited (only a few thousand in France and England -combined, and hardly as many in Italy). - -He belonged for the most part to the classes that did not come into -direct competition with the poor of the large towns. From the -countrysides he was absent. He had not attempted to govern his hosts as -a politician, nor, in any large measure, to indoctrinate them through -the Press. The rapid decline of religion at that time broke down one -barrier, and the transformation of the governing classes from the old -territorial Lords to the modern plutocracy broke down another. The -convention that the Jew was indistinguishable from the citizens of the -country in which he happened to live, or, at any rate, from that in -which he had last lived, was further fostered by the break-up of that -cosmopolitan aristocratic society which had marked the eighteenth -century, and which could note and register the movements of prominent -individuals from nation to nation. The new industrial fortunes and the -new international finance both contributed to the same end, while the -Jew also began to compete successfully in every one of the liberal -professions without as yet dominating any of them. No conflicts had -arisen between the Jewish race and the national interests of any -European people, with the exception perhaps of the Poles; and these were -subject and silenced. - -Throughout all this time, from the years after Waterloo to the years -immediately succeeding the defeat of the French in 1870-71, the weight -and position of the Jew in Western civilization increased out of all -knowledge and yet without shock, and almost without attracting -attention. They entered the Parliaments everywhere, the English Peerage -as well, and the Universities in very large numbers. A Jew became Prime -Minister of Great Britain, another a principal leader of the Italian -resurrection; another led the opposition to Napoleon III. They were -present in increasing numbers in the chief institutions of every -country. They began to take positions as fellows of every important -Oxford and Cambridge college; they counted heavily in the national -literatures; Browning and Arnold families, for instance, in England; -Mazzini in Italy. They came for the first time into European diplomacy. -The armies and navies alone were as yet untouched by their influence. -Strains of them were even present in the reigning families. The -institution of Freemasonry (with which they are so closely allied and -all the ritual of which is Jewish in character) increased very rapidly -and very greatly. The growth of an anonymous Press and of an -increasingly anonymous commercial system further extended their power. - -It is an illusion to believe that all this great change was Jewish in -origin. The Jew did not create it, he floated upon it, but it worked -manifestly to his advantage, and we find him at the end of it -represented on the governing institutions of Western Europe fifty or one -hundredfold more than was his due in proportion to his numbers. The Jews -intermarried everywhere with the leading families and, before any sign -that a turn of the tide had taken place, they had already achieved that -position in which they are now being assailed and to oust them from -which such strong efforts are preparing. - -Perhaps the first event which cut across this unbroken ascent was the -defeat of the French in 1870-1. Not that its effects were immediate in -this field, but that a nation defeated is the more likely to raise a -grievance, real or imaginary; in seeking a cause for social misfortunes -following on its military disasters, it will naturally fix upon an -international rather than a national one, and blame its alien population -rather than its own. Moreover, the date of the French defeat was also -the date on which was overthrown the temporal power of the Papacy. In -this also the Jews had played their part. It gave them the opportunity -to play a still greater part in the immediate future of the new Italy. -Within a few years Rome was to see a Jewish Mayor who supported with all -his might the unchristianizing of the city and especially of its -educational system. - -One small but significant factor in the whole business of these 70's and -early 80's--the beginning of the last quarter of the nineteenth -century--was the rise to monopoly of the Jewish international news -agents, among which Reuters was prominent, and the presence of Jews as -international correspondents of the various great newspapers, the most -prominent example being Opper, a Bohemian Jew, who concealed his origin -under the false name of "de Blowitz," and for years acted as Paris -correspondent for _The Times_, a paper in those days of international -influence. - -The first expression of the reaction that was at hand was to be found in -sundry definitely anti-Semitic writings appearing in Germany and France, -most noticeable in the latter country. - -Their effect was at first slight, though they had the high advantage of -extensive documentation. The great majority of educated men shrugged -their shoulders and passed such things by as the extravagancies of -fanatics; but these fanatics none the less laid the foundation of future -action by the quotation of an immense quantity of facts which could not -but remain in the mind even of those who were most contemptuous of the -new propaganda. In these books special insistence was laid upon exposing -what the Jews themselves call "crypto-Judaism"--that is, the presence -everywhere throughout Western Europe of men in important public -positions who passed for English, French or what not, but were really -Jews. - -In many cases (I have already quoted the poet Browning and the -distinguished family of Arnold) these people were not hiding their -religion but had simply drifted from the original Jewish community of -which their ancestors had been members, but in most others there was -more or less present an element of conscious secrecy. It was evidently -the object of those who produced the literature I am describing to -attack that secrecy in particular and to undo its effects; and, as I -have said, even where their fanaticism was most ridiculed, the vast -array of facts which they marshalled could not be without its effect -upon the memory of their contemporaries. - -There next appeared a series of direct international actions undertaken -by Jewish finance, the most important of which, of course, was the -drawing of Egypt into the European system, and particularly into the -system of Great Britain. - -Of more effect upon public opinion was the excitement of the Dreyfus -case in France and, immediately afterwards, of the South African War, in -England. - -The characteristic of the Dreyfus case was not the discussion upon the -guilt or innocence of the unfortunate man from whom it takes its title, -but the immense international clamour with which it was surrounded. This -local affair was made an affair of the whole world, and men took as -passionate an interest in it in the remotest corners of civilization as -though they had been the principals actually engaged. - -Such a phenomenon could not but astonish the mass of onlookers who had -hitherto not given the Jewish question a thought, and when there was -added to it the great ordeal of the South African War, openly and -undeniably provoked and promoted by Jewish interests in South Africa, -when that war was so unexpectedly prolonged and proved so unexpectedly -costly in blood and treasure, a second element was added to the growing -feeling, not yet, indeed, of antagonism to Jewish power (half cultured -France was Dreyfusard, and much more than half England favoured the Boer -War at its origin), but of interest in the Jewish question, of -curiosity, on the part of the average citizen, who had not hitherto -heard of it. - -The original minority which had begun to oppose Jewish power, with -their extreme left wing of Anti-Semites, and their core of men whose -quarrel was rather with the financial control of the modern world than -with any racial problem, tended to grow. As always happens with a -growing movement, events appeared to suit themselves to that growth and -to promote it. - -The Panama scandals in the French Parliament had already fed the -movement in France. The later Parliamentary scandals in England, Marconi -and the rest, afforded so astonishing a parallel to Panama that the -similarity was of universal comment. They might have passed as isolated -things a generation before. They were now connected, often unjustly, -with the uneasy sense of a general financial conspiracy. They were, at -any rate, connected with an atmosphere essentially Jewish in character. - -Meanwhile there had already begun one of those great migratory movements -of the Jews which have diversified history for two thousand years and -which are almost always the prelude to each new disturbance in the -equilibrium of the Jews and each new resuscitation of the Jewish problem -in its most acute form. - -The great reservoir of the Jewish race was, of course, that country of -Poland which had so nobly succoured the Jews during the persecutions of -the late Middle Ages. Poland had made itself an asylum for all the Jews -who cared to go to it, and was now, after the infamous partition -inaugurated by Prussia, still the home of something like half the Jews -of the world. The hatred of the Jews entertained by all classes of -Russians, the persecutions they suffered from the fact that Russia, -since the partition, governed that part of Poland where they were most -numerous, started the new exodus. The movement was a westerly one, -mainly to the United States, but there also arose in connection with it -a novel growth of great ghettoes in the English industrial towns, more -particularly in London, while New York was slowly transformed from a -city as free of Jewish population as London and Paris had been in the -past, to one in which a good third or more of its inhabitants became -either entirely Jewish or partly Jewish. - -This vast immigration, which was in full swing just before the outbreak -of the great war, and which was adding so active a leaven to the -increasing ferment, which had even planted the beginnings of a ghetto in -Paris and which was affecting the whole of the West, was supplemented by -one more factor of the first importance. - -Modern capitalism, by which the Jew had so largely benefited, but which -he did not originate and in which prominent, though few, Jewish names, -were so immixed, had for its counterpart and reaction the _socialist_ -movement. This, again, the Jews did not originate, nor at first direct; -but it rapidly fell more and more under their control. The family of -Mordecai (who had assumed the name of Marx) produced in Karl a most -powerful exponent of that theory. Though he did no more than copy and -follow his non-Jewish instructors (especially Louis Blanc, a Franco-Scot -of genius), he presented in complete form the full theory of Socialism, -economic, social, and, by implication, religious; for he postulated -Materialism. - -After Karl Marx came a crowd of his compatriots, who led the industrial -proletariat in rebellion against the increasing power of the capitalist -system, and began to organize a determined revolt. - -Before the Great War one could say that the whole of the Socialist -movement, so far as its staff and direction were concerned, was Jewish; -and while it took this purely economic form in the West, in the East--in -the Russian Empire--it took a political form as well, and the growing -revolutionary force in that Empire was equally Jewish in direction and -driving power. - -Such was the situation on the eve of the Great War. Men were beginning -to be thoroughly alive to what was meant by the Jewish problem. The old -security was dispelled for ever; but as yet only a minority, though now -a large one, was prepared to deal with that problem and to discuss it -openly. All that was official, and particularly the Press, with its vast -influence, had as yet refused in any department to face the realities of -the position. The convention forbidding public allusion to the Jewish -question was still very strong. On the surface it seemed as though the -old Liberal policy still stood firm and, indeed, unshakeable. The Jews -were in every place of 'vantage: they taught in the Universities of all -Europe; they were everywhere in the Press; everywhere in finance. They -were continually to be found in the highest places of Government and in -the chanceries of Christendom they had acquired a dominant power which -none could question. But the challenge against this unnatural position -necessarily worked against great odds, it remained private and had -great difficulty in finding expression. None the less, it extended, and -by 1914 had become serious. - -The immeasurable catastrophe of the war--with which the Jews had nothing -to do and which their more important financial representatives did all -they could to prevent--fell upon Europe. It seemed at first as though, -in the face of that overwhelming tragedy, what had been so rapidly -growing--I mean the debate and conflict upon Jewish claims--would be -silenced. The Jews were found fighting gallantly in all the armies. -Their services were generously acknowledged, though the cruel ambiguity -of their situation was hardly realized. Considering that they had no -national interest in the fight, it must have seemed to them a mere -insanity, crucifying their nation to no purpose. For Zangwill put the -matter well indeed when he said that those who eagerly and spontaneously -joined the first recruiting (and these were numerous) did so "for the -honour of Israel." The sacrifice was not without fruit. In its presence -many a complaint was silenced and much was revealed which, but for it, -would have remained unprobed. The Christian family in its bereavement -saw at its side a Jewish neighbour who had lost his son in what was no -concern of his race; the Christian priest witnessed the agony of the -young Jewish soldier. The defender of the Western nations saw at his -side not only the Jewish conscript (who should never have been called) -but the Jewish volunteer. Thus, the first to enlist from the United -States was a Jew, later promoted, whom I had the pleasure and honour of -meeting on Mangin's staff at Mayence. I hope he may see these lines. - -It looked as though in the presence of such a suffering, which the Jews -shared with us, the growing quarrel between them and ourselves would be -appeased. Men who had been prominent not only for their discussion of -the Jewish problem, but for their direct and open antagonism to Jewish -power and even to the most legitimate of Jewish claims, were now -compelled to silence. Reconciliation was in the air ... when, in the -very heat of the struggle, came that factor, incalculably important, -which now rules all the rest; I mean the factor of what is called -_Bolshevism_. - -This new Jewish movement changed the whole face of things and, coming on -the top of the rest, has transformed the problem for all our generation. - -Henceforth it was to be discussed quite openly. Henceforth it could only -become, more and more, the chief problem of politics and give rise to -that menacing situation upon a solution of which depends the security of -our future. - -For the Bolshevist movement, or rather explosion, was Jewish. - -That truth may be so easily confused with a falsehood that I must, at -the outset, make it exact and clear. - -The Bolshevist Movement was _a_ Jewish movement, but not a movement of -the Jewish race as a whole. Most Jews were quite extraneous to it; very -many indeed, and those of the most typical, abhor it; many actively -combat it. The imputation of its evils to the Jews as a whole is a grave -injustice and proceeds from a confusion of thought whereof I, at any -rate, am free. - -With so much said let me return to the affair. - -What is called "Labour," that is, the direction of the proletarian -revolt against capitalist conditions, had, as we have seen, been -directed in the main by the Jew. His energy, his international quality, -his devotion to a set scheme, prevailed. All this was not peculiar to -Russia but present throughout the industrialized areas of the West. - -By the word "directed" I do not mean any conscious plan. I mean that the -Jews, with their perpetual movement from country to country, with their -natural indifference to national feeling as a force counteracting class -feeling, with their lucid thought and their passion for deduction, with -their tenacity and intellectual industry, had naturally become the chief -exponents and the most able leaders. They formed, above all, the cement -binding the movement together throughout the world. It was they, more -than any others, who insisted on a clear-cut solution upon the lines -which their compatriot Karl Marx had copied from his greater European -contemporaries, and made definite in his famous book on Capital. - -But there was all the difference in the world between this intellectual -leadership, this organization of socialism by Jews _while Socialism -still remained a mere theory_, and the control and actual management of -it in a great State when it passed from theory to practice. - -The words "social revolution" were still but words in 1914 and men did -not take them too seriously. But when in 1917 a socialist revolution was -accomplished suddenly at one blow, in one great State, and when its -agents, directors and masters were seen to be a close corporation of -Jews with only a few non-Jewish hangers-on (each of these controlled by -the Jews through one influence or another), it was quite another -matter. The thing had become actual. The menace to national traditions -and to the whole Christian ethic of property was immediate. More -important than all, so far as the Jewish problem is concerned, many who -had remained silent upon it on account of convention, avarice or fear, -were now compelled to speak. From that moment, in early '17, it became -the chief political problem of our time: coincident with, intimately -mixed with, but in all its implications superior to, the great economic -quarrel on to which it was now grafted. - -The story may be briefly told. The Russian State, ill-equipped for -modern war, had passed during the end of the year 1916 through a strain -which it had found intolerable. Russian Society, after the mortal losses -sustained, was upon the eve of dissolution, and the formidable -revolutionary movement which had for years left its direction and -organization in Jewish hands broke out, for the third time in our -generation: but this time successfully. - -After rapidly accelerating phases it settled into the situation which -has endured from the early part of 1918 to the present day. In the towns -the freely-elected Parliament was repudiated and a "Dictatorship of the -Proletariat" was declared. The workshops were in future to be run by -Committees, in the Russian "Soviets," and similar organizations were to -control agriculture in the villages, where the peasants had already -seized the land and were streaming back from the dissolved armies to -their homes. - -In practice, of course, what was set up was no proletarian Government, -still less anything so impossible and contradictory in terms as a -"dictatorship" of proletarians. The thing was called "The Republic of -the Workmen and Peasants." It was, in fact, nothing of the sort. It was -the pure despotism of a clique, the leaders of which had been specially -launched upon Russia under German direction in order to break down any -chance of a revival of Russian military power, and all those leaders, -without exception, were Jews, or held by the Jews through their domestic -relations, and all that followed was done directly under the orders of -Jews, the most prominent of whom was one Braunstein, who disguised -himself under the assumed name of Trotsky. A terror was set up, under -which were massacred innumerable Russians of the governing classes, so -that the whole framework of the Russian State disappeared. Among these, -of course, must specially be noted great numbers of the clergy, against -whom the Jewish revolutionaries had a particular grudge. A clean sweep -was made of all the old social organization, and under the despotism of -this Jewish clique the old economic order was reversed. Food and all -necessities were controlled (in the towns) and rationed, the manual -labourer receiving the largest share; and none any share unless he -worked at the orders of the new masters. - -The agricultural land was in theory nationalized, but in practice the -Jewish Committees of the towns were unable to enforce their rule over -it, and it reverted to the natural condition of peasant ownership. But -the Jewish Committees of the towns were strong enough to raid great -areas of agricultural production for the support of themselves and their -troops and of their dependants in the cities, who had come close to -starvation through the breakdown of the social system. - -What followed later is of common knowledge: the attempts at -counter-revolution, led by scattered Russians and other military -leaders, all failed because the peasants believed that their -newly-acquired farms were at stake and eagerly volunteered to defend -them, the greatly increased misery of the towns, the slow decline of -industrial production (in spite of the most rigid despotism, enforcing -conscript labour), and the general deliquescence of society. - -If the motives of the men who thus brought the whole of a Christian -State into ruins within a few weeks were analysed, we should, it is to -be presumed, discover something of this sort: their main motive was the -pursuit of the political and economic ideals of which they were the -spokesmen and which already so many of their compatriots, the Jews, -throughout the rest of Europe, had espoused--communism so far as -property was concerned; the Marxian doctrine of socialist production and -distribution; the Socialist doctrine imposed by arbitrary and despotic -arrangements, favouring those who had in the past been least favoured. -In this economic and political group of motives the leading motive was -probably enough, the doctrine of Communism in which these men, for the -most part, sincerely believed. - -To this must be added an equally sincere hatred of national feeling, -save, of course, where the Jewish nation was concerned. The conception -of a Russian national feeling seemed to these new leaders ridiculous, -as, indeed, the conception of a national feeling must seem ridiculous to -their compatriots everywhere; or, if not ridiculous, subsidiary to the -more important motives of individual advantage and to the righting of -such immediate wrongs as the individual may feel. The Christian religion -they naturally attacked, for it was abhorrent to their social theory. - -They also had a certain crusading, or propagandist, ideal running -through the whole of their action--the desire to spread Communism far -beyond the boundaries of what had once been the Russian State. It is -this which has led them to intrigue throughout Central, and even in -Western, Europe, in favour of revolution. - -Though these were the main motives, other motives must also have been -present. - -It is impossible that Committees consisting of Jews and suddenly finding -themselves thus in control of such new powers, should not have desired -to benefit their fellows. It is equally impossible that they should have -forgone a sentiment of revenge against that which had persecuted their -people in the past. They cannot but, in the destroying of Russia, have -mixed with a desire to advantage the individual Russian poor the desire -to take vengeance upon the national tradition as a whole; it has even -been said--but denied, and I know not where the truth lies--that Jews -were among those guilty of the worst incident which we now know in all -its revolting details--the murder of the Russian Royal family--father, -mother and girls, and the unfortunate sickly heir, the only boy. -Further, it is impossible, with Jewish Committees thus in control of the -Russian treasury and of Russian means of communication, that they should -not have had some sympathy with their compatriots who were so largely -in control of Western finance. However sincere their detestation of -capitalism (for probably in most of them the opinion is held sincerely -enough), it is in the nature of things that one of their blood and kind -should, however misguided they may think him, appeal to them more than -one of ours. And it is this which explains the half alliance which you -find throughout the world between the Jewish financiers on the one hand -and the Jewish control of the Russian revolution on the other. It is -this which explains the half-heartedness of the defence against -Bolshevism, the perpetual commercial protest, the continued -negotiations, the recognition of the Soviet by our politicians, the -clamour of "Labour" in favour of German Jewish industrialism and against -Poland: all that has taken place wherever Jewish finance is powerful, -particularly at Westminster. - -But, be this as it may, the tremendous explosion which we call -Bolshevism brought the discussion of the Jewish problem to a head. The -two forces which had hitherto held back the discussion of that problem -were that Liberal fiction which had ruled for more than a generation, -according to which it was indecent even to mention the word Jew, or to -suggest that there was any difference between the Jew and those who -harboured him; and, secondly, the fact that the Jews were erroneously -regarded by most of the well-to-do people in the West--that is, by most -of those who had the control of the Press and therefore of all public -expression--as so controlling wealth that they were at once the natural -guardians of property and so placed that an attack upon them jeopardized -the wealth of the critic. The man who had gone into the City, or who -had his life spent upon the Bourse in Paris, or who was negotiating any -great capitalist enterprise, who had to do in whatever capacity with the -running of the great banks or with the international means of -communication by sea and land, even the man who got his precarious -living by writing--each and all had hitherto felt that a public silence -upon the Jewish problem was necessary to his private welfare. - -Those who recognized the gravity of the problem had hitherto been moved -by fear to be silent upon it, at least in public, though in private they -were often voluble enough. Those who recognized it in a lesser degree -had also been affected by the same fear. Lastly, you had the large class -who were under no necessity for restraint, whether from fear or any -other cause, but who were quite content to leave things as they were so -long as they received their regular salary or dividends, and who were -profoundly convinced that any interference with the Jew would imperil -those dividends or that salary. - -The Jewish Bolshevist movement put an end to that state of mind. The -people who had hitherto been silent through avarice, convention, or -fear, now found themselves between an upper and a nether millstone. -Hitherto they had at least believed that to keep silence was to secure -or to advance their economic position. Now they found, suddenly risen -upon the flank of that position, a new and formidable Jewish force -determined upon the destruction of property. There was no longer any -reason to keep silent. There was a growing need to speak. And though the -old habit, the old secrecy, was still strong upon them, the necessity -for combating Jewish Bolshevism was stronger still. All over Europe the -Jewish character of the movement became more and more apparent. The -leaders of Communism everywhere proclaimed that truth by adopting the -asinine policy of pretending that the revolution was Russian and -national; they attempted--far too late--to hide the Jewish origins of -its creators and directors, and made a childish effort to pretend that -the Russian names so innocently put forward were genuine, when the real -names were upon every tongue. Yet at the same time they were receiving -money and securities of the victims through Jewish agents, jewels -stripped from the dead or rifled from the strong boxes of murdered men -and women. In one specific instance the promise of a subsidy to a -Communist paper in London was traced to this source; it was proved that -the Englishman involved was a mere puppet and that the Jewish -connections of the family through marriage were the true agents in the -transaction. In another a Trade Deputation was pompously announced under -Russian names, which turned out upon inspection to consist, as to its -first member, of a man engaged all his life in the service of a Jewish -firm, as to the other, of a Jew who was actually the brother-in-law of -Braunstein! The diplomatic agent nominated and partially accepted by the -British Government to represent the new authority of the Russian towns -was again a Jew, Finkelstein, the nephew by marriage of a prominent Jew -in this country. He passed under the name of Litvinoff. So it was -throughout the whole movement, in every capital and in every great -industrial town. - -We must not neglect the very obvious truth that in all this there was -ample fuel for the flame. The industrial proletariat throughout the -world was equally disgusted and equally ready for revolt. The leadership -of the movement may be Jewish but its current was not created by the -Jew. To imagine that is to fall into the most childish errors of the -"Anti-Semite." The stream of influence arose from the sufferings and the -burning sense of injustice which industrial capitalism had imposed on -the dispossessed mass of wage earners. They were (and are) naturally -indifferent as to whether those whom they hope may be their saviours -come from Palestine, Muscovy or Timbuctoo. They are interested in -economic freedom: in the doctrine of socialism and in its results, not -in the personality of those who guide them. - -Their position is comprehensible enough: but my point is, that the -directing minority of Western European capitalism which had hitherto -been silent upon the Jewish problems from the motives I have described -were now released; they were free to speak their mind, and began to -speak it. The volume of their protest cannot but increase. The cat, as -the expression goes, is out of the bag, or, to put it in more dignified -language, the debate will now never more be silenced. It is admitted -that the revolutionary leadership is mainly Jewish. It is recognized as -clearly now as it has long been recognized that international finance -was mainly Jewish; and even those who would tolerate silence upon the -one peril will certainly not tolerate it upon the other. - -The danger is, indeed, not over. The debate will take place--that is no -peril, but a good; the danger is rather that, as restraint is gradually -removed, the natural antagonism to the Jewish race, felt by nearly all -those who are not of it and among whom it lives, may take an irrational -and violent form, and that we may be upon the brink of yet one more of -those catastrophes, of those tragedies, of those disasters which have -marked the history of Israel in the past. - -To avert this, to discover some solution of the problem while there is -yet time, to prevent deeds which would bring us to shame and that small -minority among us to suffering, should be the object of every honest -man. - - -THE GENERAL CAUSES OF FRICTION - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -THE GENERAL CAUSE OF FRICTION - - -The immediate cause of the new gravity apparent in the Jewish problem is -the Revolution in Russia. The completely new feature of open discussion -now attaching to it (a thing which would have seemed incredible in -England twenty years ago) is the leadership the Jews have assumed in the -economic quarrel of the proletariat against capitalism. - -Most people, therefore, on being asked the cause of friction between the -Jews and their hosts at this moment will reply (in England, at least) -that it lies in the anti-social propaganda now running loose throughout -Industrial Europe. "Our quarrel with the Jews," you will hear from a -hundred different sources, "is that they are conspiring against -Christian civilization, and in particular against our own country, under -the form of social revolutionaries." - -Such a reply, though it is the almost universal reply of the moment in -this country, is most imperfect. - -The friction between the Jews and the nations among which they are -dispersed is far older, far more profound, far more universal. For a -whole generation before the present crisis arose, the comparatively -small number of men who were hammering away steadily at the Jewish -problem, trying to provoke its discussion, and insisting on its -importance, were mainly concerned with quite another aspect of Jewish -activity--the aspect of international finance as controlled by Jews. -Before that aspect had assumed its modern gravity the reproach against -the Jews was that their international position warred against our racial -traditions and our patriotisms. Before that again there had been the -reproach of a different religion and particularly of their antagonism to -the doctrine of the Incarnation and all that flowed from that doctrine. -And there had been even, before that great quarrel, the reproach that -they were bad citizens within the pagan Roman Empire, perpetually in -rebellion against it and guilty of massacring other Roman citizens. - -In another civilization than ours, in that of Islam, another set of -reproaches had arisen, or rather another species of contempt and -oppression. After long periods of peace there would come, in particular -regions, the most violent oppression. Within the last few years, for -instance, a Jew in Morocco was treated as though he was hardly human. He -had to turn his face to the wall when any magnate was passing by. He had -to dress in a particular manner to mark him off as something degraded -among his fellow-beings. He might not ride through the gate of a town, -but had to dismount. There were twenty actions normal to civic life in -the Moroccan city which were forbidden to the Jew. - -All this is as much as to say that the friction between the Jews and -those among whom they live is always present, and has always been -present, now latent, now rising furiously to the surface, now grumbling -through long periods of uncertain peace, now boiling over in all the -evils of persecution--which is as much as to say that this friction -between Jew and non-Jew, while finding different excuses for its action -on different occasions, has been a force permanently at work everywhere -and at all times. - -What is the cause of it? What is its nature? - -The matter is very difficult to approach, because we are not dealing -with things susceptible of positive proof. You can prove from historical -record that the thing has existed. You can show its terrible effects, -ceaselessly recurrent throughout all our history. But it is another -matter to analyse the unseen forces which produce it, and any such -analysis can be no more than an attempt. - -I take it that the causes of this friction, with all its lamentable -results, are of two kinds. There are, first, _general_ causes for it, by -which I mean those causes which are always present and are ineradicable. -Their effort may be summed up in the truth that the whole texture of the -Jewish nation, their corporate tradition, their social mind, is at issue -with the people among whom they live. There are, next, special causes, -by which I mean social actions and expressions which lead to friction -and could be modified, the two chief of which are the use of secrecy by -the Jews as a method of action and the open expression of superiority -over his neighbours which the Jew cannot help feeling but is wrong to -emphasize. - -I will deal with these in their order, and first consider the general -causes; though I must admit at the outset that a mere summary of them is -no sufficient explanation of the phenomenon. There would seem to be -something more profound and even more mysterious about it. For it will -be universally conceded that, while the closest intimacy and respect is -possible between individuals of the two opposing races, the moment you -come to great groups, and especially to the popular instinct in the -matter, the gravest friction is apparent. It is an issue too deep than -to be accounted for by mere differences of temper. It is as though there -were some inward force filling men on either side, not indeed with -necessary hostility--it is against any such necessity that all this book -is written--but certainly with conflicting ends. - -It is first to be noted that most of the accusations made against the -Jews by their enemies and most of the very proper rebuttals of those -accusations advanced by the Jews and their defenders, miss the mark -because they attempt to put in abstract form what is really something -highly concrete. And this is equally true of the praise bestowed upon -the Jews, of the special virtues ascribed to them and of the denials of -these virtues. - -They miss the mark because they attempt to express in terms of one -category what should be expressed in terms of another. They are doing -what a man does when he compares two pictures by their outline while in -point of fact their interest lies in colour, or when he affirms -something of a tune the fundamental point of which something is not the -air at all but the instruments upon which it is played: as who should -say that "God save the King" was "shrill" because he heard it played on -a penny whistle or "booming" because he heard it played on a -violoncello. The real point to note is not that the Jews appear to us -(or we to them) to possess certain abstract qualities and defects, but -that in their case each quality or defect has a special character, a -special national _timbre_ which it lacks in ours. - -Thus you will hear the Jews arraigned by their enemies for three such -vices as cowardice, avarice and treason--to take three of the commonest -accusations. You examine their actions and you find innumerable -instances of the highest courage, the greatest generosity and the most -devoted loyalty: but courage, generosity and loyalty of a Jewish kind, -directed to Jewish ends, and stamped with a highly distinctive Jewish -mark. - -The man who accuses the Jews of cowardice means that they do not enjoy a -fight of his kind, nor a fight fought after his fashion. All he has -discovered is that the courage is not shown under the same -circumstances, nor for the same ends, nor in the same mode. But if the -word courage means anything, he cannot on reflection deny it to actions -of which one could make an endless catalogue even from contemporary -experience alone. Is it cowardice in a young man to sacrifice his life -deliberately for the sake of his own people? Did that young Jew show -cowardice who killed the Russian Prime Minister, the antagonist of his -people, after the first revolution following on the Russo-Japanese war? -Was it cowardice to walk up in a crowded theatre, surrounded by all the -enemies of his race, and shoot their chief in their midst? Is it -cowardice to stand up against the vast alien majority, and to do so over -and over again, perhaps through a whole lifetime, insisting on things -that are grossly unpopular with that majority and running a risk the -whole time of physical violence? You find Jews adopting that attitude -all over Europe. Can one think it is cowardice which has permitted the -individuals of this nation to maintain their tradition unbroken through -two thousand years of intermittent torture, spoliation and violent -death? The thing so stated is ridiculous, and it is clear that those who -make such an accusation are confounding their own form of courage with -courage as a universal attribute. - -They think that because Jews show courage under other circumstances and -in another way from themselves, corresponding to another appetite, as it -were, therefore it is no longer courage: to think like that is to -confess yourself very limited. - -I can testify, myself, to any number of courageous acts which I have -seen performed by Jews. I am not alluding to acts of courage in warfare, -of which there is ample evidence, but to acts of a sort in which our -race would not have shown the same quality or _timbre_ of courage. I -will cite one case. - -Rather more than twenty years ago, when feeling on the Dreyfus case was -at its height and when the feeling of the French Army in particular was -at white heat, I happened to be in the town of Nimes, through which, at -the time, a body of troops was passing. The cafe in which I sat was -filled with young sergeants. There were hardly any civilians present -beside myself. There came into the place an elderly Jew, very short in -stature, highly marked with the physical characteristics of his race, an -unmistakable Jew. He was somewhat bent under the weight of his years, -with fiery eyes and a singularly vibrating intonation of voice. He was -selling broadsheets of the most violent kind, all of them insults -against the Army. He came into this cafe with the sheets in his hand so -that all could see the large capital letters of the headlines, and -slowly went round the assembly ironically offering them to the lads in -uniform with their swords at their side, for they were of the cavalry. - -Every one knows the French temper on such occasions--a complete silence -which may at any moment be transformed into something very different. -One sergeant after another politely waved him aside and passed him on. -He went round the whole lot of them, gazing into their faces with his -piercing eyes, wearing the whole time an ironical smile of insult, -describing at intervals the nature of his goods, and when he had done -that he went out unharmed. - -It was an astonishing sight. I have seen many others as astonishing and -as vivid, but for courage I have never seen it surpassed. Here was a -man, old and feeble, the member of a very small minority which he knew -to be hated, and particularly hated by the people whom he challenged. -Because he held one of his own people to be injured, he took this -tremendous risk and went through this self-imposed task with a sort of -pleasure in that risk. You may call it insolence, offensiveness, what -you will: but you cannot deny it the title of courage. It was courage of -the very highest quality. - -I repeat: you may see evidence of that sort of courage in Jewish action -throughout the world and in every age. You have the beginning of it in -the Siege of Jerusalem; to-morrow, if the fear which we now all -entertain should unhappily prove well founded, we shall see it again -upon the same scale. - -Take avarice. When the Jew is accused of avarice by his enemies they -are reading into him that vice in a form of which _they_ know themselves -capable, which _they_ themselves practise, which _they_ fully -understand, but which _he_ never practises in their fashion. The Jew is -adventurous with his money. He is a speculator, a trader. He is also a -man who thinks of it in exact terms. He is never romantic about it. But -he is almost invariably generous in the use of it. Our race, when it -yields to the vice of avarice, is close, secretive, uncharitable. He is -pitiless and sly in accumulation. He is vociferous in his insistence -upon the exact terms of an agreed compact. He is also tenacious in the -pursuit of anything which he has set out on, the accumulation of money -among the rest. He is almost fanatical in his appetite for success in -whatever he has undertaken, the accumulation of money among the rest. -But to say that the money, once accumulated, is not generously used, is -nonsense. There is not one of us who could not cite at once a dozen -examples of Jewish generosity upon a scale which makes us ashamed. - -Nor is it true to say that this generosity has ostentation for its root, -or, as it is called, "Ransome," either. Though a love of magnificence is -certainly a great passion in the Jewish character, it does not account -for the most of his generosity. It is a generosity which extends to all -manner of private relations, and if you will take the testimony of those -who have been in the service of the Jews and are not Jews themselves, -that testimony is almost universally in favour of their employers, if -those employers be men of large means. - -They will tell you that they felt humiliated in serving a Jew; that the -relations were never easy; that there was always distance. But not -often that they were treated meanly. Just the other way. There has -usually been present a _spontaneous_ generosity. The same argument -applies to the cry of "Ransome." It is true that some of the more -scandalous Jewish fortunes have thrown up defences against public anger -by the return of a small proportion in the shape of public endowments: -it is an action and a motive not peculiar to them. But that does not -explain the mass of private and unheard benefaction to which we can all -testify and which is as common with the middle-class Jew as with the -wealthy. It is here as in the matter of courage a question of _kind_. -Those of our people who happen to be generous (they are rare) do not -calculate. They often forget or confuse the sums they have made away -with, as though it were mere extravagance. The Jew knows the exact -extent of his sacrifice, its proportion to his total means. Is he then -less generous? By no means. He is, in scale _more_ generous--but in a -different fashion. - -It might be argued that this generosity of the Jew is a consequence of -the way in which he regards money. It comes and goes with him because he -is a speculator and a wanderer. It has been said that no great Jewish -fortune is ever permanent; that none of these millionaires ever founded -a family. This is not quite true; but it is true that considering the -long list of great Jewish fortunes which have marked the whole progress -of our civilization it is astonishing how few have taken root. But -though this conception of money may be an element in the generosity of -the Jew it does not fully explain it, and at any rate that generosity is -there, and contradicts flatly the accusation of avarice. Indeed the -general accusation of avarice fails: and _that_ is why it is a sort of -standing jest permitted even where the Jews are most powerful. It is a -jest they themselves do not resent because they know it to be beside the -mark. - -The accusation of treason is on the same footing--save that it is even -more "to one side" than the others quoted. There is no race which has -produced so few traitors. It is not treason in the Jew to be -international. It is not treason in the Jew to work now for one interest -among those who are not of his people, now for another. He can only be -charged with treason when he acts against the interests of Israel, and -there is no nation nor ever has been one in which the national -solidarity was greater or national weakness in the shape of traitors -less. Indeed, that is the very accusation their enemies make against -them; that they are too homogeneous; that they hold too much together -and are too fierce in self-defence; and you cannot have that accusation -coupled with an accusation of treason. What is true is that the Jew -lends himself to one non-jewish group in its action against another. He -will serve France against the Germans, or the Germans against France, -and he will do so indifferently as a resident in the country he benefits -or the country he wounds: for he is indifferent to either. The moment -war breaks out the intelligence departments of both sides rely upon the -Jew: and they rely upon him not only on account of his indifference to -nationalism but also on account of his many languages, his travel, the -presence of his relations in the enemy country. And this is true not -only of war but of armed peace. - -But it is clear that in all this there are examples of what _in us_, -would be treason. In him such actions are not treasons, for he does not -betray Israel. But they all have an atmosphere repellent to us. They are -things which if we did them (or when we do them) degrade us. They do not -degrade the Jew. - -One might continue the list of such accusations indefinitely, and in -every one you would find that the root of the quarrel is not the -presence of a particular defect but the presence of a difference in -circumstances, temperament, character: a different colour and taste in -the quality or defect concerned. It is _that_ which offends. It is -_that_ which causes the misunderstandings and which leads to the -tragedies. - -While this is true of the accusations made against the Jewish people it -is unfortunately equally true of the corresponding qualities which they -and their defenders advance in the rebuttal. The Jew is essentially -patriotic: that is true. But not patriotic to our ends or in our way. He -is essentially self-respecting. But not self-respecting to our ends or -in our way. A personal obligation which he cannot meet, a personal and -intimate contract in which he may default, especially to one of his own -people, is abhorrent to the Jew; but not in our way. He has not our -shame of bankruptcy for instance, but much more than our shame of -personal borrowing. Drunkenness, a vice most offensive to human dignity, -is with him the rarest vice: with us the commonest. But our sense of -dignity in repose he has not, nor does he feel our sense of injured -dignity in mummery. His tenacity, which all know and all in a sense -admire and which is far superior to our own, is also a narrower -tenacity, or at any rate a tenacity of a different kind. He will follow -one end where we will follow many. His wonderful loyalty to all family -relations we know: but we do not appreciate it because it is outside our -own circle. Even his intellectual gifts, which are less affected by this -matter of _timbre_, have something alien to us in them. They are -undeniable but we feel them to be used for other ends than ours: they -are coldly used when ours are used enthusiastically: they are used with -intensity when we use them with carelessness. - -If we leave the controversial field and concern ourselves with an -appreciation of Jewish qualities, apart from our like or dislike of them -and apart from their difference in intimate texture, as it were, from -our own, they may be summarized I think as follows:-- - -The Jew concentrates upon one matter. He does not disperse his mind. And -this concentration carries with it strength and weakness. It has been -said in connection with it (all such terms are metaphorical) that his -mind is not elastic. But this is a great element in his success. I have -noticed that the Jew having once taken up a particular task shows an -indifference to other tasks which, from our standpoint, is marvellous. -How many instances could not one cite of two Jewish brothers, the one -occupied in finance, the other in science, or the one in politics, the -other in music, and how clearly do we see in those instances the -complete indifference of the Jew to things outside the province he has -undertaken! How remarkable in our eyes is his resistance to any -temptation which might lead him away from his end. The Jew who is -devoted to science, for instance, remains completely indifferent to its -opportunities for enrichment. The Jew who is devoted to philosophy (and -what great names he can show in this sphere throughout the centuries!) -lives in poverty and is perfectly content so to live. The Jew devoted to -any particular ideal of social change devotes himself entirely to that, -and ends his task often more powerful, hardly ever more wealthy, nearly -always much poorer than when he began it. Above all he refuses to be -distracted for a moment from his goal. - -Another character which is affiliated to this first leading character of -the Jew would seem to be the lucidity of his thought. The Jew's argument -is never muddled. That is one of his prime assets not only in all -discussion but in all action. It is also, if a cause of strength, a -cause of the enmity he arouses: or (to use my milder term) of the -"friction." - -For an exactly constructed process of reasoning, from which there is no -escape, has in it (for those less capable of it) something of the bully. -A man may feel the conclusion to be false: perhaps he _knows_ it to be -false. He lacks the power to express his reasons. He may not know how to -state the principles which his adversary has left out of account, or -when to bring them into discussion, and he feels the iron logic offered -to him like a pistol presented at the head of his better judgment. But -for strength and for weakness also, lucidity is the mark of the Jew's -mind. He carries that lucidity into the smallest details of whatever he -may perform. - -One must add to all this a certain intensity of action which is very -noticeable and which again is a cause of friction between himself and -those about him. Hear a Jew speaking, especially a Jew speaking upon the -revolutionary platform, and note the _high voltage_ at which the current -is working. The energy which he uses is not the energy of a large flame -but of a well-directed blow-pipe: a stream of heat. He is wholly -absorbed, not in his own expression, but in actively penetrating the -mind of his hearers. And here again is that difference in quality to -which I have alluded. One might say indifferently that the Jew is never -eloquent or that he is always eloquent when he speaks upon things that -possess his soul. He is not eloquent in our fashion; but he is at any -rate astonishingly effective in his own. - -The Jew has this other characteristic which has become increasingly -noticeable in our own time, but which is probably as old as the race: -and that is a corporate capacity for hiding or for advertising at will: -a power of "pushing" whatever the whole race desires advanced, or of -suppressing what the whole race desires to suppress. And this also, -however legitimately used, is a cause of friction. - -Men get the feeling of a swarm in the presence of such action. They also -get the feeling of being tricked: and it breeds bad blood. - -In the aspect of the deliberate use of secrecy I shall deal with this -character in my next chapter, for I think in that aspect it is a -particular cause of friction which can be eliminated. But the general -capacity and instinct of the Jew for corporate action in the "booming" -of what he wants "boomed" and the "soft pedalling" of what he wants -"soft pedalled" is ineradicable. It will always remain a permanent -irritant in its effect upon those to whom it is applied. The best proof -of it is that after the most violent "boom," after the talents of some -particular Jew, or the scientific discovery of another, or the -misfortunes of another, or the miscarriage of justice against another, -has been shouted at us, pointed and iterated until we are all deafened, -there comes an inevitable reaction, and the same men who were half -hypnotized into the desired mood are nauseated with it and refuse a -repetition of the dose. - -The converse is true. Men who find that some important matter has been -suppressed, some bad scandal in the State or some trick in commerce -because Jewry desired it to be suppressed, are soon on the alert. They -will not suffer the operation as quietly the second time as they did the -first. Indeed they tend if anything to grow too suspicious. Anyhow, in -both cases this ineradicable racial habit, a cause perhaps of Jewish -survival and certainly an element of Jewish strength, is also a cause of -acute friction between them and us. - -But a mere category of this kind is, as I have said, useless to explain -the fundamental quality, the hidden root, of the ceaseless conflict -between the very soul of the Jew and the soul of the society around him. -All these points are but manifestations of some profound, some -subterranean power for contrast, the value of which we cannot grasp, but -the effects of which are only too apparent. And there remains in the -minds of those who most rely upon this race and of those who most -suspect them the sense of an impassable gulf between them and ourselves. -It is the recognition, the admission of such a contrast, the telling of -the truth about it, the working upon it as a necessary condition, which -must form the foundation for any solution at which we can arrive. - - * * * * * - -There is one feature in the European's attitude towards the Jews which -must be specially dealt with, and that is the false impression that the -friction between us and them is in the main a quarrel with their wealth. - -That impression has been greatly weakened by the recent revolutionary -activity of the Jew surging up from the depths, appearing upon the -surface, and producing the great upheaval in Russia, and the attempted -upheavals elsewhere. But though the new Jewish revolutionary movement -has shaken the old insistence on Jewish wealth it is hard to eradicate -it. It has been present throughout the ages, and will remain at the back -of people's minds perhaps for ever, because the few Jews who do -concentrate on piling up great fortunes concentrate on that task so -entirely. Yet the impression is false and is the fruitful cause of the -worst misunderstandings. - -For the Jews are not a rich nation, and the very fact that they stand in -the popular mind--and especially in the mind of rich people in times of -corruption--for wealth, is an example of the way in which they are -misunderstood and of the way in which injustice to the Jew arises. - -The Jews are a poor nation. An enemy would say that they were poor -because they did not work, but this again would be an injustice, because -the Jew works exceedingly hard and has often in the past and does still -in many places work hard, not only in negotiation and commerce but with -his hands. - -We see the Jews in the Middle Ages monopolizing important manual -occupations in some districts--dyeing and shipbuilding, for instance. -And there are many parts of Eastern Europe where they work upon the land -to-day. - -The Jews are a poor nation because they are an alien nation and because -their activities are for the most part condemned to working against the -grain, in a society which is not their own. But that they _are_ a poor -nation is not only true but abundantly evident to any one who has -travelled and watched their various settlements with any sympathy. - -Now that they have arrived in such great numbers in the West people are -beginning to appreciate this. We have already seen how, a lifetime ago, -when the Jews of the West (I mean especially in France and England and -America) were a small number of merchants and financiers, the great -wealth of a very small number among them was not counterbalanced in our -experience by the exceeding poverty of the mass. But to-day we can see -for ourselves how true it is that, once you get below the exceptional -fortunes and a comparatively small middle-class, the Jewish nation is no -more than millions of exceedingly poor families. - -Those who have watched them outside the West, those who have seen them -in their great eastern communities where the bulk of the race still -resides, in the Marches of Russia, will abundantly agree. It helps us to -understand the Jewish problem if we grasp the fact that a great part of -the Jewish complaint against us is precisely this poverty to which the -bulk of the Jews are condemned. It is all very well to sneer at the -Jewish complaint of persecution and oppression and to cite ironically, -whenever it arises, the immense fortunes of a few families like the -Rothschilds and the Sassoons, the Monds, the Samuels and the rest. From -the point of view of the average Jew that is not the way the thing looks -at all. What he notices, and notices rightly, is that he has no part in -that well-distributed, solid, permanent, inherited wealth which is the -mark of a healthy European community. - -Further (a most important point already touched on in passing), these -great fortunes are ephemeral. - -In the European nations you have a mass of great fortunes far larger in -number, and even in total, than the Jewish financial fortunes. But those -great fortunes have been in the past and are still, wherever our society -is healthy, permanent. They run through European history in the shape of -the great families, in the shape of the _nobility_. - -The great territorial families in this country have been wealthy for -centuries and remain in established wealth, and the same is in the main -true of the great Italian families, it is obviously true of the great -German families, and, in spite of the great changes of the last century -and a half, it is still largely true of the old French families. It is -not true of the Jewish families. The vast Jewish fortunes which have -marked history rise suddenly and melt again almost as suddenly. A Jew -will begin in some very small way--as a pawnbroker in Liverpool, for -instance, or a very small bookseller in Frankfort. You will find his son -a great banker, his grandson so wealthy as to command politics for a -generation, and then (if you will watch the process in the past--to -take a modern unfinished instance is of course misleading) _at last, and -soon, the name disappears again, and disappears for ever_. - -Whom have you representing to-day the few great Jewish fortunes of the -early Middle Ages in England? They were all ruined before the end of the -thirteenth century. Whom have you representing the later great Jewish -fortunes on the Rhine, the fortunes of the sixteenth century and the -early seventeenth? They have utterly gone. Who have you left -representing the considerable Jewish houses of Medieval Venice? of -Genoa? of Rome? - -The causes of this rapid fluctuation are many. They all attach to the -peculiar position, as well as to the peculiar character, of the Jew. We -find them partly in the passion for speculation which the Jewish -intelligence naturally harbours. We find them still more, I think, in -the instinctive opposition to the Jew which his alien surroundings -perpetually arouse. - -It is, however, important to remember this last point. From our point of -view the Jew, when he does get rich, seems to get much too rich and to -get rich much too quickly, and he exercises far too much power through -his wealth; for we think of him the whole time as an alien with no right -to any position. But the Jew sees it in a very different light. In his -point of view his effort to accumulate wealth is always heavily -handicapped. When he succeeds he only succeeds through his own tenacity -and the patriotic co-operation of his fellows, and he always holds his -new-found wealth on an insecure tenure. What looks to us like the -breakdown of a Jewish fortune through speculation, seems to the Jew the -fatal recurrent result of unending opposition. - -In connection with the illusion of a wealthy Jewish race, you have, of -course, the matter which I briefly mentioned above, the connection -between our wealthier, and therefore governing classes, and the Jewish -wealth of the moment. A great part of the illusion, as I have said, is -due to the fact that the gentry of every epoch come into contact with -the Jew _only_ as a rich man, and it is the capital modern vice of our -own gentry, their passion for mere wealth and their subservience to it, -which has largely accounted for this dangerous misunderstanding. - -Look around you in Western Europe to-day and see what people mean by -this story of Jewish wealth. See who the people are that allude -continually to it and spread the idea of it. They are the rich -Europeans, who, in their subservience to crude wealth, in their habit of -gauging everything by that wealth and of submitting to almost any -indignity for the purpose of obtaining more wealth, marry their -daughters to Jews, serve Jewish interests, and, while perpetually -sneering at the Jew behind his back, call him to his face by his most -intimate name and make the most of his hospitality. Which of them ever -knows a middle-class Jew, let alone a poor Jew? Why, most of them are -actually ignorant of the fact that this mass of poor Jews exists at all! -They serve the Jew when he is wealthy and only when he is wealthy. They -envy him basely as a wealthy man and only as a wealthy man. They -prostitute their dignity, they sell their fellow-Europeans, not from any -genuine affection for the Jewish race--indeed there is no class in the -community, closely intermixed with the Jews as they are, which feel the -friction more than the gentry--but simply from a thirst for money, which -they happen to find held in great masses by a few Jewish families. - -It is most noticeable that other aspects of Jewish activity remain -unused by the wealthy class, the gentry--and therefore by the State. -Whether it would be wise to use them or not is another matter. At any -rate, the motive for leaving them unused is the fact that they are not -connected with wealth. The Jewish intelligence which might so often have -served the policy of a Statesman is largely left unused. The -cosmopolitan position of the Jew when it is used is used for little more -than spying; and that profound force, the historical memory of the Jew, -is neglected almost altogether. With this neglect goes a natural and -evil result, the failure on the part of the European governing classes, -especially to-day, to safeguard the community against the troubles which -are bound to arise from the clashing of interests between the Jews and -the people among whom they dwell. - -It may sound paradoxical, but it is true, that if the Statesmen of -Europe, and the hereditary families of the European nations who still -take so much part in the conduct of those nations, had thought less of -the Jewish money power and more of the Jews as a whole they would have -benefited both parties in a very different fashion. We have seen the -artificial protection of the Jews of Eastern Europe because individual -Statesmen have been subservient to the commands of very rich individual -Jewish bankers. But the thing has been done blunderingly. It has served -only to anger the independent nationalities of the East, notably the -Poles, the Roumanians and the Hungarians who have experience of the -difficulties inseparable from an alien minority. Our politicians have -treated the whole affair externally and mechanically, merely obeying -orders without trying to understand. - -The ultimate result of such interference by our Western politicians is -unhappily certain. The last state of the Jews in Eastern Europe will be -worse than the first. Their sufferings will be greater than in the past, -and that because, instead of acting from attempted comprehension and -sympathetic comprehension of the Jewish difficulties the politicians, -who have acted as the servants of a few wealthy Jews, have merely obeyed -the orders of these rich men and have done so with the secret reluctance -that always accompanies self-surrender to a wage. - -Is it not apparent, as we look through history, that the permanent power -of the Jew or, at any rate, the celebrity of his nation is utterly -distinct from those chance accumulations of wealth which a few -individuals owe to the national passion for speculation and a -cosmopolitan position? - -One after another the striking Jewish names of history are the names of -Jews who have ardently pursued some moral or intellectual thesis; most -of them--I had nearly said _all_ of them--were poor men, and for the -most part men deliberately poor because they preferred, as it is in the -Jewish nature to prefer, the immediate work in hand to any other -consideration. - -It is these names that remain and are permanent and are the glory of the -Jewish race. - - * * * * * - -There is one aspect of this Jewish wealth which I hesitate whether to -put among the general or among the particular causes of the friction -between that nation and its hosts. - -It falls certainly among the general causes in the sense that it is -connected with the Jewish character as a whole and not with any special -method in that character's action. It is connected, I mean, with their -very nature, and they cannot change that nature. On the other hand, it -might be put among the particular causes on account of its quite modern -and probably ephemeral character: it is, as it were, a particular cause -of the friction proceeding from the general causes of character just -enumerated, and this cause of friction is the presence of Jewish -MONOPOLY. - -It is an exceedingly dangerous point in the present situation. I do not -think that the Jews have a sufficient appreciation of the risk they are -running by its development. There is already something like a Jewish -monopoly in high finance. There is a growing tendency to Jewish monopoly -over the stage for instance, the fruit trade in London, and to a great -extent the tobacco trade. There is the same element of Jewish monopoly -in the silver trade, and in the control of various other metals, notably -lead, nickel, quicksilver. What is most disquieting of all, this -tendency to monopoly is spreading like a disease. One province after -another falls under it and it acts as a most powerful irritant. It will -perhaps prove the immediate cause of that explosion against the Jews -which we all dread and which the best of us, I hope, are trying to -avert. - -It applies, of course, to a tiny fraction of the Jewish race as a -whole. One could put the Jews who control lead, nickel, mercury and the -rest into one small room: nor would that room contain very pleasant -specimens of their race. You could get the great Jewish bankers who -control international finance round one large dinner table, and I know -dinner tables which have seen nearly all of them at one time or another. -These monopolists, in strategic positions of universal control are an -insignificant handful of men out of the millions of Israel, just as the -great fortunes we have been discussing attach to an insignificant -proportion of that race. Nevertheless, this claim to an exercise of -monopoly brings hatred upon the Jews as a whole. - -The thing is deservedly hated because it is exceedingly unnatural and -exceedingly tyrannical. It would be tyrannical even for one of our own -people to hold us up in the supply of things essential to us. It is -intolerable in a people alien to us. When we come to discuss, in the -next chapter, the unfortunate use of secrecy by the Jews (the most -potent, perhaps, of the particular causes which have lead them into -their present peril) we shall better understand another odious feature -in this modern monopoly of control, which is the way in which it spreads -underground and out of sight leaving the world in general ignorant that -this, that and the other individual Jew is its master in the matter of -some essential thing which he controls. - -To put it plainly, these monopolies must be put an end to. - -Before the Great War there was only one of which Europe as a whole was -conscious, and that was the financial monopoly. Yet here the monopoly -was far less perfect than in the case of the metals. The Great War -brought thousands upon thousands of educated men (who took up public -duties as temporary officials) up against the staggering secret they had -never suspected--the complete control exercised over things absolutely -necessary to the nation's survival by half a dozen Jews, who were -completely indifferent as to whether we or the enemy should emerge alive -from the struggle. - -Incidentally, the wealth of these few and very wealthy Jews has been -scandalously increased through the war on this very account. And at the -moment in which I write the French press, which has a longer experience -in the free discussion of the Jewish question than any other, is -exposing the abominable increase in value of the Rothschild's lead -mines, an increase mainly due to the use of lead for the killing of men. - -But lead is only one of the monopolies, as I have said. A whole group -already exists and the extension of the system is going on as rapidly as -an epidemic. Not only must it cease before any solution of the Jewish -question can be attempted, but the process must be reversed. If the -various national Cabinets do not interfere to protect these monopolies, -then good-bye to any attempt at justice for the Jew. In the legitimate -anger against a few pitiful dozens among the worst specimens of the -nation, Israel as a whole will be sacrificed. - -There is in this formation of monopolies, as in the more reputable -activities of the nation, even in its more justly famous activities, -even in its glories, that element of racial character which is never -absent from any Jewish action. And that is why I have put the point, -modern and ephemeral as it is, among the general causes of trouble. - -The reason these general monopolies are formed by Jews is that the Jew -is international, tenacious and determined upon reaching the very end of -his task. He is not satisfied in any trade until that trade is, as far -as possible, under his complete control, and he has for the extension of -that control the support of his brethren throughout the world. He has at -the same time the international knowledge and international indifference -which further aid his efforts. - - * * * * * - -But even were the quite recent monopolies in metal and other trades -taken, as they ought to be taken, from these few alien masters of them, -there would remain that partial monopoly (it is not at all a complete -monopoly) which a few Jews have exercised not only to-day, but -recurrently throughout history, over the highest finance: that is, over -the credit of the nations, and therefore to-day, as never before, over -the whole field of the world's industry. - -Should that partial financial monopoly remain uncorrected it will -produce a sufficient hostility against the Jews to precipitate, of -itself, the next general attack upon them. - -It may be argued that this fear is groundless because the control has -now lasted for a long time. It has lasted a lifetime even in its present -hardly complete form: and it is secure because its operations are -removed from general observation, and because it is mixed up with the -interests of all the wealthier classes. - -I am afraid these arguments will not hold. Although the Jewish control -of finance is not a thing which touches the public at large, yet all -educated men down to a comparatively low stratum of society are fully -aware of it, and every man who is aware of it resents it. It is resented -almost as much by the mass of poor Jews as by the non-Jews, but in a -different way. - -Again, although this financial monopoly does not directly affect the -economic life of the private citizen, he is beginning to understand more -and more how it indirectly affects it. It affects him, for instance, -through his patriotism. He will not submit to be told that, in order to -suit the convenience of these alien bankers, he must forgo the rights of -victory and allow some enemy whom he has justly chastised to escape the -consequences of that chastisement. Still more urgently will he deny the -right of the Jewish bankers to interfere with the national reparation -due to him for damage wantonly done in the course of hostilities. - -Again, international finance does not live separate from private -activities. It touches at last a mass of individual enterprises, and -through those individual enterprises its action is questioned and -examined by a host of private citizens. - -Yet again, the Jews who thus control international finance are at work -in many other capacities. For instance, some of them stand behind those -great Industrial Insurance schemes which are so detestable to the mass -of the people. Action against these may arise any moment. If such action -comes one may be certain that the individual attacked will be remembered -in his capacity of international financier quite as much as in his -capacity of a battener upon the lapsed premiums of the poor. Sooner or -later the character of this monopoly, to which men of a lifetime ago -were indifferent through ignorance but of which to-day all the educated -part of the community is aware and deeply resents, will be appreciated -and equally resented at a lower level still. When society is -sufficiently filled with indignation against it, then the explosion will -come. If that explosion only affected the rich Jews immediately -concerned no one would much regret it. There would be little harm done. -But the trouble is that it will almost certainly affect the whole nation -to which those individuals belong. - -I may be told that to put an end to this state of affairs is impossible -so long as parliamentary government, with its profound corruption, -endures; that the only force capable of dealing with the plutocratic -evil of alien monopoly upon this scale is a king; and that a king we -have not, among modern nations. To which I answer that the parliamentary -system will not last for ever. It is already in active dissolution among -ourselves, and badly hit elsewhere. The king may not be so far off as -people think him to be. - -At any rate, in one way or another the thing will cease, and will -probably cease in violence. The danger is that if it ceases in violence -a vast number of innocent will be involved with the guilty. - - -THE SPECIAL CAUSES OF FRICTION - - - - -CHAPTER V - -THE SPECIAL CAUSES OF FRICTION - - -There are two special forces upon the Jewish side which nourish and -exasperate the inevitable friction between the Jewish race and its -hosts. It will be well to deal with these before passing to the -corresponding forces upon our side. For to find a remedy it is necessary -to diagnose the disease. - -The two main Jewish forces which exasperate and maintain the sense of -friction between the Jews and their hosts are first of all the Jewish -reliance upon secrecy, and, secondly, the Jewish expression of -superiority. - - -1. THE JEWISH RELIANCE UPON SECRECY - -It has unfortunately now become a habit for so many generations, that it -has almost passed into an instinct throughout the Jewish body, to rely -upon the weapon of secrecy. Secret societies, a language kept as far as -possible secret, the use of false names in order to hide secret -movements, secret relations between various parts of the Jewish body: -all these and other forms of secrecy have become the national method. It -is a method to be deplored, not because its indignity and falsehood -degrade the Jew--that is not our affair--but rather on account of the -ill-effects this policy produces on our mutual relations. It feeds and -intensifies the antagonism already excited by racial contrast. - -But before we go further it is essential to be just; for no one -understands anything if he attacks it unjustly. - -The Jewish habit of secrecy--the assumption of false names and the -pretence of non-Jewish origin in individuals, the concealment of -relationships and the rest of it--have presumably sprung from the -experience of the race. Let a man put himself in the place of the Jew -and he will see how sound the presumption is. A race scattered, -persecuted, often despised, always suspected and nearly always hated by -those among whom it moves, is constrained by something like physical -force to the use of secret methods. - -Take the particular trick of false names. It seems to us particularly -odious. We think when we show our contempt for those who use this -subterfuge that we are giving them no more than they deserve. It is a -meanness which we associate with criminals and vagabonds; a piece of -crawling and sneaking. We suspect its practisers of desiring to hide -something which would bring them into disgrace if it were known, or of -desiring to over-reach their fellows in commerce by a form of falsehood. - -But the Jew has other and better motives. As one of their community said -to me with great force, when I discussed the matter with him many years -ago at a City dinner, "When we work under our own names you abuse us as -Jews. When we work under _your_ names you abuse us as forgers." The Jew -has often felt himself so handicapped if he declared himself, that he -was half forced, or at any rate grievously tempted, to a piece of -baseness which was never a temptation for us. Surely all this carefully -arranged code of assumed patronymics (Stanley for Solomon, Curzon for -Cohen, Sinclair for Slezinger, Montague for Moses, Benson for Benjamin, -etc., etc.) had its root in that. - -The Jew can plead something further in extenuation of this practice. -Family names did not grow up naturally with them, as with us, in the -course of the Middle Ages. The Jew retained, as we long retained in the -middle and lower ranks of European society, the simple habit of -possessing one personal name and differentiating a man from his fellows -by introducing the name of his father. Thus a Jew in the sixteenth -century was Moses ben Solomon, just as the Cromwells' ancestor of the -same generation was Williams ap Williams. He had not what we call a -surname or family name. In the same way until varying dates, early in -France and England and other Western countries, much later in Wales, -Brittany, Poland and the Slav countries of the East, a man was known -only by his personal name, distinguished, if that were necessary, by -mentioning also the name of his father, or, in some cases, of his tribe. - -Properly speaking the Jews have no surnames, and they may say with -justice: "Since we were compelled to take surnames arbitrarily (which -was the case in the Germanies and sometimes elsewhere as well), you -cannot blame us if we attach no particular sanctity to the custom." If a -Jew of plain Jewish name was compelled by alien force to take the fancy -name of Flowerfield, he is surely free to change that fancy name, for -which he is not responsible, to any other he chooses. There was a good -reason for the Government to force a name upon him. Only thus could he -be registered and his actions traced. But forced it was, and therefore, -on him, not morally binding. - -All this is true, but there remains an element not to be accounted for -on any such pleas. There are in the experience of all of us, an -experience repeated indefinitely, men who have no excuse whatsoever for -a false name save that advantage of deceit. Men whose race is -universally known will unblushingly adopt a false name as a mask, and -after a year or two pretend to treat it as an insult if their original -and true name be used in its place. This is particularly the case with -the great financial families. Some, indeed, have the pride to maintain -the original patronymic and refuse to change it in any of their -descendants. But the great mass of them concealed their relations one -with another by adopting all manner of fantastic titles, and there can -be no object in such a proceeding save the object of deception. I admit -it is a form of protection, and especially do I admit that in its origin -it may have mainly derived from a necessity for self-protection. But I -maintain that to-day the practice does nothing but harm to the Jew. -There are other races which have suffered persecution, many of them, up -and down the world, and we do not find in them a universal habit of this -kind. - -Again, who can say that the bearing of a Jewish name to-day, or at any -rate in the immediate past, is or was a handicap in commerce where -Occidental nations were concerned? And as for the Eastern nations, the -Jews there are so sharply differentiated that a false name can be of no -service merely to hide the racial character of its bearer. There must be -another motive present. - -The same arguments apply for and against other forms of secrecy. A man -may plead that if secrecy in relationship were not maintained the -dislike of Jews would lead to false accusations. The Jew is highly -individual, especially in intellectual affairs. He takes his own line. -He expresses his opinions with singular courage. And such individual -opinions will often differ violently from those of men with whom he is -most closely connected. "Why," I can understand some distinguished -Jewish publicist in England saying, "should I be compromised by people -knowing that such-and-such a Bolshevist in Moscow or in New York is my -cousin or nephew? I am conservative in temperament; I have always served -faithfully the state in which I live; I heartily disapprove of these -people's views and actions. If their relationship with me were known I -should fall under the common ban. That would be unjust. Therefore I keep -the relationship secret." - -The plea is sound, but it does not cover the ground. It is not -sufficient to explain, for instance, the habit of hiding relationships -between men equally distinguished and equally approved in the different -societies in which they move. It does not explain why we must be left in -ignorance of the fact that a man whom we are treating as the best of -fellow-citizens should hide his connection with another man who is -treated with equal honour in another country. There are occasions where -national conflicts make the thing explicable. A Jew in England with a -brother in Germany and a father at Constantinople might well be excused -in 1915 for calling himself Montmorency. Yet we note that often where -there is most need to hide the connection, the connection is not hidden -at all. On the contrary, it is openly advertised. We all recollect the -name of one Jewish financier who was most unjustly treated during the -war. He had faithfully served this country and the breach of his -connection with it was (to my mind at least, and I think to most people -who can judge the matter) a very bad thing for Britain in the conflict. -Yet there was here no change of name and no attempt to hide the -connection between himself and his brother, who stood, in another -capital, for the financial policy of our enemies. - -Again, the Rothschilds, present in the various capitals of Europe, have -never pretended to hide their mutual relationships, and no one has -thought any the worse of them, nor has this open practice in any way -diminished their financial power. - -There must be more than necessity at work; I suggest that there is -something like instinct, or, at any rate, an inherited tradition so -strong that recourse to it seems natural. - -Now it cannot be too forcibly emphasized that secrecy in any of these -forms--working through secret societies, using false names, hiding of -relationships, denying Jewish origin--specially exasperates this, our -own race, among which the Jews are thrown in their dispersion. It is -invariably discovered, sooner or later, and whenever it is discovered -men have an angry feeling that they have been duped, even in cases where -the practice is most innocent and is no more than the following of -something like a ritual. - -I doubt whether the Jews have any idea how strongly this force works -against them. If a man were to say "my name is so-and-so; my father was -born at such-and-such a place in Galicia; my brother is still there in -such-and-such a business"--if he told us all that, he would not suffer -upon our appreciating later on that members of his family abroad were -connected with movements we disapproved: no, not even with a Government -in active hostility to our own. Everybody knows the international -position of the Jew. Everybody knows that he cannot avoid that position. -Everybody makes allowances for it. And I conceive that the abandonment -of this habit of secrecy is not only possible but would be very greatly -to the advantage of the whole race. - -Perhaps its most absurd form (not its most dangerous form) is the -secrecy maintained by distinguished men with regard to their Jewish -ancestors. They and their Jewish relations often suppress it altogether -or, at best, touch on it rarely and obscurely. Why should they act thus? -Take the case of two men at random out of hundreds whose names are -universally known and by most people respected, the name of Charles -Kingsley, the writer, and the name of Moss-Booth, the founder of the -Salvation Army. Here are two men who in very different fields played a -great part in English life and who both owed their genius and nearly all -their physical appearance to Jewish mothers. I should have thought it to -the advantage of the Jewish race and of the individuals concerned that -this fact should be widely known. The literary abilities of Charles -Kingsley, the organizing and other abilities of Booth are not lessened -in people's eyes, but, if anything, enhanced, by a knowledge of their -true lineage. Yet the mention of that lineage is treated as though it -were a sort of insult. I have heard it wrung out in some passionate plea -for the Jewish race as a proof that they are not devoid of abilities, -but never generally published. - -Surely it would be more sensible to emphasize in every possible case the -Jewish or partially Jewish origin of men who distinguished themselves, -and thus to show under what a debt Europeans stand to the Jewish blood. -To treat the matter as a sort of sacred labyrinth, as a mysterious -temple into which one may now and then be allowed to peep is ridiculous. -The Jews cannot have their cake and eat it too. If it is--surely it must -be--in their eyes a matter for pride to belong to blood which they hold -to be superior and to a tradition of such immense antiquity, then it -cannot be at the same time a matter of insult. Yet the convention is -desperately maintained by the Jews themselves. If a man tells me that he -hates the English, and in reply I say, "That's because you are an -Irishman," he does not fly at my throat. He takes it as a matter of -course that the history of the English government in Ireland excuses his -expression. So far from being insulted at being called an Irishman he -would be insulted if you said he was not an Irishman. And so it is with -many another nationality which has suffered oppression and persecution. -I can find no rational basis for a contrary policy in the case of the -Jews. Moreover the habit does this further harm: it makes men ascribe a -Jewish character to anything they dislike, and thus extends -undeservedly the odium against the race. - -A foreign movement against one's nation, an unpopular public figure, a -detested doctrine, are labelled "Jewish" and the field of hate, already -perilously wide, is broadened indefinitely. It is useless to say, "The -Jews do not admit the connection, the names are not Jewish, there is no -overt Jewish element." He answers, "Jews never do admit such connection; -Jews admittedly hide under false names; Jewish action never _is_ overt." -And--as things are, until they change--there is no denying what he says. -His judgment may be as wild as you will (I have heard Sinn Feiners -called Jews!), but, so long as this wretched habit of secrecy is -maintained, there is no correcting that judgment. A universal suspicion -is engendered and spreads. - -Meanwhile the same vice drags into publicity every ill-sounding Jewish -act and name and leaves in obscurity the honoured names and useful -public actions of Jewry. For a false name, like a forgery, advertises -itself. - -It is not always recognized in this connection that the Jewish "booms," -which are so fruitful a cause of exasperation, depend on this same -policy of concealment and on that account add to the volume of anger as -each new trick is discovered. - -Not that the objects of these world-wide campaigns are unworthy of -attention. The Jewish actor, or film-star, or writer or scientist -selected is usually talented; the victim of injustice whose case is -advertised on the big drum has often a genuine grievance. But that the -notice demanded is out of all proportion and that its dependence on -Jewish organization is always kept hidden. - -So much for the element of secret action. A great deal more might be -written upon it, but there are two reasons against enlarging thereon. -First, a full discussion would take up far too much of my space; -secondly, it would tend to add what I particularly wish to avoid in -these pages, I mean emphasis upon the errors of the Jew. It would -continue a quarrel, our whole object in which is to find peace. - - -2. THE EXPRESSION OF SUPERIORITY BY THE JEW - -This is a very different matter. The mere _sense_ of superiority is not -something in which any special policy can be recommended, because it is -there and cannot be remedied. It is part of the whole position. But it -is possible to restrain its expression. For that purpose it is of value -to define it, to put it upon record and to estimate its effect upon our -issue. - -The Jew individually feels himself superior to his non-Jewish -contemporary and neighbour of whatever race, and particularly of our -race; the Jew feels his nation immeasurably superior to any other human -community, and particularly to our modern national communities in -Europe. - -The frank statement of so simple and fundamental a truth is rarely made. -It will sound, I fear, shocking in many ears. To many others it will -sound not so much shocking as comic, and to many more stupefying. - -The idea that the Jew should think himself our superior is something so -incomprehensible to us that we forget the existence of the feeling. If -it be constantly reiterated, for the purpose of dealing with this great -political difficulty, it is perhaps reluctantly admitted, but still -held as sort of abnormal, bewildering truth. I contend that the -forgetfulness of that truth, the attempt to solve the problem without -that truth remaining constant and fixed in the mind of the statesman, is -in a very large measure the cause of our failure in the past; and that -the way the Jew openly acts upon it in gesture, tone, manner, social -assertion, is a very important factor in the quarrel between his race -and ours. - -Consider the attitude of statesmanship in the past towards this vital -conflict. In every such attitude I think the Jewish conviction of -superiority has been omitted. - -For the attitudes taken up by European statesmen in the past towards the -alien Jewish element in their midst have always been one of three -sorts:-- - -(1) Either they have acted as though there were no Jewish nation, as -though the Jew were merely a private citizen like any other who happened -to have peculiar opinions and customs of his own but who was not -substantially different from the men around him. - -(2) Or they have attempted to suppress, or to expel, or to destroy the -Jew with ignominy and violence. - -(3) Or, while recognizing the existence of the Jewish nation as -something separate from their own fellow-nationals whom they have to -administrate, the statesmen have tried to arrive at equilibrium by a -sort of pact in which Jewish separateness was recognized, _but under -conditions of disability_. - -Now in all these three methods there is absent all recognition of the -Jewish feeling of superiority. - -In the first it is obviously lacking because the whole idea of a Jewish -nation is absent. It is equally obviously lacking from the second -method, that of persecution: the persecutor instinctively acts as though -the Jew felt himself to be an inferior. In the third method it is also -absent, not in theory but in practice. For the statesmen who have acted -thus in the past have not attempted to give the Jews a _separate_ status -only, they have in point of fact nearly always given them an _inferior_ -status. By so doing they have exasperated the Jewish national sentiment. - -For instance, certain nations have treated Jews as a separate people, as -aliens, by forbidding them untrammelled residence, and enforcing -registration. But when it came to taxation or freedom from military -service, _then_ there was no special recognition of the Jew. - -There is indeed a fourth attitude which has occasionally appeared in -history when States have been in active decline or have fallen into the -hands of base and weak men, and that is the exaggerated flattery and -support of a few powerful wealthy Jews by administrators who were bribed -or cowed. We are suffering from that to-day. But these exceptional cases -(they have always led to national disaster) do not form a true category -of _Statesmanship_ in the matter. Nor is there even in those who thus -actually advantage a few Jews above their own fellow-citizens, and give -them special prominence and power, so much a recognition of the Jewish -sense of superiority as a secret hatred of their Jewish masters. - -Bitter as is everywhere the secret attack on the Jews by those who have -subjected themselves for gain or publicity, it is nowhere so bitter as -in the private speech of the politicians. - -It would seem in the presence of so many failures in policy, and all -these failures having in common the non-recognition of this Jewish -feeling, that success can never be obtained unless we fully allow for -it. I submit that there will never be peace between any Jewish alien -minority and the community within which it may happen to reside until -those who administrate that community fully accept, and studiously avoid -the exasperation of, this state of the Jewish mind. - -In statesmanship, as in every other form of human activity, exact -definition is of the first importance. We must distinguish at the outset -between this Jewish sense of superiority and any real superiority. The -statesman is not concerned with the rightness or wrongness of the Jewish -attitude. It may be a most absurd illusion, or it may be a most profound -vision. He has nothing to do with that. Having made up his mind that the -small and quite alien minority must be tolerated and must be allowed to -live as happily as possible in the midst of a community from which it so -profoundly differs, his next duty is to know thoroughly the nature of -the material upon which he is acting and with which he has to deal. - -He may smile at the Jewish sense of superiority; he may even be -privately indignant; but he must be quite sure that it is a permanent -part of the nation with which he has to settle. It will never be -removed. The Jew in the East End of London, the poorest of the poor, -feels himself the superior of the magistrate before whom he is hauled, -of the policeman who keeps order in the streets, and immensely the -superior of the simple-faced soldiers and sailors, whose trade is the -most typical of our own race. He even feels himself the superior of -those whom he better understands--the negotiators: the people who live -by cunning. The expression of our faces, our gesture, our manner; the -very fact that our minds, less acute, are also broader, confirms his -feeling. - -This fixed idea of superiority which appears in every phrase and -implication, is taken for granted by the Jew. It is felt, I say, by the -poorest and most oppressed, the least rich and the most unfortunate of -the Jewish people in our midst. Unfortunately--and this is the crux--it -proceeds to _unrestrained expression_. It is this which is so violently -resented. It is this which aggravates the quarrel. It is this which must -be kept in control if we are to have peace; not the sense of -superiority, that is ineradicable, but the expression of it. It appears, -as we all know, with extraordinary emphasis in the action and manner of -the few very wealthy Jews with whom the directing classes of the nation -are better acquainted. But whether he be a rich man suffering only from -alien and hostile surroundings, or a poor man suffering from all the -lowering forces of squalor, of destitution and of contempt, the Jew -feels himself the potential master of his hosts and shows it. He reposes -in the same confidence as was felt by Disraeli when he said: "The Jew -cannot be absorbed; it is not possible for a superior race to be -absorbed by an inferior." But unfortunately he does not only repose on -that foundation; he also _acts_ upon it, and that is intolerable. - -We must, I say, allow for this feeling in any settlement we make; we -have also to study its consequences. Otherwise we shall be baffled by -phenomena which would seem inexplicable. But we need not allow for--on -the contrary, we should actively condemn--an open attitude of Jewish -contempt for ourselves. - -Here are some consequences of this open expression of -superiority--consequences which we all discover to-day in the relations -between the Jewish people and ourselves and which are leading us into a -situation very dangerous for them and for us. - -First, you have that familiar handling of European things by the Jew, -which is continually stirring the wrath of the European and as -continually leaving the Jew in wonderment what possible harm he can have -done. Thus, the Jew will write of our religion, taking for granted that -it is folly, and will marvel that we are offended. He will appear in our -national discussions, not only giving advice, but attempting to direct -policy, and will be puzzled to discover that his indifference to -national feeling is annoying. He will postulate the Jewish temperament -as something which, if different from ours, must, whether we like it or -not, be thrust upon us. - -He acts in all these things as every one acts instinctively in the -presence of those whom they take for granted to be inferiors, and when -men talk of the "Jewish insolence," or the "Jewish sneer," they imply -that attitude. We are wrong if we take these things as calculated -insult. The action of the Jew, in so far as it proceeds from this sense -of superiority, is no more calculated and no more deliberately hostile -than are our own actions whenever we find ourselves in relations with -those whom we think inferior to ourselves. But we are right to point -them out, to resent them, to reprove them, and, if it became necessary, -to end them. - -The Jewish problem will never be solved unless we make allowances for -the sense of superiority, take it for granted as an unavoidable evil, -and restrain our indignation in its presence; but neither will it be -solved if we permit its more and more open expression. - -Another consequence of this attitude: The Jew, on account of it, makes -no effort to get into touch with the mass of the race in the midst of -which he may happen to be living. He is content to remain separate from -it, and thinks he cannot help remaining separate from them. And he shows -it. He consents to associate with the _elite_, with those who direct, -with those who have some special sort of function, but it seems to him a -waste of time to attempt communion with the rest. And he shows it. That -is what Renan meant when he said that the Jews were the least democratic -of all people. Renan, who was supported by Jewish money and lived, while -he was doing his best work, dependent on a Jewish publisher; Renan, who -was so fascinated by the history of Israel, and who decided himself to -become a scholar in all Hebraic things, understood the Jew not at all. -His judgments upon them are invariably superficial and to one side of -the truth; the judgments of a foreigner--an admiring foreigner but not a -sympathetic foreigner. And when he said that the Jews were not -democratic he was, instead of passing a judgment upon an intimate -political instinct of the Jewish people, simply noting an external -phenomenon. For the Jews are, as a fact, strongly democratic--no nation -more so--in their national relations among themselves; they only appear -undemocratic to us because they openly look down on us among whom they -live. - -Another form taken by that open expression of the sense of superiority -among the Jews: It lends to all their actions in our State a certain -assurance and solidity which vastly strengthens their power of -resistance, no doubt, but also provokes their misfortunes. The religious -interpreter of history might say that they had been specially endowed -with this sense by Providence because Providence intended them to -survive as a national unit miraculously, in the face of every -disability; to remain themselves for 2,000 years under conditions which -would have destroyed any other people in perhaps a century: and yet -intended to suffer. The rationalist will say that the expression of a -sense of superiority, and the power of resistance that accompanies it -are but different names for the same thing; that but for the presence of -that expression of superiority the resistance could not have succeeded, -but for the resistance there could have been no persecution; that there -was no design in the matter, only the chance presence of a particular -quality which has produced its necessary and logical effect. But -whichever be the true explanation, the historical fact remains, that -this sense of superiority produced an open and overweening expression of -it whenever the Jews have been free to give vent to their feelings, and -that while it has had, as one great consequence, the strengthening of -the identity, permanence, survival of the Jewish people, it has also -had, for another great consequence, their recurrent oppression following -on every period of freedom. - -There is one last thing to be said, which it is almost impossible to say -without the danger of giving pain and therefore of confusing the problem -and making the solution more difficult. But it must be said, because, if -we shirk it, the problem is confused the more. It is this: While it is -undoubtedly true, and will always be true, that a Jew feels himself the -superior of his hosts, it is also true that his hosts feel themselves -immeasurably superior to the Jew. We can only arrive at a just and -peaceable solution of our difficulties by remembering that the Jew, to -whom we have given special and alien status in the Commonwealth, is all -the while thinking of himself as our superior. But on his side the Jew -must recognize, however unpalatable to him the recognition may be, that -those among whom he is living and whose inferiority he takes for -granted, on _their_ side regard him as something much less than -themselves. - -That statement, I know, will be as stupefying to the Jew as its converse -is stupefying to us. It will seem as extraordinary, as incredible, and -all the rest of it; but it is true, and it is a permanent truth. Unless -the Jews recognize that truth the trouble will go on indefinitely. There -is no European so mean in fortune or so base in character as not to feel -himself altogether the superior of any Jew, however wealthy, however -powerful, and (I am afraid I must add) however good. True, virtue has a -superiority of its own which cannot be hidden, and the cruel, or the -treacherous, or the debauched European cannot but feel himself morally -inferior to a Jew who is just, self-governed, merciful, generous, and -the rest of it. But we know how it is with national feelings. The type -is stronger for us than the individual; and while we may recognize -certain superior characteristics in the individual, we are thinking all -the while of the race, of the communal form, and contrasting our own -with the alien form to the disadvantage of the latter. - -So difficult is it for the Jew to appreciate this factor in the problem -that his lack of appreciation has been almost as great a cause of -difficulty in the past as the same lack upon our side. We seem to him -insolent when, in our own eyes, we are merely acting normally as -superiors. - -What emotion does it not create, I wonder, in some Jewish merchant or -money-dealer who has purchased a high directing place in our plutocracy -when he discovers from the gesture, the tone, the expression of some -chance poor Englishman, perhaps no more than an embarrassed hack writer, -a clear feeling of superiority? Must it not seem to him mere insolence? -"What possible claim" (he will say within himself) "has this _goy_, and -a poor unsuccessful _goy_ at that, to treat _me_ as though I were less -than he! I, who am worth millions, who am ruling and doing what I will -with his own national leaders, who dispose of his State very much as I -choose, and who belong to that nation which is wholly above all others, -the Jewish people?" Everywhere the Jew discovers the consequences of -this feeling, even though that feeling be to him so incomprehensible -that he can hardly admit its existence. - -Well, whether he likes to admit it or not, it is there. Individual Jews -may be flattered for the sake of their wealth or because of the fear of -them, in which a commercial community stands. Such Jews as mistake the -current printed word which they read for the spoken words they never -hear may fall into the error of thinking that this sense of superiority -on our part did not exist. They must be warned, if ever the problem is -to be solved, that it _does_. - -In their case, just as in ours, a right solution can only be arrived at -by the frank admission that the feeling is there and by the fixed -knowledge that, whether the feeling be an illusion or represent a -reality, it will not change; but also by a repression of it in our -mutual relations. - -We may add to our summary of this subtle but profound cause of -disturbance the further truth that a paradox of the sort is to be found, -though perhaps less emphasized, in every other political problem. The -diplomat resident in a foreign capital has to consider not only his own -certitude that his hosts are inferior, but their certitude of their own -superiority to him and his. The general in the field may be certain of -his mastery over an opponent, but if that opponent is as yet undefeated -he will do ill to forget that he is matched by a confidence equal to his -own. Still more does the negotiator in commerce act upon this principle -and recognize it, or at least if he fails to do so, he invites disaster. -For when the commercial man is occupied in overreaching his neighbour, -his chances of success very largely depend upon his treating that -neighbour as though he really were what he believes himself to be. He -may be dealing with a stupid and vain man easily to be overmatched and -impoverished, but if he lets it appear that he regards his proposed -victim as a vain and stupid man, then he will miss his bargain. - -In general, there is no success over others, nor even (which is much -more necessary), any permanent arrangement possible with others, unless -we know, allow for, and act upon the self-judgment of others, however -wrong we may believe that self-judgment to be. - -It is clear that in this conflict between the Jew and, let us say, the -European (for it is between the Jew and the white Occidental race that -our present problem lies, though the same problem arises with all other -races among whom the Jew may find himself), both parties cannot be -right. A being superior to the race of man and looking on our petty -quarrels might be able to decide which of the two opponents were nearer -reality, and whether we are the better justified in our contempt of the -Jew or the Jew in his contempt of us. But in working out our own -solution without the aid of such guidance, there is no rule but for both -parties to take for granted what each regards as an illusion in the -other; to restrain its expression for the sake of reaching a settlement; -and in the settlement they arrive at, to admit as a factor necessarily -and permanently present what each still secretly regards as a folly, but -an incurable folly, in the other. - -The alternative to such self-restraint is a falling back into the old -circle of submission, consequent anger accompanied by shame and -violence, and these followed by remorse. - - -THE CAUSE OF FRICTION UPON OUR SIDE - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -THE CAUSE OF FRICTION UPON OUR SIDE - - -Having concluded a brief review of the causes of friction upon the -Jewish side, we must turn to the cause of friction upon our own. - -At first sight it might seem that the task was superfluous. Action and -reaction are equal and opposite. If you have shown why A irritates B, -you have also presumably shown why B irritates A. Or again, if you -regard an alien minority in a community as an irritant (which it nearly -always is and which it certainly is in the case of the Jews), you have, -it would seem, sufficiently defined the position and need not trouble to -examine what part the irritated play in the matter. What is parasitical -at the worst preys upon the general body, at the best disturbs it. The -general body would appear passive. It has no part in the business but to -react against the cause of the disturbance and if possible get rid of -it. As that cause is none of its making, one need not seek for any -responsibility on its side. - -The house is ours: the Jew is an intruder (an objector may say), and -there is an end of it. - -But the situation is not as simple as that. Quite apart from the fact -that the Jew will certainly not allow such a description of his -activity, there is the obvious truth that where you are dealing with -two _human_ factors, that is, with two factors which have a common -nature and therefore common duties, you are also dealing with two known -and analysable organic things. You are also dealing with two sets of -wills, and these wills we know to be free, in spite of sophists. A man -and a group of men can do well or ill, both absolutely, and relatively -to some particular question in hand; and no group of men can escape -responsibility in relation to any other group with which it is in -contact. It is certain that we play a part ourselves in this quarrel -between us and the Jews. It is a part which is in a measure inevitable, -because it proceeds in a measure from the mere contrast between two -racial characters. But there is a remaining part which can be remedied -by the action of the will. - -Though we cannot change that element which is inherent in our nature any -more than the Jews can change theirs, yet an understanding of it makes -all the difference; and we can certainly change those elements which are -inherent in our wills. - -The proof of this is that in the long story of the relations between the -two races, there have been, in various times and places, those -exceptional chapters of calm to which I have alluded on an earlier page, -and these could not have been maintained had not the causes of friction -been modified on either side, but especially upon ours. - -All that cause of friction which arises from the mere contrast of -character may be set down very briefly. It is included in what has just -been said on the general causes, the difference in nature between the -Jews and ourselves. If their form of courage, their form of generosity, -their form of loyalty is, as it is, of a different quality from ours; if -their defects show the same difference of quality or colour; if we -perpetually feel, as we do feel, the friction caused by this contrast, -so do they, presumably, feel a corresponding friction in their dealings -with us. We shall neither of us be able to change that state of affairs. -We must admit it, and we must try to understand its nature. - -Above all, we must not take it for granted that a difference from -ourselves is in itself an evil in another. That is a point to be -insisted upon. When we are dealing with inanimate nature, or with -unintelligent animate nature, we do not ascribe motive, for there is no -motive to ascribe. A man does not go about with bitterness in his heart -against wasps, though the purpose of the wasp is very different from the -purpose of the man and their interests clash. He does not call the wasp -wicked, nor, save as a relief to his feelings, give it moral names. He -does not condemn the wasp. Still less does he condemn all wasps, or -anything else in nature around him that works against his interest. But -when he has to deal with other human beings, man at once begins to -ascribe a motive. He must do so, because he knows that motive is the -spring of all human action, including his own. When that motive differs -from his, contrasts with his and is therefore in any degree inimical to -his, he is inclined to ascribe an evil motive. All that is a truism as -old as the hills. - -If you have not to live with those who thus differ from you there is no -great harm done, but if you have to accept them as part of your life, it -is a different matter. It is then essential to the order of the State -that this illusion of directly antagonistic motive should be watched and -restrained. - -But all this concerns rather our duty in the matter than the mere cause -of friction. - -The first cause of friction is that contrast which is the same whether -we describe it from the alien's point of view, as has just been done, or -from our own. - -The causes of friction which lie within the province of the will, and -which are, therefore, directly a matter for reform, are of another kind. -The first of them undoubtedly is our _disingenuousness_ in our dealings -with the Jew. - -This disingenuousness extends from our daily habit to our treatment of -history. It is more deep-rooted than most people are aware of, more -widespread than those who are aware of it like to admit. It affects our -relations with the Jews just as much when we are attempting to defend -their position in the State as when we attack them. Indeed, I think it -affects our relations more when we are trying to defend them than when -we attack them. The only two kinds of men who show perfect candour in -their dealings with the Jews are the completely ignorant dupe who can -hardly tell a Jew when he sees one and who accepts as a reality the old -fiction of there being no difference except a difference of religion -(which he has been taught to think unimportant) and the person called an -"Anti-Semite." - -Both these types certainly say what they think. That is why in their -heart of hearts the Jews are grateful to both, although both are -intellectually contemptible. The Jew feels, I think, when he meets -either of these types, "At any rate I know where I am." But the great -bulk of men, especially among the more cultivated, are grossly -disingenuous in all their dealings with the Jews. It is the great fault -of our side which corresponds to the fault of secrecy upon theirs. And -when you have allowed for routine, for the necessities of social -intercourse, for convention and the rest, it remains a deliberately -conceived moral evil. - -A man and his friend meet in the street a Jew whom they know; they -exchange ordinary civilities with him; they pass on. The moment his back -is turned each comments to his companion upon the Jewish character of -the man they have just left, and almost invariably to his disadvantage. - -Now to blame this way of going on does not imply that when you meet your -Jewish acquaintance you are to offend him by saying to his face the kind -of things you say behind his back; that would be a monstrous piece of -cynicism and, in practice, insane. We do not act thus in any relation of -life. But it does mean that in the attitude, the gesture, the tone of -the voice, we play a deliberately false part in our relations with Jews, -which we do not play in our relations with any other people. A peculiar -pretence, a pretence only practised with Jews, is elaborately -maintained. There is no allusion to or admission of our real attitude, -our sense of contrast. We therefore suffer an unnatural strain; and we -relieve of the strain immediately afterwards by an exaggeration of the -contrast we have pretended to ignore. It is blameworthy in a special -degree because it is peculiar to that one case. If we admitted the Jew -as a Jew, talked to him of the things that were uppermost in his mind -and in ours, and treated him as we treat any other foreigner in our -midst, there would have been no harm done. As it is the lie has done a -double harm--to him and to us. To us by an exasperation which is -entirely our own fault, to him by deceiving him as to his true position. - -The Jews who mix with the wealthiest classes to-day, especially in -London, have no true idea of their real position in the eyes of their -guests; and the fault is with their guests. - -I have cited an obvious daily example, but it is the least important, -for it is passing and shallow. This disingenuousness spreads to -relations more permanent. A man goes into business with a Jew, accepts -him as a partner, works with him constantly and yet nourishes in his -heart a disloyalty to that relationship. It is a phenomenon of constant -recurrence and it poisons the relations between the two races. If a man -is prepared to enter into one of these permanent relations with another -man who differs fundamentally from himself in tradition and human -character, he must face the consequences. One of those consequences, if -he is to remain an honest man, is the acceptation of the position with -all that it implies. He cannot have the advantage--as he hopes to have -it--of the Jewish sobriety, the Jewish tenacity, the Jewish lucidity of -thought, the Jewish international relationships, the Jewish opportunity -of advancement through the aid of his fellows, and at the same time -secretly indulge in a contempt and dislike for his companion, and -relieve that suppressed feeling in his absence. Yet that is what men are -doing daily throughout the business world. - -Listen to the conversation of such a man as, having thus engaged in -intimate commercial relationship with the Jew, falls upon misfortune. He -spends the rest of his life denouncing the Jews as a race and his own -companion in misfortune in particular. He has no right to do it. It is -undignified; it is puerile, but, worst of all, it is unjust. He -presumably knew what he was doing when he entered into what could not -but be a difficult relationship. The consequences of that relationship -he should accept whether they turn out well for him or ill. - -We find something perhaps even worse to note in the attitude of those -who are successful in their business through an alliance with the Jew. -For in this case gratitude should be added to justice, and that -gratitude is very rarely shown. On the contrary, the non-Jewish partner -is for ever in a mood of complaint about his share. He is perpetually in -a grievance that he has been overreached, or that he has been bullied, -or that he has been robbed, save in those very rare cases where the -success is so overwhelming, the fortunes so rapid, that there is no room -for a grudge. In almost every other case that I have come across there -is that element of recrimination--behind the Jew's back--even under -conditions of success. - -I know very well what can be said upon the other side. It can be said -that what I have called upon a former page the "ruthlessness" of the Jew -in commercial relations, as well as his tenacity and all the rest, make -the contest unequal; that in a partnership between Jew and non-Jew the -non-Jew is, as a fact, often overreached and is, as a fact, often left -(as the pretty vocabulary of modern commerce has it) "in the cart." But -pray why did the non-Jew enter into the alliance at all? Was it not -precisely in order that he should benefit, if he could, by those very -qualities which he later denounces? He expected that those qualities -which make for the success of the Jew in commerce would also benefit -himself. He knew that there must always be a certain amount of -competition, even within such an alliance. He backed himself to watch -his own interests under conditions which he knew perfectly well when he -entered into them. He has not a leg to stand upon in quarrelling with -the results of the relationship, for in so doing he is merely -quarrelling with his own judgment and, for the matter of that, his own -plot. - -If a man cannot tolerate the contrast between the Jewish race and our -own, or if he regards that race as possessing energies which will -invariably defeat him in the competition of commerce, then let him keep -away from a Jewish alliance altogether. It is the simplest plan. But to -immix himself with the Jewish commercial activity and then to grumble at -the results is despicable. - -All this is worse, of course, when one is dealing with relations even -closer than those of commerce. Those relations are numerous in the -modern world, and disingenuousness in them takes the worst possible -form. Men, especially of the wealthier classes of the gentry, will make -the closest friends of Jews with the avowed purpose of personal -advantage. They think the friendship will help them to great positions -in the State, or to the advancement of private fortune, or to fame. In -that calculation they are wise. For the Jew has to-day exceptional power -in all these things. They therefore have the Jew continually at their -tables, they stay continually under the Jew's roof. In all the -relations of life they are as intimate as friends can be. Yet they -relieve the strain which such an unnatural situation imposes by a -standing sneer at their Jewish friends in their absence. One may say of -such men (and they are to-day an increasing majority among our rich) -that the falsity of their situation has got on their nerves. It has -become a sort of disease with them; and I am very certain that when the -opportunity comes, when the public reaction against Jewish power rises, -clamorous, insistent and open, they will be among the first to take -their revenge. It is abominable, but it is true. - -And this truth applies not only to friendships, it even applies to -marriages. Marriage between Christian and Jew is, in that rank, an -affair of interest, and the bitterness the relation breeds is excessive. - -This disingenuousness, then--lack of candour on the part of our race in -its dealings with the Jew--a vice particularly rife among the wealthy -and middle classes (far less common among the poor), extends, as I have -said, to history. We dare not, or will not teach in our history books -the plain facts of the relations between our own race and the Jews. We -throw the story of these relations, which are among the half-dozen -leading factors of history, right into the background even when we do -mention it. In what they are taught of history the schoolboy and the -undergraduate come across no more than a line or two upon those -relations. The teacher cannot be quite silent upon the expulsion of the -Jews under Edward I or upon their return under Cromwell. A man cannot -read the history of the Roman Empire without hearing of the Jewish war. -A man cannot read the Constitutional History of England without hearing -of the special economic position of Jews under the Mediaeval Crown. But -the vastness of the subject, its permanent and insistent character -throughout two thousand years; its great episodes; its general -effect--all that is deliberately suppressed. - -How many people, for instance, of those who profess a good knowledge of -the Roman Empire, even in its details, are aware, let alone have written -upon the tremendous massacres and counter-massacres of Jews and -Europeans, the mass of edicts alternately protecting and persecuting -Jews; the economic position of the Jew, especially in the later empire; -the character of the dispersion? - -There took place in Cyprus and in the Libyan cities under Hadrian a -Jewish movement against the surrounding non-Jewish society far exceeding -in violence the late wreckage of Russia, which to-day fills all our -thoughts. The massacres were wholesale and so were the reprisals. The -Jews killed a quarter of a million of the people of Cyprus alone, and -the Roman authorities answered with a repression which was a pitiless -war. - -One might pile up instances indefinitely. The point is, that the average -educated man has never been allowed to hear of them. What a factor the -Jew was in that Roman State from which we all spring, how he survived -its violent antagonism to him and his antagonism to it; the special -privilege whereby he was excepted from a worship of its gods; his -handling of its finances--all the intimate parallel which it affords to -later times is left in silence. The average educated man who has been -taught, even in some fullness, his Roman History, leaves that study -with the impression that the Jews (if he had noticed them at all) are -but an insignificant detail in the story. - -So it is with history more recent and even contemporaneous. In the -history of the nineteenth century it is outrageous. The special -character of the Jew, his actions through the Secret Societies and in -the various revolutions of foreign States, his rapid acquisition of -power through finance, political and social, especially in this -country--all that is left out. It is an exact parallel to the -disingenuousness which we note in social relations. The same man who -shall have written a monograph upon some point of nineteenth century -history and left his readers in ignorance of the Jewish elements in the -story will regale you in private with a dozen anecdotes: such-and-such a -man was a Jew; such-and-such a man was half a Jew; another was -controlled in his policy by a Jewish mistress; the go-between in -such-and-such a negotiation was a Jew; the Jewish blood in such-and-such -a family came in thus and thus--And so forth: but not a word of it on -the printed page! - -This deliberate falsehood equally applies to contemporary record. The -newspaper reader is deceived--so far as it is still possible to deceive -him--with the most shameless lies. "Abraham Cohen, a Pole"; "M. -Mosevitch, a distinguished Roumanian"; "Mr. Schiff, and other -representative Americans"; "M. Bergson with his typically French -lucidity"; "Maximilian Harden, always courageous in his criticism of his -_own_ people" (his _own_ being the German) ... and the rest of the -rubbish. It is weakening, I admit, but it has not yet ceased. - -Now this form of falsehood corrodes, of course, the souls of those who -indulge in it. But that does not concern the matter of this book. Where -it comes in as a cause of friction between the two races, and a -removable cause of friction, is in the effect it has upon the Jewish -conception of their position in our society. It falsifies that -conception altogether. It produces in the Jew a false sense of security -and a completely distorted phantasm of the way in which he is really -received in our society. The more this disingenuousness is practised the -more the surprise which follows upon its discovery and the more -legitimate the bitterness and hatred which that surprise occasions in -those of whom we are the hosts. It is not only true of this country; it -is true of every other country in which the Jew has been harboured and -for a time protected. Invariably he has complained that his awakening -was rude, that he was bewildered by what seemed to him a novel and -inexplicable feeling against him; that he had thought he was among -friends and found himself suddenly among treacherous enemies. All this -would have been saved to others in the past, and will be saved to -ourselves in the near future, if this pestilent habit of falsehood were -eliminated. - -Disingenuousness is, on our side, the first main cause of the friction -between the two races. - -The second main cause of friction upon our side is the unintelligence of -our dealing with the Jews. That unintelligence is allied, of course, to -the disingenuousness of which I have spoken; but it is a separate thing -none the less, and we can learn from the Jews its opposite, for _their_ -dealings with _us_ are always intelligent. They know what they are -driving at in those relations, though they often misunderstand the -material with which they deal. But we, over and over again, would seem -not even to know what we are driving at. - -What could be more unintelligent, for instance, than the special forms -of courtesy with which the Jew is treated? I am not talking of the -elaborate, false friendship which I have just dealt with under the head -of disingenuousness, but of the genuine attempts at courtesy towards -this alien people--the courtesy expressed by those who have no intimate -relations with them, and do not desire to have intimate relations with -them. It is almost invariably, in those who commonly avoid the Jews, a -courtesy which expresses patronage on the surface of it. It may be -compared with the courtesy that rich men show to poor men--as offensive -a thing as there is in the world. - -And how unintelligent is our dealing with any particular Jewish problem; -for instance, the problem of Jewish immigration! We mask it under false -names, calling it "the alien question," "Russian immigration," "the -influx of undesirables from Eastern and Central Europe," and any number -of other timorous equivalents. The process is one of cowardly falsehood, -but the falsehood is not more remarkable than the stupidity, for no one -is taken in and least of all the Jews themselves. - -This unintelligence extends to many another field. How unintelligent are -the efforts of the writers who would, as it were, make amends to the -Jews for former persecution by putting imaginary Jew heroes into their -books. In this particular we offend less than did our fathers of the -Victorian period. Dickens' offence was grave. He disliked Jews -instinctively; when he wrote of a Jew according to his inclination he -made him out a criminal. Hearing that he must make amends for this -action, he introduced a Jew who is like nothing on earth--a sort of -compound of an Arab Sheik and a Family Bible picture from the Old -Testament, and the whole embroidered on an utterly non-Jewish--a purely -English character. - -How unintelligent are the various defences of the Jew by the non-Jew, -even with the best intentions! You will hear people tell you solemnly, -as a sort of revelation, that there are kindly, witty Jews, Jews who are -good prize-fighters or good fencers. I well remember one old gentleman -who tried hard to convince me (as though I needed convincing) that there -were Jews who had taste. He said to me, "I do not myself go into Jewish -houses, but my son does, and he assures me that much of the decoration -is in good taste." How unintelligent is the idea that because a man's -motives are not open and because he has not the same reasons for serving -the State that you have, _therefore_ he is to be perpetually under -suspicion! How still more unintelligent is the conception that, although -he is alien, yet you cannot use him in certain special services for the -State. - -This unintelligence is specially apparent in the treatment of the Jew in -his international relations. The Jew is a nomad, the non-Jew a man with -a fixed habitation. The Englishman, the Frenchman and the rest are -perpetually approaching the Jew as though he also had a fixed -habitation. We seem never to be able to get over the shock of surprise -when we learn that a particular Jew abroad is the cousin, or nephew, or -brother of another Jew with a different name in England, or with -another Jew with yet another name in Pinsk or San Francisco. Yet, -surely, this is of the very essence of the Jewish position. We ought to -take it for granted that the Jew is thus nomadic, international, spread -all over the world, migratory, as we take the same thing for granted in -birds of passage. To adopt the attitude which we almost invariably do -and to feel a shock of surprise when we discover what must in the nature -of things be the most regular feature in the civic situation of the Jew, -is to fall into that most stupid of all stupid errors, the reading of -oneself into others. - -I remember the horror and scandal with which men whispered their -discovery that a man with a German name, who had got into trouble a few -years ago, was the first cousin of a Cabinet Minister. Why not? They -seemed to be struck all of a heap by the dreadful revelation that the -names borne by Jews were not always their original names, that rich and -important men often have poor relations, and that poor relations often -get embarrassed. - -In terms of their own society the thing would have been simple enough. -They would have felt no surprise to hear that some man of our own race, -who had made a rapid fortune and purchased a political position, -suffered from a disreputable relative, also of our own race. But because -in the case of the Jew there were the two unusual elements of a foreign -name and distant origin, they were bewildered. They even thought it in -some way specially scandalous. They had not appreciated the material -with which they were dealing, and that is the mark of unintelligence. -But the cream of unintelligence, the form in which unintelligent -treatment of him most exasperates the Jew, is undoubtedly that typical, -that ceaseless case of the man who is perpetually crying out against -Israel, and purposing nothing--the man who nourishes a sterile -grievance; who has not even the clarity or vigour to attempt -suppression; who would be horrified at persecution, almost equally -horrified at any breach of convention, and yet continues to cry out -against a state of affairs which he does nothing to put right and for -which he has not even a theoretic solution. - -The last of the main causes of friction between the Jews and ourselves -is lack of charity, and that in the simplest form of refusing to go half -way to meet the Jew, and of refusing to put ourselves in the shoes of -the Jew so as to understand his position in our society and his attitude -towards it. It is a universal fault just as common in those who daily -associate with, live off, and fawn upon Jews as in those who keep aloof -from them. It never seems to occur to anyone on our side who has to deal -with the Jewish problem, to make the imaginative effort required. And -yet we have the parallel ready to our hands. The Jew feels among us, -only with far greater intensity, what we feel when we are resident in a -foreign country--a sense of exile, a sense of irritation against alien -things, merely because they are alien; a great desire for companionship -and for understanding, yet a great indifference to the fate of those -among whom he finds himself; an added attachment, not, indeed, to his -territorial home, for he has none, but to his nation. If we could -perpetually bear in mind that parallel, the friction on our side would -be greatly modified. - -There are many Jewish societies which ask nothing better than to have -occasional addresses from non-Jews. Those addresses are given, those -Societies are visited, but not nearly as much as they should be. - -There is a great Jewish literature--I mean a great mass of books dealing -specially with the Jew's position from the Jew's own point of view. It -is not read or known. I may be told that the fault of all this is -largely that of the Jews themselves on account of their use of secrecy. -I do not think the objection applies. With all his use of secrecy the -Jew is there present among us for us to approach, if we will, and to -understand as best we can. And I say that the approach is not made. - -It is an effort, of course. No one knows it better than I; for on more -than one occasion when I have addressed a Jewish audience I have found -myself the object of very severe language. But it is an effort which -every one ought to make who admits that there is a Jewish problem at -all, and it is an effort very rarely made. It is not only an effort -because it involves the crossing of a gulf, it is also an effort because -we find this alien thing in many ways repugnant to us. Yet people make -that effort for the purposes of the State continually where other races -are concerned. It is far more important that they should make it where -the Jews are concerned. For those other alien races, administrated for -the moment by officials of our own race, will not permanently be so -administered. The relations between them and us are for a brief time, -and they are relations that constantly change. The Jew is with us -always; and the type of contact between his race and ours will remain -much the same through an indefinitely long future as they have through -so very long a past. - - * * * * * - -Here, then, is the summary, as I see it, of the causes of friction -between the two races. - -First, a general cause, which lies in the contrasting nature of the two -and upon the irritant effect of that contrast. This cause is not to be -eliminated, though its effects may be modified. It is a profound -contrast and a sharp irritant constant in its activity. The essential is -to recognize its real nature, not to give to it general terms of faults -and vices, but to appreciate the difference of _quality_ involved: above -all, not to tell lies about it and pretend it is not present. - -Secondly, as to special causes of friction--I mean causes which on their -side, as on ours, can be, if not eliminated, at any rate modified--I -suggest that the most prominent are: 1. The sense of superiority which, -though it cannot be destroyed, can at least be checked in expression and -which, by a pretty irony, is equally strong upon both sides. 2. The use -of secrecy by the Jews themselves; partly as a weapon of defence, partly -as a method of action, always to be deplored, and of a nature -particularly exasperating to our temperament. 3. Upon our side, a -persistent disingenuousness in our treatment of this minority. -Unintelligence in their treatment: the whole made worse by an -indifference or lack of charity, a refusal to make the effort necessary -for meeting and understanding as well as we can the race which must -always be with us and which is yet so different from our own. - -Now these causes of friction permanently present tend to produce what I -have called the tragic cycle: welcome of a Jewish colony, then ill-ease, -followed by acute ill-ease, followed by persecution, exile and even -massacre. This followed, naturally, by a reaction and the taking up of -the process all over again. - -In our own time we have seen, quite lately, the succession of the second -to the first of these stages; we have passed from welcome to ill-ease. -That passage threatens a further passage from the second to the third; -from the third to the terrible conclusion. - -We feel quite secure to-day from the last extreme of this cycle. We are -certain it will never come to persecution: that is still inconceivable. -But it is not inconceivable everywhere: and no society is free from -change. Some now alive may live to see riots even in this quiet polity -and worse in newer or less settled states. - -Such a catastrophe is to be avoided by every effort in our power and a -solution to the problem presented must imperatively be sought. But in -passing we should note, for the consideration of those who may doubt the -acuteness of the problem and the immediate practical necessity for a -solution, the presence of a phenomenon which amply proves that it _is_ -acute and that the solution _is_ necessary. That phenomenon is the -presence to-day of a new type, the Anti-Semite, the man to whom all the -Jews are abhorrent. - -It is a phenomenon which has increased prodigiously; its rate of -increase is accelerating, and as a warning of the peril, as a proof of -its magnitude, I propose to examine that phenomenon closely in my next -chapter. - - -THE ANTI-SEMITE - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -THE ANTI-SEMITE - - -To understand any problem one must study not only its real factors as -they appear to a reasonable man who sees the whole affair steadily; one -must also understand the insanities and distortions the problem has -provoked, for they singularly illustrate its character and force. - -It is not enough to consider only the actual in any difficulty to be -solved, it is necessary also to consider the imaginary; because the -legend or illusion is a direct product of the truth and shows how the -truth has acted on other minds. - -Thus a caricature brings out what we unconsciously know to be present in -any personality, emphasizes it, and though false in its exaggeration, -forbids us to forget it in the future. Thus any extreme, no matter how -false its lack of proportion, is of the highest value to judgment. - -In a practical problem of politics there is another most weighty reason -for examining extreme and distorted opinion: which is, that in politics -we deal not only with real things but with the liking or disliking of -these things by living men: their exaggerated or ill-informed affection -or repulsion. All statesmanship lies in the apprehension of enthusiasm -and indifference. - -Now there are in this great political problem presented by the Jewish -race in our midst two extremes. One we have already studied: it is the -extreme folly of falsehood, of pretending that the problem is not there. - -That extreme was an almost universal folly in the immediate past, -especially in this country. It is now abandoned by all of our generation -save a few people of an official sort, and these will not long maintain -an attitude outworn and already ridiculous. - -But the other extreme remains to be studied. It is, in our society, -quite a recent phenomenon, though it has gained very great strength in -recent years and is increasing alarmingly. It is the extreme of hatred. -It is the extreme manifested by those who have but one motive in their -action towards the Jewish race, and that motive a mere desire for its -elimination. It implies that there is no peace possible between the two -races; no reasoned political solution. It relies upon nothing but -antagonism. It is already very strong, and its adherents believe -themselves to be on the eve of a sort of blundering triumph. - -Every one who desires to deal with this grave political matter -practically, that is, to establish a permanent policy, will be much more -concerned with the extreme here examined than with the other extreme, -which ignores the problem altogether. For this new extreme of active -hatred is flourishing; that other, older extreme no longer functions. - -The near future will have to deal, in practical politics, not only with -the problem presented by the Jews as an alien power within the State, -but (what will probably prove a more difficult matter) with the hater -of the Jew, who is claiming, and rapidly achieving, power on his side. -The type is as old as the problem; it is two thousand years old. But it -waxes and wanes. Its modern name of "Anti-Semite" is as ridiculous in -derivation as it is ludicrous in form. It is partly of German academic -origin and partly a newspaper name, vulgar as one would expect it to be -from such an origin, and also as falsely pedantic as one would expect, -but the exasperated mood of which it is a label is very real. - -I say the word "Anti-Semite" is vulgar and pedantic: that I think will -be universally admitted. It is also nonsensical. The antagonism to the -Jews has nothing to do with any supposed "Semitic" race--which probably -does not exist any more than do many other modern hypothetical -abstractions, and which, anyhow, does not come into the matter. The -Anti-Semite is not a man who hates the modern Arabs or the ancient -Carthaginians. He is a man who hates Jews. - -However, we must accept the word because it has become currency, and go -on to the more essential matter of discovering how those to whom it -applies are moved, what the result of their action would be if (or when) -they could act freely; and, most important of all, of what they are a -sign. - -The Anti-Semite is a man marked by two main characters. In the first -place he hates the Jews _in themselves_. His motive is not a hatred of -their presence in our society. His motive is not the hatred of -concealment, falsehood, hypocrisy, corruption and all the other -incidental evils of that false position. These things, indeed, irritate -him, but they are not his leading motive. His leading motive is a -hatred of the Jewish people. He is in intense reaction against this -alien thing which he perceives to have acquired so much power in his -society. The way in which it has exercised this power especially -exasperates him. But he will remain a hater of the Jewish nation when -they are despised, insignificant, and neglected, and he will remain a -hater of it even if there be then attached to its position no accidents -of secrecy, falsehood and financial corruption. The type increases -rapidly when Jews have power: it becomes almost universal when they -begin to abuse that power. It dwindles as that power declines. But it is -always the same and is an index of peril. - -The Anti-Semite is a man who _wants to get rid of the Jews_. He is -filled with an instinctive feeling in the matter. He detests the Jew as -a Jew, and would detest him wherever he found him. The evidences of such -a state of mind are familiar to us all. The Anti-Semite admires, for -instance, a work of art; on finding its author to be a Jew it becomes -distasteful to him though the work remains exactly what it was before. -The Anti-Semite will confuse the action of any particular Jew with his -general odium for the race. He will hardly admit high talents in his -adversaries, or if he admits them he will always see in their expression -something distorted and unsavoury. - -When an accusation is made against a Jew he cannot adopt the judicial -attitude any more than could that other extremist, the humbug who denies -the Jewish problem altogether. Just as that other person, now passing -out of our lives, would not admit a Jew to be guilty under the most -glaring evidence and was particularly unable to admit guilt in a Jew who -might be wealthy; just as he proclaimed the Jews as a whole impeccable, -so does the Anti-Semite approach every Jew with a presumption of his -probable guilt, so does he exaggerate this prejudice when he has to deal -with a wealthy Jew, and so does he consider the whole Jewish race in the -lump as probably guilty of pretty well any charge brought against it. - -The contrast was very well seen in the Dreyfus case, when the old type -of extremist was still strong. He would not look at the evidence against -Dreyfus, he would not, if he could help it, mention his race. All he -knew was that Dreyfus was and must in the nature of things be innocent -and that all the diverse men who testified against him were wicked -conspirators. The new type of extremist, then but rising and not yet -master, would not listen to the strong evidence in Dreyfus' favour, -refused to re-examine the case after the chief witness had been found -guilty of forgery, made up his mind that Dreyfus was necessarily guilty -and was convinced that all his supporters were dupes or knaves. - -The mere fact that the Jews exist, let alone that they are powerful, -poisons life for such a man. He is led by his lop-sided enthusiasm into -the most ridiculous errors. In this country every name of German origin -at once suggests a Jew to him. Every financial operation, especially if -it be of doubtful morality, must certainly have a Jew behind it; -wherever a number of partners, Jewish and non-Jewish, are engaged in -some bad work (as, for instance, in one of our innumerable Parliamentary -scandals), a Jew must always for this sort of person be the prime mover -and the evil genius of the whole. - -As is the case with every other mania, this mania rapidly obscures the -general vision of its victim. His prejudices soon lose proportion -altogether. He comes to see the Jew in everything and everywhere, and to -accept confidently propositions which he would himself see to be -contradictory, could he give a moment's quiet thought to the matter. - -Thus I have heard on all sides in the last few years these strange -assertions proceeding from the same source, yet obviously incompatible -one with the other: That modern scepticism was Jewish in its origin; -that modern superstition, our modern necromancy and crystal gazing and -all the rest of it, was Jewish in its origin; that the evils of -democracy are all Jewish in their origin; that the evil of tyrannical -government, in Prussia, for instance, was Jewish in its origin; that the -pagan perversions of bad modern art were Jewish in their origin; that -the puerility of bad church furniture was due to Jewish dealers; that -the Great War was the product of Jewish armament firms; that the -anti-patriotic appeals which weakened the allied armies came from Jewish -sources--and so on. It is indeed true that there is a Jewish quality in -all these diverse and contradictory things where a Jew mixes in them; -just as there is a Scotch, or French, or English quality when a Scot, a -Frenchman, or an Englishman is the agent. But to ascribe the whole -boiling to the Jew, and to make him the conscious origin of all, is a -contradiction in terms. - -The Anti-Semite is a man so absorbed in his subject that he at last -loses interest in any matter, unless he can give it some association -with his delusion, for delusion it is. - -In a sense, of course, this state of mind is a sort of compliment to the -Jewish nation. If such a preoccupation with them be not amicable it is -at least intense, and those against whom it is directed may well regard -it as a proof of their importance in the world. But that aspect of the -phenomenon is not consoling for the future of either of us--the Jew who -now nervously awaits attack, and we who desire to forestall and prevent -such attack. - -The Anti-Semite is very much more numerous and very much more powerful -than might be imagined from the reading of the daily press; for the -press is still, for the most part, under the convention of ignoring the -Jewish problem and under the terror of the financial results which might -follow from a discussion of it. His universal activity is not yet to be -read of in the great newspapers; but in conversation and in the practice -of daily life we hear of it everywhere. - -And here I may digress upon a modern feature which applies to all -political problems and therefore to this Jewish problem among others. -The great movements of our time have never _originated_ in the press of -the great cities. They rise and store up their energies in political -cliques, in popular gatherings, and spoken rumours long before they -appear in this main instrument for the spreading of news. That is -because the press of our great cities is controlled by very few men, -whose object is not the discussion of public affairs, still less the -giving of full information to their fellow-citizens, but the piling up -of private fortune. As these men are not, as a rule, educated men, nor -particularly concerned with the fortunes of the State, nor capable of -understanding from the past what the future may be, they will never take -up a great movement until it is forced upon them. On the contrary, they -will waste energy in getting up false excitement upon insignificant -matters where they feel safe, and even in using their instruments for -the advertisement of their own insignificant lives. In all this, the -modern press of our great cities differs very greatly from the press of -a lifetime ago. It was not always owned by educated men, but it was -conducted by highly educated men, who were given a free hand. It -therefore concerned itself with problems of real importance and it -debated upon either side real contrasts of opinion upon those matters. -This modern press of ours does none of these things; but precisely -because it is so reluctant to express real emotion it does, when the -emotion is forced upon it, let it out in a flood. Just as it would not -tell the truth when a thing was growing, so when it reaches an extreme -it will not exercise restraint. On the contrary, if the "stunt" be an -exciting one, it will push it (once it has made up its mind to talk of -it at all) in the most extreme form and to the last pitch of violence. - -We have seen that plainly enough in the monstrous expressions of foreign -policy during the last ten years, and we have seen it in the abominable -hounding of individuals to which that same press has lent itself. - -Now in the matter of Anti-Semitic feeling we shall have, I think, -exactly the same phenomenon repeated. That feeling is now ubiquitous. It -is spreading with an alarming rapidity, and the increase of its -intensity is even more remarkable than the increase in the numbers of -its adherents. Sooner or later--and fairly soon, I imagine--the press -will give it voice. When it _does_, it will give it voice, we may be -certain, in the most extreme, the most passionate, the most irrational -form; and when that happens, in a field where passion is already so -wild, God help its victims! - -The Anti-Semitic passion, largely based though it is on imaginary -things, has adopted one method of action highly practical. It is a -method of action closely in touch with reality, and productive of -formidable results. I mean _its compiling of documents_. It has here -noted, all over Europe and America, with exactitude, and continues to -put upon record, everything which can be said to the detriment of its -victims. - -It discovered at its origin, presented as a barrier against it, the -Jewish weapon of secrecy. The folly of the Jews in using such a weapon -was never better shown, for of all defences it is the easiest to break -down. The Anti-Semites countered at once by making every inquiry, by -collecting their information, by finding out and exposing the true names -hidden under the mask of false ones, by detecting and registering the -relationships between men who pretended ignorance one of the other; it -ferreted all through the ramifications of anonymous finance and -invariably caught the Jew who was behind the great industrial insurance -schemes, the Jew who was behind such and such a metal monopoly, the Jew -who was behind such and such a news agency, the Jew who financed such -and such a politician. That formidable library of exposure spreads -daily, and when the opportunity for general publication is given there -will be no answer to it. - -It is the greatest mistake in the world to regard the Anti-Semite in the -vast numerical strength he has now attained all over our civilization as -wholly unpractical and therefore negligible, as a man who cannot -construct a formidable plan of action simply because he has lost his -sense of values. While the movement was growing the method of meeting it -was always that of ridicule. It was a false method. The strength of -Anti-Semitism was and is based not only on intensity of feeling, but -also on industry, an industry very accurate in its methods. The -Anti-Semitic pamphlets, newspapers and books, which the great daily -press is so careful to boycott, form by now a mass of information upon -the whole Jewish problem which is already overwhelming and still -mounting up: and all of it hostile to the Jews. You will not find in it, -of course, any material for the Defendant's Brief, but as a _dossier_ -for the Prosecution it is astonishing in extent and accuracy and -correlation. - -Now it is to be remembered in this connection that the human mind is -influenced by documentation in a special manner. The exact citation of -demonstrable things with chapter and verse convinces as can no other -method, and the Anti-Semite is ready with such citation on a very large -scale indeed, at the first moment when a general publicity, now denied, -shall be granted to it. - - * * * * * - -Moreover, this reliance of the Jew upon the futility of the Anti-Semitic -propaganda omits one very important feature. The Anti-Semitic group is -built up of men differing greatly in experience, in judgment and policy. -And it is built up of strata differing greatly in the intensity of their -hatred. It includes many a man with administrative experience, many a -man of great business capacity, of acquired fortune, of talent in -affairs. It includes men with a thorough knowledge of European -diplomacy; it includes men (in great numbers) with the literary gift of -expression for persuading their fellows. Not only is this true, but, as -I have said, it includes a large "right wing" which, because they are -more restrained in expression than the rest, will exercise a greater -weight; men who are not at all blinded by their hatred, though hatred -has become their chief motive; men who retain full capacity for -organizing a plan of action and for carrying it out. It is true that -there is a definite line which divides the Anti-Semite from the rest of -those who are attempting to solve the Jewish problem. It is the line -dividing those whose motive is peace from those whose motive is -antagonism. It is the line dividing those whose object is action, -against the Jew, and those whose object is a settlement. But on the -Anti-Semitic side of that line--that is, among those whose determination -is to suppress and eliminate Jewish influence to the extreme of their -power--there are now very many more than the original enthusiasts who -created the movement. - -The Jews should further remember that to-day every one outside their own -community is potentially an Anti-Semite. Not every one, perhaps not even -yet a majority, at least in the directing and wealthier classes, is -other than friendly or indifferent to the Jews, but there has grown up -in every one not a Jew something of reaction against the Jewish power. -It requires but an accident to change this from the latent and slight -thing it is in most men to an angry passion. I have noticed that among -the most violent of Anti-Semites are those who had passed some -considerable portion of their early manhood in ignorance of the whole -problem. These come across a Jew unexpectedly in some relation hostile -to them--they lose money through some Jewish financial operation, or -they connect, for the first time, in middle age, several misfortunes of -theirs with a common element of Jewish action, or they find Jews mixed -up in some attack on their country: thenceforward they become and remain -unrepentant Anti-Semites. - -The dupe, when he discovers he has been duped, is dangerous, and there -is even a considerable category of those who have suffered nothing, even -by accident, at the hand of the Jew, yet who, when they discover what -the Jewish power is, feel they have been played with, and grow angry at -the trickery. - -It has been and will be with Anti-Semitism as with all movements. When -they begin they are ridiculed. As they grow they come to be feared and -boycotted; but of those that are successful it may be justly said that -the moment of success begins when they turn the corner and from a fad -become a fashion. - -It is still (doubtfully) the fashion to separate oneself from the -Anti-Semitic movement. You still hear men, when they write or speak upon -the Jewish problem, no matter with what hostility to the Jew, excuse -themselves as a rule at the beginning of their remarks by saying, "I am -no Anti-Semite." For some flavour of the old ridicule still attaches to -the name. But fashions change rapidly and the new fashion which comes in -to support a growing thing, when it does arrive, arrives in a flood. - -We can all of us remember the time when the talk of nationalization, the -old State Socialist talk, was the talk of a few faddists who were -everywhere ridiculed and despised. To-day it is the fashion; and the -practice of State control, State support, the universality of State -action, is such that it is those who oppose it who are now the faddists -and the cranks. - -We can all of us remember the day when, in the United States, a -prohibitionist was a faddist, and a very unpopular faddist at that. We -have seen fashion catch him up with a vengeance. - -We can all of us remember the day when the supporters of women's -suffrage in England were a very small group of faddists indeed: we know -what has happened there! - -The forces driving men towards the Anti-Semitic camp are far stronger -than the forces acting upon these old hobbies of women's suffrage, of -prohibition and the rest. They are personal, intimate forces arising -from the strongest racial instincts and the most bitter individual -memories of financial loss, subjection, national dishonour. - -For instance, any German to-day to whom you may talk of his great -disaster will answer by telling you that it is due to the Jews: that the -Jews are preying upon the fallen body of the State; that the Jews are -"rats in the Reich." For one man that blames the old military -authorities for the misfortunes following the war, twenty blame the -Jews, though these were the architects of the former German prosperity, -and among them were found a larger proportion of opponents of the war -than in any other section of the Emperor's subjects. That is but one -example; you will find it repeated in one form or another in almost -every other polity of the modern world. - -The Anti-Semite has become a strong political figure. It is a great and -dangerous error at this moment to think his policy is futile. It is a -policy of action, and a policy which may proceed from plan to execution -before we know it. - -There used to be quoted years ago--and I have myself quoted it with -approval--a famous question put by a close and reasonable observer of -public affairs upon the Continent, to the most prominent of Continental -Anti-Semites in that day. The question was this: "If you had unlimited -power in this matter, what would you do?" The implied answer was that -the Anti-Semite could do nothing. He could not make a law which would -segregate the Jews for they could escape that law by mixing with those -around them. He could not make a law exiling them; for, first, it would -be impossible to define them; secondly, even if that were possible, -those defined would not be received elsewhere. What could he do? The -implication was, I say, that he could do nothing; he was supposed, in -the presence of that question, to admit his futility. - -Unfortunately we now know that he _can_ do something. The Anti-Semite -can persecute, he can attack. With a sufficient force behind him he can -destroy. In much of this destruction he would have, in a present state -of feeling and in most countries, the mass of public opinion behind him. -He could begin with a widespread examination of Jewish wealth and its -origins and an equally widespread confiscation. He could use the dread -of such confiscation as a weapon for compelling the divulgence of Jewish -origins where a man desired to conceal them. He could do this not only -in the case of the wealthy men, but, through the terror of wealthy men, -over the whole field of the Jewish community. He could introduce -registration and with it a segregation of the Jews. Inspired as he would -be by no desire for a settlement agreeable to them, but solely for a -settlement agreeable to _himself_, he could aim at that harsh -settlement, and even though he might not reach his goal, it is not -pleasant to envisage what he might do on his way to it. - -But even though the Anti-Semite fail to acquire full power, there remain -attached to his great increase in numbers and intensity of feeling the -prime questions, "What is the _meaning_ of the thing? Why has it arisen? -Why is it spreading? What are the forces nourishing it?" - -These are the main questions which those who regret the presence of such -a passion in the body politic, which those who are alarmed about it, -which those who, like the Jews themselves, must, if they are to avoid a -catastrophe, defend themselves against it, would do well to answer. -There has not been as yet sufficient time to answer those questions -fully or to appreciate this great reaction in its entirety, but we can -already judge it in part. The Anti-Semitic movement is essentially a -reaction against the abnormal growth in Jewish power, and the new -strength of Anti-Semitism is largely due to the Jews themselves. - -When this angry enthusiasm re-arose in its modern form, first in -Germany, then spreading to France, next appearing, and now rapidly -growing, in England, it was novel and confined to small cliques. The -truths which it enunciated were then as unfamiliar as the false values -on which it also reposed. That universal policy of the Jews against -which it is part of my thesis to argue, a policy natural but none the -less erroneous, the policy of _secrecy_, the policy of _hiding_, at once -took advantage of what was absurd in the novelty of Anti-Semitism. The -Jew, in spite of his age-long experience of menace and active -hostility, in spite of his knowledge of what this sort of spirit had -effected in the past, did not come out into the open. He did not act -against the new attack with open indignation, still less with open -argument, as he should have done. He took advantage of its absurdity, at -its beginnings, in the eyes of the general public. He used all his -endeavours to make the word "Anti-Semitic" a label for something -hopelessly ridiculous, a subject for mere laughter, a matter which no -reasonable man should for a moment consider seriously. - -For something between a dozen and twenty years this policy was -successful. The method though less and less firmly established as time -went on, has not yet quite failed. None the less that policy was very -ill-advised. It was used not only to ridicule the Anti-Semite, but what -was quite illegitimate, quite irrational (and bound in the long run to -be fatal), it was used to prevent all discussion of the Jewish question, -though that question was increasing every day in practical importance -and clamouring to be decided. - -It was the instinctive policy with the mass of the Jewish nation, a -deliberate policy with most of its leaders, not only to use ridicule -against Anti-Semitism but to label as "Anti-Semitic" any discussion of -the Jewish problem at all, or, for that matter, any information even on -the Jewish problem. It was used to prevent, through ridicule, any -statement of any fact with regard to the Jewish race save a few -conventional compliments or a few conventional and harmless jests. - -If a man alluded to the presence of a Jewish financial power in any -region--for instance, in India--he was an Anti-Semite. If he interested -himself in the peculiar character of Jewish philosophical discussions, -especially in matters concerning religion, he was an Anti-Semite. If the -emigrations of the Jewish masses from country to country, the vast -modern invasion of the United States, for instance (which has been -organized and controlled like an army on the march), interested him as -an historian, he could not speak of it under pain of being called an -Anti-Semite. If he exposed a financial swindler who happened to be a -Jew, he was an Anti-Semite. If he exposed a group of Parliamentarians -taking money from the Jews, he was an Anti-Semite. If he did no more -than call a Jew a Jew, he was an Anti-Semite. The laughter which the -name used to provoke was most foolishly used to support nothing nobler -or more definitive than this wretched policy of concealment. Anyone with -judgment could have told the Jews, had the Jews cared to consult such an -one, that their pusillanimous policy was bound to fail. It was but a -postponement of the evil day. - -You cannot long confuse interest with hatred, the statement of plain and -important truths with mania, the discussion of fundamental questions -with silly enthusiasm, for the same reason that you cannot long confuse -truth with falsehood. Sooner or later people are bound to remark that -the defendant seems curiously anxious to avoid all investigation of his -case. The moment that is generally observed, the defence is on the way -to failure. - -I say it was a fatal policy; but it was deliberately undertaken by the -Jews and they are now suffering from its results. As a consequence you -have all over Europe a mass of plain men who so far from being scared -off from discussing the Jewish problem by this false ridicule are more -determined than ever to thrash it out in the open and to get it settled -upon rational and final lines. - -That would perhaps be no great harm in itself. It would merely mean that -a false policy had failed, and that proper frank and loyal discussion -would succeed all this hushing up and boycott. Unfortunately the false -policy had other and much worse consequences. It exasperated men who had -already begun to interest themselves in the political discussion and who -would not tolerate undeserved ridicule. It heaped up a world of -determined opposition to the Jews. It is not exactly that the -Anti-Semite has already won or even is as yet certainly on his way to -winning, but he now has his chance of winning. Whereas, some few years -ago, he had the tide against him, he is now, through the fault of the -Jews themselves, at its turn. He now finds himself on an extreme wing, -it is true, but _attached_ to a very large body which is already -strongly biassed against the Jews, dislikes their presence among us, and -is determined to act against them, not only where they still have great -power, but also where that power is visibly declining, and even where -they are in danger. - -It must not be forgotten, as we survey this growing menace, that a -policy which reaches no finality is not on that account futile. It must -not be forgotten that in the minds of many men (one might say in the -minds of most men) during periods of excitement, a policy of repression, -though always failing to reach finality, may still be continuous: it may -become a habit and may endure indefinitely in the vast suffering of its -victims. The Jews have seen that happen in many a small nationality -other than their own. They have seen, no doubt, that continued -repression acting in an atmosphere of equally continuous rebellion has -usually in the long run failed, but they must admit that the maintenance -of such repression, with all its accompaniments of moral and physical -torture, confiscation, exile and all the rest, has often been a policy -long drawn out. It has been drawn out in some cases for centuries. It is -not true that, because a policy does not aim at a complete settlement, -therefore it cannot be undertaken and vigorously pursued. It can. Time -and again a hostile force has attempted to eliminate opposition, or even -contrast, and to eliminate it by every instrument, including massacre -itself. Sometimes, very rarely, it has succeeded. Usually it has, in the -long run, failed. But in the great majority of cases it has at any rate -continued long after its failure was apparent. That is the danger which -menaces from the phenomenon I have examined in this chapter. It would be -madness in the Jews to neglect that phenomenon. It is now so strong in -numbers, intensity of conviction, and passion that it menaces their -whole immediate future in our civilization. Its ultimate causes we have -explored. Its immediate cause, the cause of its sudden development and -present startling growth, we have seen to be the Jewish action in -Russia, and to this, which I have already touched upon in my third -chapter, where I sketched the sequence of events leading up to the -present situation, I will next turn, in order to make a more detailed -examination of it. For undoubtedly it is the sudden appearance of Jewish -_Bolshevism_ that has brought things to their present crisis. - - -BOLSHEVISM - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -BOLSHEVISM - - -The Bolshevist explosion, which will appear in history I think as the -point of departure from which shall date the new attitude of the Western -nations towards the Jews, is not only a field in which we can study the -evil effect of secrecy, but one in which we can analyse all the various -forces which tend to bring Israel into such ceaseless conflict with the -society around it. - -It merits, therefore, a very special examination, both as an opportunity -for the study of our subject and as a turning-point of the first moment -in history. - -Why did a Jewish organization thus attempt to transform society? Why did -it use the methods which we know it used? Why was that particular venue -chosen? What aim had the actors in view? What measure of success did -they hope to achieve? By what method do they propose to extend their -influence? When we can answer those questions we shall have gone far to -discovering the almost fatal causes of conflict between this peculiar -nation and those among whom they move. - -The answers usually given to these questions by the avowed enemies of -the Jewish race are always inadequate and often false. When they -contain an element of truth (which they often do) that truth is quite -insufficient to account for the full phenomena. But the accretions of -falsehood and exaggeration render the whole thing inexplicable--indeed, -these explanations of the Russian revolution are very good specimens of -the way in which the European so misunderstands the Jew that he imputes -to him powers which neither he nor any other poor mortal can ever -exercise. - -Thus we are asked to believe that this political upheaval was part of -one highly-organized plot centuries old, the agents of which were -millions of human beings all pledged to the destruction of our society -and acting in complete discipline under a few leaders superhumanly wise! -The thing is nonsense on the face of it. Men have no capacity for acting -in this fashion. They are far too limited, far too diverse. - -Moreover, the motive is completely lacking. Why merely destroy and why, -if your object is merely to destroy, manifest such wide differences in -your aims? One may say justly that there is always a tendency to -reaction against alien surroundings, and in so far as that reaction is -intense and effective it is destructive of those surroundings. One may -point out that such reaction in the case of the Jews, as in the case of -all other alien bodies, is in the main unconscious and instinctive. All -that is true enough; but the conception of a vast age-long plot, -culminating in the contemporary Russian affair, will not hold water, any -more than will the corresponding hallucination which led men to believe -that the French revolution (a thing utterly different in kind from the -Russian) was the mere outward expression of a strictly disciplined -secret body. In the case of the French Revolution everything was put -down (by the forerunners of to-day's Anti-Semitic enthusiasts) to the -secret agency of The Order of Templars acting unweariedly through six -centuries, and finally bringing down the French monarchy. In the case, -of course, of the Bolshevist anarchy a still longer range is given to -the final result: for "Templars" read "Jews," and for "600" read "2,000" -years. It is all smoke. - -More serious is the statement that this combination of Jews for the -destruction of the old Russian society was an act of racial revenge. -There is a great element of truth in that. There is no doubt that the -greater part of the Jews who took over power in the Russian cities four -years ago felt an appetite for revenge against the old Russian State -comparable to that felt by any oppressed people against their -oppressors. Probably it was more intense even than any other example -that could be quoted. We are all witnesses to the way in which the -Russian people, religion, and government, and particularly the person -and office of the Emperor--were attacked and decried by the Jews in -Western Europe, of the way in which the Jews ceaselessly conspired -against the Russian State, and of the brutal repression to which they -were subject. When you release a force of hatred so violent it may run -to any length. That sudden release, that sudden opportunity for -satisfying the thirst for vengeance, must explain a very large part of -what followed. But even that does not account for the whole. It would -account for mere massacre and mere chaos. It would not account for the -attempts--rather pitiful attempts--at construction and for the -obviously designed system of direction which has continued on the same -lines since the Jews first assumed power and is still fully manifest -after nearly five years of that power. - -Still less is it sufficient to say that the Jew is everywhere the -organizer and leader of revolution and that we only see him at work in -Russia with greater vigour and thoroughness because the opportunity is -there greater. - -The Jew is not everywhere a revolutionary. He is everywhere discontented -with a society alien to him: that is natural and inevitable. But he does -not exercise his power invariably, or even ordinarily, towards the -oversetting of an established social order by which, incidentally, he -often largely benefits. - -You do not find the Jew in history perpetually leading the innumerable -revolts which citizens in the mass make against the privileged or the -superior conditions of the minority. He has sometimes benefited by these -movements in the past; more often suffered. We often find individual -Jews sympathizing with the revolutionary side, but we also find many -individual Jews sympathizing with the other. The Jew is not, in the -history of Europe, the prime agent of revolution: quite the contrary. -The great acts of violence, successful and unsuccessful, which have -marked our society from the agrarian troubles of pagan Rome to the -French Revolution, the land war in Ireland, the Chartist Movement in -London, or whatever modern movement you will, have appealed much more to -the fighting instincts and political traditions of _our_ race than they -have to the Jews. They are marked everywhere by an attitude towards -property and patriotism which are the very opposite of the Jews' -characteristics. The Revolutions of the past were for the better -distribution of property and for the betterment of the State. Often they -were openly undertaken because patriotism had been offended by defeat in -war and because the Nation was thought to be betrayed. Usually they were -jingo and always for distribution of wealth. - -It is the unique mark of the Russian revolution and of its attempted -extension elsewhere that it repudiates patriotism and the division of -property. In that, it differs from all others; and it is markedly, -obviously, _Jewish_. But why had the Jews a chance of action in Russia -which they lacked elsewhere? - -What were the special characters in the Russian opportunity which made -the Jew the creator of the whole movement? - -There are, I take it, three main factors present in this case peculiarly -suitable to the Jewish effort. - -In the first place, this revolution fell upon, and was directed towards, -a particular social phenomenon in which that profound instinct in the -European, the desire for settled property, had decayed. It fell upon the -state of affairs called _Industrial Capitalism_, the chief mark of which -is the destruction in the mass subjected to it (or, at any rate, the -atrophying) of that essential part of the European soul--ownership. The -Jew is, undoubtedly, unable to sympathize with us in that central core -of our civic instincts. He has never understood the European sense of -property and I doubt if he ever will. - -But in Russia _Industrial Capitalism_ was quite new. The resentment -against it was keen. The victims were the sons of peasants, or had -themselves been born peasants, so that this proletarian mass in the -Russian towns, though less than a tenth of the whole nation, was -peculiarly open to propaganda against its masters. And an attack -successfully conducted, on that weakest point of modern Capitalism, -might easily succeed and _then_ spread to neighbouring industrialized -centres in Poland, Germany, and so westward. - -Now the attack on this international phenomenon, an attack directed -against Industrial Capitalism, required an international force. It -needed men who had international experience and were ready with an -international formula. - -There are two, and only two, organized international forces in Europe -to-day with a soul and identity in them. One is the Catholic Church, and -the other is Jewry. But the Catholic Church, for reasons which I will -discuss in a moment, cannot and never will directly attack industrial -capitalism. It will undoubtedly attack that system in flank and -indirectly destroy it in the long run wherever the Faith has a strong -hold upon masses of people. But it will not and cannot directly attack -it. The Jew, on the other hand, is free to attack it precisely because -our sense of property means nothing to him, is to him something strange, -and even, I think, comic. Further, the Jew was present, he was on the -spot. The Church was not. - -Of the two international forces present, therefore, the Jews alone could -act. - -Here I must digress and say why the other great international force, the -Catholic Church, has not been able--and will never be able--to attack -Industrial Capitalism as a whole and directly, though, as I have said, -it acts indirectly as a solvent of this evil and will destroy it -wherever society remains Catholic. The Catholic Church, not only in its -abstract doctrine, but acting as the expression of our European -civilization, is profoundly attached to the conception of private -property. It makes the family the unit of the State and it perceives -that the freedom of the family is most secure where the family owns. It -perceives, as do all Europeans, instinctively or explicitly, that -property is the correlative of freedom, or, at any rate, of that only -kind of freedom which we Europeans care to have: that it is the -safeguard of spiritual health (the mark of which is humour), of breadth -and diversity in action, of elasticity in the State, of permanence in -institutions. Property, as widely distributed as possible, but sacred as -a principle, is an inevitable social accompaniment of Catholicism. - -Apart from this, it is also a definite feature of Catholic doctrine to -deny that private property is immoral. No Catholic can say that private -property is immoral without cutting himself off from the Communion of -the Church, any more than he can say that the authority in the State is -immoral. He cannot be a communist, in abstract morals any more than he -can be an anarchist. - -Now Industrial Capitalism is a disease of property. It is the monstrous -state of affairs in which a very few men derive their vast advantage -from the corresponding fact that most men whom they exploit do not own. - -But it remains true that the sheet-anchor of Capitalism is a sense of -ownership in the mass as well as in the privileged few. The only moral -force remaining to Industrial Capitalism, the only spiritual tie which -prevents its dissolution, is this admission by the European mind that -property is a right--even property in a diseased and exaggerated form. - -The whole of the operations of Industrial Capitalism rely upon the -sanctity of property and the sanctity of contract which develops from -the sanctity of property. And whenever society loses this sense, -industrial capitalism will fall into chaos. The Church cannot deny that -one moral principle. Its action will always be towards the dissolution -of the great accumulations promoted by capitalism. It always will work -indirectly for the establishment of well-divided property, an ideal -defined by the voice of its great modern Pope, Leo XIII, who explicitly -states it in his _Rerum Novarum_. But the Church can never take the -short cut of destroying Industrial Capitalism root and branch and at -once, by erecting against it the doctrine of Communism or (as many -people call diluted Communism) "Socialism." It never can do so in -theory, and still less will it ever do so in practice. A Catholic -society will always tend to be a society of owners: with all the -elements of co-operation, with the Guild, with masses of corporate -property attached to the State or connected with the city, with the -college, with the corporation. For without such corporate property in a -State, property is never well founded. - -The Jew has neither that political instinct in his national tradition -nor a religious doctrine supporting and expressing such an instinct. The -same thing in him which makes him a speculator and a nomad blinds him -to, and makes him actually contemptuous of, the European sense of -property. When therefore we have reached, through Industrial Capitalism, -or any other social disease, a state of affairs in which the practical -denial of property is possible because the mass of men have lost the -desire for it, and when the repudiation of property offers an immediate -solution for intolerable evils, then the Jew can appear at once as a -leader. - -One must find in such a movement an international leader because the -disease is international, and still more because the proposed cure of -that disease, through Communism, _must_ be international if it is to -succeed. A Communist society may stand apart from the general society of -owners in other countries, but if it is to succeed in competition with -them it must convert them to its own creed. - -The Jew took international action for granted. He took the narrow and -false economic view of property--that it was a mere institution to be -modified indefinitely, and, if necessary, abolished. He had an obvious -opportunity for leadership accorded to him when international action -against property was demanded. Again, our national sense, patriotism, -which is incomprehensible to the Jew save on the false analogy of his -own peculiar nomadic and tribal patriotism, is a check upon Communism, -and, indeed, against revolution of any kind. The process of thought in -the patriotic citizen--largely unconscious but none the less -efficacious--is somewhat as follows: - -"I cannot function save as a citizen of my nation, and, what is more, -that nation made me what I am. It is my creator in a sense and so has -authority over me. I must even give up my life in its defence if -necessary, because but for its existence I and those like me could not -be. My happiness, my freedom of individual action, my self-expression -are all bound up with the existence of the civic unit of which I am a -part. If something which appears to me good in the abstract, or which -apparently will procure for me a material good, involves danger to that -civic unit, I must forego the good, regarding the continued existence -and strength of my people as a greater good to which the lesser should -be sacrificed." - -That, I say roughly, is the expression of the patriotic instinct in the -European man. That is what he has felt for many and many a great State -in the past and for every polity to which he has ever belonged; that is -what he feels to-day for his country. - -The Jew has the same feeling, of course, for his Israel, but since that -nation is not a collection of human beings, inhabiting one place and -living by traditions rooted in its soil, since it has not a strong, -visible, external form, his patriotism is necessarily of a different -complexion. It has different connotations and our patriotism seems -negligible to him. - -The implied fallacies current in the modern industrial revolutionary -formulae, in such phrases as "What does it matter to the working man -whether he is exploited by a German or an English master?" or, again, -"Why should the individual Tom Smith be sacrificed for an abstraction -called England?" or again, "Nationalism is the great obstacle to the -full development of humanity"--all that sort of thing, which we feel by -instinct and can, if it is necessary, prove by reason to be nonsense in -our case, sounds, in Jewish ears, as very good sense indeed. For in his -case these things involve no fallacies at all; they apply to _him_ -vividly and exactly. Why should the Jew be sacrificed for England? In -what way is England, or France, or Ireland, or any other nation -necessary to _him_? Again, is it not obvious in his eyes that these -terms, "France, Ireland, England, Russia," are but abstractions? The -_real_ thing in his eyes when he thinks of us, is the individual and his -certain needs, especially his physical and material needs; because upon -these there can be no doubt; upon these all are agreed; these are -visible and tangible. "England," "France," "Poland" are whimsies. - -It is true that if you were to put his special case to the Jew with -similar force and say, "No Jew should run any risk for Israel," "no Jew -should suffer any inconvenience by trying to help a fellow Jew in -distress," "the idea of Israel is a vague abstraction--all that counts -is the individual Jew and especially his physical requirements"; if you -said that sort of thing you would be offending the most profound -instincts of Jewish patriotism and you would, in fact, clash with the -overt and covert action of the Jews throughout the world. But the Jew -would answer that, as his was an international polity, the argument -applying to our national polity did not apply to him; that his feelings, -though analogous to ours, were of a different kind, and that, at any -rate, he cannot sacrifice a fine idea of his like Communism for our -provincial and local habit, called by us Europeans "the love of our -country." - -There is more than this in the business. Even those truths which we know -to be truths have little effect upon us, unless they enter into the -practice of our lives. There are, no doubt, a number of Jews who would -admit at once the truth of any nationalist statement made by a European. -When a Frenchman, or an Englishman, or a Russian says to him, "My first -duty is to my people; I must keep them strong as well as in being and I -must sacrifice my interests to theirs when it is necessary," there are -many Jews who would answer: "You are quite right. The theory is sound. -Man can only function as a part of a particular society," and so forth; -but it is one thing to recognize a truth and another thing to experience -it in one's bones, as it were, and these truths, even where he is -admitting them, are truths indifferent to the Jew. - -Therefore when, as in the particular case of Russia, a national feeling -stood in the way of an abstract ideal, it seemed the most natural thing -in the world to the Jew that the national obstacle should go to the wall -in order that _his_ ideal of Communism might triumph. - -There lay behind this great change in the Russian towns, and the capture -of what remains of Russian government by the Jewish Committees, a force -most positive. It was the sense of social justice, the indignation -against indefensible evils. - -That sense of social justice, that indignation against indefensible -modern evils, we all feel. There may be men among the wealthier classes -of Western Europe who are so ignorant of the past, or so stupid, that -they do honestly believe Industrial Capitalism to be an inevitable and -even perhaps a good thing. But such men must be very rare. Not only must -they be rare, but they cannot have any wide social experience. A man has -only got to live the life of the poor in the great industrial cities -for a day to see the enormity of the wrong that has to be righted. There -are, of course, not a few but many thousands of individuals who try to -find arguments for Industrial Capitalism, either because they benefit -themselves through the system and are the richer by it, or because they -are the hired servants of those who so benefit--and of this kind are the -writers in the capitalist press. But all these, who are hired advocates, -or advocates with a direct proprietary interest in the continuance of -the modern disease, may be neglected; for they are not in good faith. -They are not really arguing that the thing is good in itself, they are -only trying to find arguments as lawyers do for something which they -have to defend and which in their hearts they admit is evil; or to the -evil of which they are indifferent so long as it gives them a -disproportionate share of material enjoyment. - -We must add to these the sincere man who will admit the domination of -Industrial Capitalism because he honestly believes that, bad as it is, -it is _now_ become inevitable and that to tamper with it would bring the -whole State into anarchy. "Such as it is," he would say, "the structure -of our society now depends upon it. We may palliate its evils, we may -try very gradually to transform its worst features. But in its essence -it must remain as it is, or our last state will be worse than our -first." - -Of this kind are those who argue that any social experiment antagonistic -to Industrial Capitalism, if pushed sufficiently far, would result in -famine and chaos and even physical evils far worse than the physical -evils which the mass of men have to suffer in the great towns which -capitalism has produced. - -Apart from these categories, the masses of men, I say, to-day are -convinced that Industrial Capitalism is an evil, an evil of the grossest -sort; an evil of a sort unknown to the greater part of human history and -unknown to-day in the greater part of the human race; an evil which -those peasant societies, or societies of well-divided property -throughout Europe, are happy to have escaped; and an evil from which we, -who are caught in it, are trying to escape as best we may. - -In that modifying phrase "as best we may" lies the crux, for the great -mass of Europeans feel that any attack on Industrial Capitalism which -denies the nation its supreme place, or which impedes the superior task -of keeping the nation strong and wealthy, is barred; they also feel -instinctively that any attack which denies the general right of private -property and the value of that institution to the healthy conduct of our -affairs is also barred. The great mass of our race, when faced by the -problem of Industrial Capitalism, feel that it has to be solved in some -way that will neither destroy property nor the nation through which the -individual alone can function. - -But this, which is true of the great mass of our race, is not true of -the Jews. Therefore they were able, in the case of the Russian -Revolution, to go straight for their object, and that object was (apart -from the obvious object of revenge, of love of power, and the rest) the -destruction of an economic inequality. - -These Jews who have destroyed what we knew as Russia were undoubtedly -possessed of a political ideal: the ideal of Communism. No doubt many -individuals among them (all ultimately) would prefer the good of Israel -to the good of any Russian. No doubt the wreaking of vengeance upon -former oppressors was strong, as also the appetite for destroying a -general and a national sentiment alien to them and even repulsive to -them; but there remains, as a positive motive behind the whole affair, -the ideal of Communism. The Jews alone of the forces present were -capable of heartily entertaining that ideal, and were free of all -obstacles against the achievement of it--the obstacle of patriotism, the -obstacle of religion, the obstacle of the sense of property. - -These considerations, I take it, are what explains the Jewish character -of the upheaval in the East, with its destruction of the Russian nation, -its enormous experiments in social economy, its inevitable -impoverishment of the State as a whole, its enthusiastic support by the -minority which accepts its doctrine. - -Those very few men and women who have been witnesses of the Jewish -experiment in Russia (excluding those engaged in propaganda upon one -side or the other) give us a picture which is much what we should have -expected of the situation. - -It seems that the great mass of the nation has affirmed the instinct of -private property with the greatest vigour, and that some nine-tenths of -the Russians have settled down upon the land to which they always -claimed ownership and in which their sense of ownership is more fierce -than ever. In the towns the unnatural system--unnatural because it -opposes all our instincts as Europeans--works more and more slackly as -the original system of terror weakens. For it is clear that Communism -needs a despot, and the active rule of a despot is necessarily short: it -is a system incapable of transition and therefore of duration. - -The perfectly explicable but deplorable exercise of vengeance by the -Jews has been directed against what we euphemistically term the -governing directing classes, who have been massacred wholesale and whose -remnants are subjected to perpetual persecution. - -The productivity of the industrial masses has naturally sunk to a very -low level, because under Communism it can only work through something -like military discipline, and work done under those conditions is on a -much lower productive level than free work. - -But the real interest in the Jewish revolution in Russia, to which is -now permanently affixed the name of Bolshevist (which is nothing more -than the Russian for "whole-hogger"), lies in these two points: first, -the continued propaganda of Communism throughout the world (which -propaganda in organization and direction is in the hands of Jewish -agents); secondly, and much more important, the effect of the Jewish -revolution in producing hostility to the Jews throughout the world. - -I say this second fact is much more important because it is the more -real and the more enduring. You will never make a Communist of the -highly-civilized, tenacious, intelligent and humorous Occidental -European. You will no more make a Communist of him than you will make -him walk on all fours or permanently abjure the use of good liquor. You -may get middle-class faddists to accept Communism as a mere creed, and -of course you can easily get exasperated men, ground down by -capitalism, to accept _any_ theory, _any_ system, which promises them -relief. But you will not get Communism working in men who boast the old -European blood, in the descendants of those who created our past and its -monuments. They will certainly preserve their traditions and their -character. Though the peril must be combated, and is being successfully -combated everywhere, it is not a peril of great magnitude to the West. - -The other effect of the Jewish revolution in Russia--the peril into -which it has put the Jews themselves--_is_ permanent and _is_ of the -first magnitude. I know no way to meet it except to explain why that -revolution was almost necessarily a Jewish revolution, to emphasize the -sincerity of the Jews who have led it, to exculpate them as far as -possible, and, at any rate, to shield their unfortunate compatriots -abroad from the consequences of what was certainly a very bad piece of -tactics so far as the future of this people was concerned. - -We ought, I think, not to nourish a new and special hostility against -the Jew on account of what he has done in Russia, but, on the contrary, -to excuse him, especially because he is a Jew. We ought, as it seems to -me, to say: "He had reasons for action and excuse for action which men -of our race would not have had, and though we must prevent that action -from spreading, we must not allow what seemed quite natural under the -circumstances to the Jew to warp our attempted solution of the Jewish -problem. We ought to work for its solution as impartially and as soberly -as though the provocation of Bolshevism had never been given." - -That sounds an extreme thing to say, and I fear it will be ridiculed by -most of those who (as they tell us) have had their eyes opened by the -Bolshevist explosion and who are now confirmed enemies of the Jewish -people. But though it sound fantastic, I am convinced that it is a right -attitude. To lose one's judgment on a permanent problem through panic or -heat, to forget the elements of such a problem merely because it has -been presented to us suddenly in an acute form, is the negation of -reason. As well might a man who is dealing with the problem of fermented -liquor, and trying to get people to use it rationally, let his judgment -be overcome by a case of delirium tremens and rush thereupon into some -scheme of prohibition. The very test which distinguishes good -statesmanship from bad is the power to keep one's head under -provocations like these; to maintain a middle course and to aim at -whatever solution our reason tells us to be just under _normal_ -circumstances. We who saw the gravity of the Jewish problem long before -the recognition of it was general, and who studied it under calmer -conditions for many years, have a right to be heard now: now that the -tide is making against these people and that the fear of anarchy -threatens to turn men's heads. - -We were long blamed for attacking the Jews, we are already blamed for -defending them. It is a proof that our attitude is well grounded and -unaffected by fashion. - -The Bolshevist revolution will not last. Its Jewish character was -inevitable. It had a side to it of Jewish enthusiasm for a sort of -incorporeal justice, and, in any case, it ought not to be allowed to -deflect us from a conclusion which the much larger lines of history and -all general considerations of reason impose. - -Our conclusion, as I have said, is a recognition and protection of the -Jewish nation as something quite different from ourselves and yet -necessarily inhabiting our society. Such a full recognition leaves us -fore-armed against the tendency in the Jew (which we cannot avoid) to -forget our national feelings and to misconceive our sense of ownership. -It would render impossible the conspiracies and the vengeance which have -destroyed Russia, and I believe that had the former Russian Government -treated the Jews as I say they should be treated, it would be in power -to-day. - - -THE POSITION IN THE WORLD AS A WHOLE - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -THE POSITION IN THE WORLD AS A WHOLE - - -The danger of the Jewish nation in the world to-day may be summed up in -this phrase:-- - -"The Jews are obtaining control and we will not be controlled by them." - -That is the simplest formula, and the one which would be immediately -subscribed to by the whole mass of those outside the Jewish community -who are alive to the question at all. Being the simplest form of the -truth, it needs, when applied to a highly complex situation, detailed -modification. - -This modification proceeds from three sources:-- - -First, the extent of the Jewish control and the extent of the resentment -against that control vary very largely from one community to another. - -Secondly, the civic tradition of each community in its treatment of the -Jewish question also differs from that of every other, though these -various traditions fall into certain fairly well-defined groups. - -Thirdly, the position is modified according to the presence, in varying -degrees of strength in different communities, of certain international -forces even more powerful than the Jews themselves. The four principal -of the international forces are:-- - -(1) The Catholic Church; - -(2) Islam; - -(3) The forces of international Capitalism; and - -(4) The international reaction against it of the industrial proletariat. - -We must in the first line of this inquiry make an important premise. The -fact from which we proceed, namely, the uneasy feeling that the Jews are -getting control and the determination not to tolerate that control, will -be denied by the Jews themselves. It is denied sincerely--I have entered -upon too many discussions with them and heard too many of their -protestations to doubt that; and if the denial were valid, not only the -particular survey I propose in this chapter, but the whole of the -argument of this book, would fail. For if there is a Jewish question -to-day, and if it is present in the acute form in which we all know it -to be present, it is not due merely to the contrast and friction between -the Jews and their hosts, but especially to this feeling of domination. - -But the Jewish belief in this matter is not valid, sincerely as it is -held. To the great majority of Jews it will, of course, seem -common-sense. What has the unfortunate poor Jew in the slums of our -great cities to do with controlling the modern world? How in his eyes -can the phrase have any meaning at all? If you pass from him to the -comparatively small Jewish middle class, you would hear a denial almost -equally vigorous. The Jewish scientist will tell you that he is -concerned with his researches and laughs at the idea of interfering with -his neighbours; the Jewish historian that he is concerned with his -documents, that nothing is further from his thoughts than interfering -with people outside his trade; the little Jewish shopkeeper will tell -you that he is in active competition with his non-Jewish neighbours and -by no means always successful in that competition; the Jewish lawyer -will tell you that he is concerned with the system of law in which he -happens to be immersed--the Napoleonic Code, the English Common Law or -what not--and that any idea of his personally wanting to control the -vast non-Jewish majority among whom he lives is moonshine: and so it is. - -The great Jewish banker, though he is fully aware of his power, would -tell you that in his daily business he comes up against forces to which -he is subject, and has competitors who are at the best neutral, and more -commonly hostile, to Israel; and even the man who is to-day more -powerful--if that be possible--than the Jewish banker, I mean the Jewish -monopolist, and especially the Jewish monopolist in metal, though he -would be extremely annoyed to have the extent of his control exposed, -will feel that it is due to his superior abilities and in no way -designed for mastery. - -All these individual replies are true; but if you make of them a -composite and general reply, if you put it as a reply of all Israel to -all the world outside, crying, "I have no desire for supremacy; I never -act in such a fashion that my domination can be felt or shall increase; -the motive is not present, even subconsciously, among my people"--then -that general reply would be false. - -In point of fact the Jew has _collectively_ a power to-day, in the white -world, altogether excessive. It is not only an excessive power, it is -inevitably a _corporate_ power and, therefore, a semi-organized power. -It is not only excessive and in the main organized, it was, until the -recent reaction began, a rapidly increasing power--and most people -believe it to be still increasing. To that the whole world outside the -Jewish community will testify. - -The criterion by which we may judge whether any form of power is -irritant to those whom it affects is not the testimony of those who -exercise the power, but the testimony of those over whom it is -exercised. There never was a tyranny in the world, not even one of those -personal tyrannies (which have been so much more highly organized and so -much more direct than this power of the Jews), there never has been a -despotism in history, which would not tell you that it was accidental, -or necessary, or, in any case, innocent of any motive of oppression. And -history universally replies: "To judge _that_, you must ask those who -felt the pressure; not those who exercised it." - -Now those who feel the pressure in the matter we are now examining are -unanimous. They differ in the degree of their resentment from those to -whom the thing is so intolerable that they are already in active revolt -against it, to those who feel it merely as a distant though an -approaching discomfort. But everybody feels it in some degree. It is a -universal sensation running throughout the nerves of the modern world -and it is growing too fast in degree and extent to be ignored. - -I have already quoted the effect upon those hundreds of educated men -taken into the temporary Civil service during the late war, when they -found, holding the locked gate of one monopoly after another, the -international Jew. His control of finance needs no discussion. If the -individual banker or financier is not aware of it, the most of those -who are affected are acutely aware of it. Men exaggerate in giving it a -sort of conscious personality, but they certainly do not exaggerate when -they point to its effects. The Jew must remember, what it may be -difficult for him to accept and what is certainly true, that not only is -his domination very bitterly resented but that his presence in any -position of control whatsoever is odious to the race among which he -moves. Everybody feels that about any form of alien control, much more -do they feel it about that form which they instinctively know to be most -alien of all. Every one has noticed this control exercised in the form -of keeping silence upon what it was to the disadvantage of Israel to -have known; in the form of the advertising of what it was to the -advantage of Israel to have advertised; in the form of the giving and -withholding of credit; in the form of attack in the Press against -nations with whom Israel had a quarrel and the defence in the Press of -those (they have now almost disappeared) upon whom Israel, in the -immediate past, relied for defence. And everybody has discovered--what -is not unjust, indeed, what is inevitable, but what is none the less a -source of exasperation--the solidarity of the Jewish race where the -interests of any member of it were concerned.[1] - -But if the thing were felt everywhere as acutely and as consciously as -it is felt in special groups to-day--as it is felt, for instance, in one -particular section of English opinion already represented in the Press, -is felt in a wider section of French opinion, and in a still wider -section of Polish opinion--then the matter would be simple. We could -then say that an issue of the clearest kind had arisen, and forbid a -small alien minority to decide the destinies of those among whom it -lives and of whom it is not. The answer would be obvious, and the only -difficulty would be how the Jewish control might be lessened without -grievous injustice to innocent individuals. - -But the thing is not so felt. It is modified, as I have said, by the -varying degrees of intensity in which it is recognized and by the other -international forces which come into play. - -If we consider the varying political traditions and the varying -international forces, if we examine the world's national groups, we -shall find something like this: In the vast body of Russia a position -most paradoxical. For years the Jew was everywhere openly attacked and -hated in those parts of the Russian Empire where he was allowed to live -in large numbers. These were nowhere within Russia proper but upon the -western outskirts of that empire, within what was once the old Polish -kingdom and largely within what is now the restored Republic of Poland. -But the Russian traditional antagonism to the Jew changed in a few weeks -of chaos to something not opposite but novel and different. The Russian -allowed a prodigious revolution to be made by the Jews, he accepted the -loot of that revolution which the Jew secured to him; he has submitted -wholly in the towns, partly in the country, to a tyranny exercised by -Jews ever since that complete reversal of his national history, now four -years old. - -The external political power of what was once the Russian Empire has -disappeared. The Jews have killed it. But the great mass of Russian -humanity remains strongly affected by this curious change. Where popular -instinct works untrammelled the old and violent passionate antagonism -between the Russian and the Jew survives. You see it in the hotch potch -of the Ukraine, the inhabitants of which, in spite of all theories, are -of Russian race and tradition, and the central town of which is the -sacred region of Russia as a member of Christendom. There, for all the -Jewish Committees with large towns under their complete control, there -have been repeated revolts. But in the greater part of European Russia -at least, and in much of what was once the Asiatic Empire, the Jews hold -what is left of the Executive government. - -So far as we can judge from the very imperfect accounts which reach us -(for nowhere is the weapon of secrecy more ruthlessly used), the mass of -the Russians, that is, the peasantry, are in two minds. To the action of -the Jewish despotism in the town they are indifferent, but to his early -attempts against themselves they were bitterly opposed. They have -suffered at his hands and they thought him a tyrant. But the Jew seems -to have dropped this interference and the Russian soil to have settled -down as a peasant proprietary. On the other hand, it was a revolution -guided by those same Jewish Committees which secured the peasant in the -possession of his land. The Russian peasant has always regarded the land -as his own. He had, I understand, regarded that odd, pedantic measure, -"The Liberation of the Serfs," as only another name for the robbing him -of his land; and when the organization of Russian society dissolved in -the strain of war, he poured over the great estates and took back what -he thought was his own. - -For the strange Jewish conception of Communism, a million miles removed -from our European racial instincts and our high civilized traditions, -the Russian peasant could have nothing but a bewildered contempt. None -the less he was conscious that the Jewish revolution had permitted him, -if not to take the land (he did that himself), at least to hold it; and -the revolution is indistinguishable from the Jewish control of the -towns. - -Within the towns, again (our information is most imperfect and I can -only piece together what eye-witnesses have told me), although the Jew -is, of course, individually hated, yet his control does stand for -certain things which the mass of the people still support. He organized -the resentment of the poor against the rich. He erected before their -eyes the pleasing spectacle of a social revenge. He carried out, fairly -consistently, his Communist programme, one aspect at least of which is -practical enough; for the man that works with his hands finds that he is -as well, or better, fed out of the meagre common stock, than those who -were once his masters. - -In general I think it true to say that the Jewish control over -Christians, if, in a way, stronger in what was once the Russian Empire -than anywhere else, is also there least resented. I do not say it would -not be resented if it were to excite action again against the peasants, -but we cannot forget that the peasants were eager to fight for the new -Russian regime because they identified it with their new property in -land. The situation is absurd enough. Men in hundreds of thousands -willing to fight for Communist masters because by so doing they believe -they can secure themselves in an absolute form of property! But that is -what the "red" army was. - -In that belt of nations, vague in boundary, which used to constitute the -Marches of the East and which now stand between what was once the -Russian Empire and the Germanies, the position would seem to be this. - -There are in these countries everywhere a very large proportion of Jews. -The largest by far are in Lithuania and Galicia, where, of whole towns, -from a third to a half and sometimes up to two-thirds, of the population -are Jewish. Very large also is the proportion within the admitted -frontiers of modern Poland; very large in Roumania, and considerable in -Hungary. - -In all these countries the Jewish problem is something quite different -from what it is farther West. The Jews are in these countries admittedly -a separate nation. Even as I write I hear the complaint, sounding -strange in our Western ears, proffered by the Polish Jews who have been -appealing to the West against what they claim to be the oppressive -practice of writing them down as Poles! In Roumania for two generations -it has been the fixed principle of the State, now latent, now overt, but -always acted upon in social practice, that the Jew is not a Roumanian at -all and cannot be one. Of course he cannot be one really, any more than -he can be an Englishman, or a Frenchman, or an Irishman. (Fancy a Jew an -Irishman!) But I mean, not even one by fiction or by convention. In -Poland the greater part of these people have a different language and -all of them have a different social custom and a different life from the -world around them. In Hungary, where the numerical pressure of the Jew -is less, there is, of course, a most lively memory of the attempted -revolution under Cohen in 1918, the massacres of Hungarians, the setting -up of an ephemeral Bolshevism and the necessity of its suppression. In -Bohemia the pressure is far less and in the Balkan States south of the -Danube and the Drave. It is only present as a pressure of numbers in the -group of States which lie between the Baltic and the Black Sea South and -North and between the Russian people and the German people East and -West. - -When we come to Occidental Europe, in which must be included, though it -is hardly a true part of it, Germany beyond the Elbe; when we come to -the Scandinavian countries, to France, Britain, Italy, Spain, -Switzerland and the Low Countries, the problem changes. The numerical -proportion of Jews sinks enormously. Fairly large in one or two Dutch -towns, it is almost insignificant in Scandinavia, and though we have had -into the great English towns and to some extent into the northern French -towns (particularly Paris) a considerable recent influx of Jews, yet the -total number of these people in the West remains far, far smaller than -the great masses of the East of Europe. The same is still more true of -Italy, and, in spite of the absorption of a great deal of Jewish blood -in the past, of Spain. - -But while the numerical proportion of Jews in these western countries is -much smaller, and while therefore the peril of Jewish domination is -very different in _form_ from what it is farther East, it is clearly -marked. It is exercised primarily through finance; next through the -sceptical Universities, the anonymous Press and the corrupt Parliaments, -and, lastly, in a more general form, by the presence of institutions -which greatly favour the rise of the Jew in competition with his hosts; -each favours international knowledge; each favours anonymity; each still -favours the old Liberal nonsense which called itself "toleration" and -was really an indifference to that most fundamental of all social -motives--religion--save, of course, where an exception is made to permit -attack upon the Catholic Church. - -Under influence of this sort, both sincere and hypocritical, both -generous and mean, the Jew acquired in all the larger communities, and -especially in France, Italy, Germany and England, a power out of all -proportion to his numbers, and I may add, without, I hope, offending any -Jewish reader, out of proportion to his abilities; certainly out of -proportion to any right of his to interfere in our affairs. It was a Jew -who produced the divorce laws in France, the Jew who nourished -anti-clericalism everywhere in that country and also in Italy; the Jew -who called in the forces of Occidental nations to protect his -compatriots in the East, and the Jew whose spirit has so largely -permeated the Universities and the Press. - -Ireland is an exception. In Ireland the Jew (outside the little -industrial corner in the north-east) is nobody. And here it must be -remarked that the migrations of the Jew which give him numbers here for -a time and afterwards numbers elsewhere, in places where previously he -had not been known; which give him influence here for a time, and sees -it followed by the decline of that influence, do not seem to obey any -law which we can trace, and are certainly not the product of any -conscious action. It is one of the strangest phenomena in history, this -odd, spasmodic flood movement of the Jewish race. Is it concerned with -commerce? That is one element undoubtedly; that is what explains the -exploitation of England by Jews after the Conquest, of Spain in the -later Middle Ages, of the Valley of the Rhine; but then, why not other -commercial centres as an attraction? Venice was not one, though the Jew -was well tolerated there; nor was Paris after the early Middle Ages, and -while some of the Dutch towns formed such centres of attraction the -Belgian towns did not. - -Was it asylum? That would account, of course, for the great influx of -Jews into mediaeval Poland, but then why not into eighteenth century -England? Why not until very late in the nineteenth century? England, -which gave the Jews a more complete civic position than he could find -anywhere else in the world, was not invaded by them. Why these very -recent influxes into the United States, which has for now a century and -a half been perfectly open by its Constitution, and was by all its civic -tradition an ideal asylum for the Jews? Until quite recent times the Jew -was hardly known there, and to this day he is not known outside a few -great cities. - -No. There would seem to be no law, or at least no discoverable law, for -this mysterious movement, the ebb and flow of Israel--but that is a -digression. To return to the national situations. - -If we leave the Old World and turn to the United States, we find a -novel condition of affairs still in process of development and very -puzzling to the foreign observer. I do not pretend to analyse it -completely in a few lines, nor even accurately, for I am dependent upon -the observation of others, and the United States are so utterly -different from us that we have difficulty in following their -contemporary history; but something of this sort would seem to be -passing there. - - * * * * * - -In the United States the Jews were present, till the last few years, in -numbers even smaller in proportion to the population than their numbers -in France, England and Italy, far smaller than their numbers in what was -formerly the German Empire. In the agricultural part of America, which -is still, I believe, one half of the population, the Jew was almost -unknown. You find him here and there, as a lawyer or a storekeeper, but -that world was not familiar with him any more than our English -country-sides are familiar with him to-day. With the growth of the great -industrial towns, of course, the Jew came, but he was still no "feature -in the landscape." There was a certain social prejudice against him -among the wealthier classes in the East, and--this is very -important--_the truth was always told about him_. There was in America -no convention--the Jew was always recognized as a Jew and there was -never any of the nonsense we had over here of pretending that he was -something else. - -Of that phenomenon of which the history of Europe is full, which is so -marked in the eastern counties to-day and which is beginning to rise in -the West, there is nothing traceable in the early and middle nineteenth -century, nor even till the close of it, in the United States. - -Then came the change. It is a change which has taken place in the -lifetime of men much younger than myself. It is a change, I am told, -most marked since I last visited the United States more than twenty -years ago. A regular and organized Jewish emigration began to pour in, -especially from the Baltic. It flooded New York, where it now forms -probably a third of the population; it created Ghettoes in most of the -large Northern industrial towns, and all the phenomena we associate in -Europe with these movements began to show themselves. There was the -growth of the financial monopoly and of monopolies in particular trades. -There was the clamour for toleration in the form of "neutralizing" -religious teaching in schools; there was the appearance of the Jewish -revolutionary and of the Jewish critic in every tradition of Christian -life. The Jews went also--as they usually do--to the heart of things, -and the Executive was attacked. The last and apparently the most -unpopular of the presidents, Mr. Wilson, seems to have been wholly in -their hands. Anonymity in the Press came, of course. A very marked -example of it is a journal called _The New Republic_, which, though it -has but a small proportion of Jewish writers upon it, and though its -capital is (I believe) not Jewish, is yet to all intents and purposes -the organ of the Jewish intellectuals, always joins in the boycott of -any news unfavourable to European Jews, always joins in the clamour for -anything favourable to them, and in general adheres to the Jewish side, -like the _Humanite_ in Paris, or, let us say, _The New Statesman_ in -England. - -But the novel presence in the United States of this phenomenon with -which in the west of Europe we have now been familiar for a long time, -provides a more direct and a very different kind of reaction from what -it has among us. This reaction against Jewish powers was not (to use a -Stock Exchange metaphor) "sticky." There was no hesitation; there were -no uneasy patches of silence. The Jewish question was discussed from the -moment it was first felt and to-day it is discussed beyond all others. -Of political topics I have found it the first in the conversation of the -Americans who have visited Europe since the War and with whom I have -discussed the affairs of their country. It ranges, as that reaction -always does, from the wildest Anti-Semitism to strong and open defence -of the Jewish position, not only by Jews but by the very small minority -of their admirers outside the Jewish community, especially among the -wealthy. The characteristic of the whole thing in the United States is -that it is only just beginning. It is capable of becoming one of those -sudden growths of which the past history of the Republic has made us -familiar, and indeed it is too early yet to judge, even on the largest -lines, what forms it may not take. It is enough to say that there is -behind the reaction against the Jew in that country a growing intensity -of feeling with which we, as yet, in Western Europe, for all the advance -we have made in the matter, are unfamiliar. If a test be required, -contrast the silence about the Jews in '96, during Bryan's great attack -upon the gold standard, with the work of Mr. Ford and all that he stands -for to-day! - -The rest of the world is either of Islam or heathen. In the heathen -world, so far, the Jew has little place. He has a strong grip on India, -of course, but only through the British Raj, not through the native -population; and in China, except as a quasi-European merchant, he has no -power at all; neither has he over the strong and organized nationality -of Japan. - -Such are the degrees, very roughly, of the problem; such the differences -of its quality in the various national groups to-day. Of these the two -most interesting states of the problem by far, because they are changing -with the greatest rapidity, are found in France, in England and in the -United States. - -I have said that the second modifying condition was the difference of -civic traditions of the various nations. Here again you have a -differentiation from East to West. But within it a differentiation, -ultimately due to religion, from North to South. In Russia there was -never any tradition of keeping silence upon the Jew, or of respecting -the Jew at all. He was, until the recent revolution, the national enemy, -and there was the end of it. Similarly in Poland, Roumania and the -vaguer populations of their borders, and even in the old Hungary, the -Jew was talked of openly as belonging to a separate nationality and, on -the whole, a hostile one. - -But as one got west another spirit emerged, another tradition. It was -"the thing" to treat the Jew as a citizen. This fashion was weaker in -the Germanies than in the Low Countries, France, or England; it was -everywhere present west of the Elbe. - -It was a tradition flowing from two sources: the commercial and -protestant England of the seventeenth century, the sceptical France of -the eighteenth. The Jew (according to this spirit) merited special -protection and special respect. He must be protected and respected even -in his passion for secrecy; so that at last the mere mention of his -existence in the cultivated and directing classes of the west became -something of an oddity. - -From this spirit proceeded the Liberal fiction or convention which I -dealt with in the second chapter of this book. It was clinched, it was -given permanent form, by the enthusiasm and severe doctrine of the -French Republicans, which arose at a moment when Israel was regarded as -a religion and its national quality was forgotten. Since all religion -was thought to be dying, since, further, an enthusiasm had arisen -against almost any religion which exercised civic power (notably the -Catholic Church), this Jewish religion, formerly regarded as inimical to -the State, or at any rate separate from it, was naturally accorded a -special privilege. That strange system arose, the death of which we are -now watching after its brief life of somewhat more than a century, -whereby the Jew was permitted to wear the mask of nationalities other -than his own, and to function everywhere as though he were a citizen, -not of Israel, but of the nation in which he chanced to find himself. - -Against this attitude arose at last the powerful plea of nationalism. In -England, as we shall see in the next chapter, this plea was less strong -than elsewhere, because the interests of international Jewish finance -and of British commerce were for so long nearly identical. In Italy, -where the Jew was naturally closely connected with the nationalist -movement on account of its antagonism to the Papacy, national feeling -clashed little with the anomaly of the Jew. But in France, especially -after the defeat of 1870, the contrast became stronger and stronger, -just as it is strengthening to-day in Germany after the defeat of 1918. - -It was that clash between the "city" of Israel and the other "cities" in -which we Europeans function, to which allusion has been made on a former -page. It would be very convenient, no doubt, to the "City" of Israel if -all other "cities" disappeared and left an open field for Jewish -operations. But they do not propose to disappear; and though our -devotion to them may seem inexplicable to the Jew, he must accept it as -a permanent force; for the patriotism of the European will not weaken. - -In the United States this Liberal tradition or convention, this -conception that the Jew must be treated as a full citizen, was far -stronger even than it was in the West of Europe. It was in the very soul -of the Constitution, and, what is more important, in the very soul of -the people. For such a spirit was nourished not only in doctrine but in -practice by the appearance, in vast quantities, of immigrants from many -different countries, all of whom were absorbed in and merged by the -American spirit. If ever there was a field in which the false conception -that a Jew could be a Jew and at the same time the full citizen of -another nation, that field was the United States of America. Yet it is -there that the problem is now reaching its most acute form; and the -reason is that side by side with this strong civic tradition there goes -a complete freedom of speech and a very active public opinion. The -reality became too much for theory and the Jew was recognized as -something apart. He will never fall into the background again. - -There remain to be considered the international forces which modify this -general truth that the quarrel with the Jew is a quarrel with his -increasing control over our affairs. - -Those international forces are Religion--Islam and the Catholic -Church--the force of Modern Capitalism, and the Reaction against that -force of the Industrial Proletariat, the Reaction summed up in the term -Socialism. All four are international. - -The position of the Jew in Islam can be simply defined. In Islam he is -treated with less method and therefore with less continued oppression -than in Christendom, but always and permanently as something base and -inferior, save in a few rare moments when he has the favour of -particular rulers or is necessary to some special society, or is admired -in a moment of intellectual brilliance. - -Normally the Jew in Islam is an outcast. I know very well that the game -is played of pretending that Islam is in some way kinder to him than we -are. It is but a game: the playing of one party against another--of -Islam against Christendom--by Israel, which is of neither. In Islam his -superior position in Christendom is equally famed. History is too strong -for such pretences. All the history of Islam, all the social spirit of -Islam, to which there are countless witnesses to-day, give the same -verdict about the general treatment of the Jew in that society. - -So it was in independent Islam. But Islam, politically controlled -to-day by the Western Christian powers, is another matter. Under that -unstable state of affairs (no one can say how long it will last; the -conflict between Islam and Christendom seems eternal and the rise and -fall of that tide is indefinitely successive) the problem takes on quite -another shape. France and England appear in Islam as the artificial -supporters of the Jew. - -Until quite lately it was the French who bore the worst odium of this in -the eyes of the Mohammedans. Under the French the Jews in North Africa -were often given a special, a superior position, which was an insult to -every Mohammedan and which is still an insult to him. It is the weakest -point of the French regime. In Algeria the Ghetto Jew may vote. The Arab -may not. Even in Morocco, where things have been done more wisely than -in Algiers, the difficulty is felt. How are you to treat a Jew -differently in Morocco from the way in which he is treated in France? He -is common to the two countries. If you treat him as if he were French, -and therefore a member of the governing power, what of the pride of -those lords of the Atlas and of Fez? - -In the vastly larger field of Mohammedan control exercised by Britain, -which, directly and indirectly, is ten times that of France, there was -until lately less of this friction; but the tables have been turned, and -to-day it is Britain which stands to the Mohammedan as the thruster-in -of the Jew. It began with the support of Jewish finance in Egypt; it -went on with the extended control over Indian commerce by Jews; it -continued in the control of Indian currency by Jews. It has ended in the -grotesque appointment to the Indian Viceroyalty and the extraordinary -experiment of Palestine. - -To-day, at the moment in which I write, there is no doubt on the matter -whatsoever: From Rabat on the Atlantic to the Bay of Bengal, the Western -Powers are regarded as the agents of a Jewish intrusion which is -intolerable to Islam. And whereas the chief blame lay, until quite a few -years ago, upon the French, to-day it lies upon the British Government. - - * * * * * - -The role of the Catholic Church in the debate between the Jews and -Christendom is the most discussed, the worst understood, of any point -connected with the general problem. But it is capable of simple -definition. Wherever the Catholic Church is powerful, and in proportion -as it is powerful, the traditional principles of the civilization of -which it is the soul and guardian will always be upheld. One of these -principles is the sharp distinction between the Jew and ourselves. The -Rationalist would say that this distinction was racial, and that it only -found religious expression on account of its racial reality. His -opponent would say that the origin of the quarrel was mainly religious; -that it was a difference in religious tradition which formed the -contrast between the Jew and Christendom. The former can cite as -evidence the violent original contrast between the Roman Empire and the -Jew, the latter the truth that religion, philosophy, is the formative -force in every human society. - -But whichever theory you adopt, the fact is there. The Catholic Church -is the conservator of an age-long European tradition, and that tradition -will never compromise with the fiction that a Jew can be other than a -Jew. Wherever the Catholic Church has power, and in proportion to its -power, the Jewish problem will be recognized to the full. - -On the other hand, there never has been and never will be, or can be, -admission by Catholic morals of warfare against the Jew. Those morals -are plain. That doctrine has been defined over and over again and acted -upon throughout history. If indirect hostilities are opened against the -majority by a minority in its midst, they may be repressed and punished. -Still more important, insincere and pretended conversion, used as a -cloak, may be repressed and punished. But though a community has the -right to determine its own life, and (if it think it possible) even to -eliminate (with justice, not with cruelty, violence or injustice in any -form) an alien, a hostile minority; yet that minority has its own right -to live, if not there, then elsewhere. It has its right--once it is -rooted and traditional--to its own convictions, to its own tradition. If -you allow it to live among you, you must allow it to live its own life -save where that life threatens yours. The Catholic Church will always -maintain reality, including the reality of that sharp distinction -between the Jew and his hosts. - -The opponent of the Catholic Church will tend, other things being equal, -to support the Jew, because, under that distinction, the Jew may find -himself ill at ease. The whole Protestant tradition of the North was for -more than 300 years favourable to the Jew, partly indeed on account of -its reliance upon the Jewish Scriptures, its absorption in the inspired -Jewish folk-lore, but more because the alliance with the Jew was an -alliance against the Catholic Church. Strong traces of that spirit -still remain. What has warred against it has been the sheer necessity -in every country, Catholic or Protestant, Liberal or anti-Liberal, to -preserve society against what each began to feel as a disruptive and an -alien domination. - -There remain the two novel forces--Modern Capitalism, and, protesting -against it, its victim, the Modern Industrial Proletariat. - -A few years ago anyone would have said that the opposition to the Jew -was an opposition to capitalism alone; the Jew was the representative of -capitalism, and Jewish finance was the particular aspect of Jewish power -in which that power was universally hated. But we have seen all that -change. To-day the strongest force against the Jew is on the other side. -It is mainly aroused, not by the fear of capitalist forces, but by the -fear of revolutionary forces. - -I make bold to say that when the feeling against the Jew comes to the -point of action, the Jew will necessarily, and in self-defence, fall -back upon the leadership of the proletariat against industrial -capitalism. He will--he must, from mere instinct, quite apart from -calculation--use the line of cleavage which divides a society hostile to -him. He will rely on the line of cleavage driven by the vast modern -quarrel between the few possessors in the modern industrial world and -their victims, the exploited millions. - -So put, the opportunity of the Jew, if he be driven to extremities to -raise an army in his defence, seems a great opportunity enough. It would -seem easy for him to deflect all animosity against himself into -animosity against the rich--safeguarding, of course (as he has done in -Russia), the Jewish rich. But we must remember three formidable -conditions which weaken that opportunity. - -The first condition is this: The industrial millions are still quite a -small minority and will probably in the future be an even smaller -minority of the civilized white world. The war dealt them a heavy blow. -The fact that the industrial proletariat is a town population, and -therefore less and less productive, is another cause of weakness; their -decline in health another. The fact that industrial capitalism depends -upon the machine being kept going, and that its serfs are less and less -willing to keep the machine going, is another. - -Secondly, the area (and that is important) occupied by industrial -capitalism is but a very small area of the surface of the civilized -world. - -Thirdly, the revolt of the Industrial Proletariat, if the Jews provoke -it, will be short-lived. Either it will be defeated, or after destroying -its masters it will, under Jewish leadership, destroy its own powers of -production, as in Russia. - -When the fury is exhausted, in a very short time the Jewish problem will -reappear. - -The proletarian battle may rage intensely, but it will be far from -universal, and will not be sufficient, I think, to distract mankind from -that other cross-problem of Jew and non-Jew, to which his attention is -being more and more steadily directed. - -FOOTNOTE: - -[1] Except, of course, an outlawed member. The case of Dr. Levy turned -out of this country by his compatriots in the Government for having -written unfavourably of the Moscow Jews will be fresh in every one's -memory. - - -THE POSITION OF THE JEWS IN ENGLAND - - - - -CHAPTER X - -THE PRESENT RELATION BETWEEN THE ENGLISH STATE AND THE JEWS - - -The various nations of Europe have every one of them, in the course of -their long histories, passed through successive phases towards the Jew -which I have called the tragic cycle. Each has in turn welcomed, -tolerated, persecuted, attempted to exile--often actually -exiled--welcomed again, and so forth. The two chief examples of extremes -in action, are, as I have also pointed out in an earlier part of this -book, Spain and England. Spaniards, and in particular the Spaniards of -the Kingdom of Castile, went through every phase of this cycle in its -fullest form. England passed through even greater extremes, for England -was the only country which absolutely got rid of the Jews for hundreds -of years, and England is the only country which has, even for a brief -period, entered into something like an alliance with them. - -Though it is the present position of the British State--that is, the -position of official British politics towards the Jew--with which we are -concerned, it may be of service to introduce the matter by a word upon -past relations. - -The Jewish element in this island, whatever it may have been during the -Roman occupation, was of small account during the Dark Ages. Things -changed at their close in the eleventh century. The Jew is the camp -follower of each new economic movement among us and that is why one -finds him in the wake of the Norman Conquest. Throughout the economic -development which it began appears the secondary role of the Jew. Every -one knows the mediaeval rule of Jewish Status. It was established here -as everywhere else in Christendom. The Jew was the King's; that is, -under the special protection of the State. If he were the subject of -popular attack, that attack was an attack on the King's peculiar, and -liable to speedy repression. The individual attacker was punished with -special severity because the danger of mass-movement is always great -where the populace is free to act in masses as it was throughout the -middle ages, and the necessity for preventing individual attacks from -spreading was correspondingly great. Now and then the popular feeling -got out of hand and the monarch had to deal with numbers which he could -not control; but as a rule the Jew, especially the rich Jew, enjoyed a -privileged position, both in Northern France and throughout England. The -Jew of the early Middle Ages in England was normally a well-to-do man -and often an exceedingly rich man. Then, as now, a small number of Jews -were much the richest men of their time. - -He had most of the finances in his hands, and this immense privilege -(which he has lost), that he alone was allowed to practise usury. Here -we must pause a moment to define usury. - -Usury then (as now) signified the receiving of interest upon -unproductive loans. It is a practice which all moralists and all -philosophers have condemned and which the Church in particular condemns. -If you lend money to a man for a productive purpose: if, for instance, -he is to buy a ship and trade with the money you advance, or to buy a -farm and grow produce, then, of course, you are perfectly free to -stipulate for a portion of the profit. But if you lend the money for a -purpose not directly productive, as, for instance, to a man in grave -necessity, or in lieu of charity, or to build such a building as a -church, which will not produce a rent, or if in any other fashion you -lend money to one who (to your knowledge) will not spend it in some -reproductive agency, then it is immoral to demand interest. - -Now an exception was made in mediaeval Christendom in favour of the Jew. -He was allowed to lend money at interest, even in the most grievous -cases of necessity, and for services as unproductive as religion or war. -The only stipulation was that the moneys saved from this lucrative -practice returned to the Crown (in theory) upon the death of the -licensee. In practice no doubt a very large part remained with the -accumulator, who during his lifetime was enjoying the income he had -acquired by usury, who could give it to his heirs while still living, -and could use opportunities for secret investment, or pass it to the -custody of others throughout international Jewry. But liquid sums left -by him, the product of his usury, returned to the Crown upon his death. -This was a great advantage to the Crown, not only in protecting the Jew -from the native hostility of his alien hosts (and particularly of the -populace), but in giving him that great privilege--a monopoly. - -The rate of interest was enormous. It varied from nearly 50 per cent to -over 80 per cent. When Jews lent money on security the King was party to -the safe custody of the security, and their privilege extended so far -that they were exempt from the common law, and a case between an -Englishman and his Jewish creditor could only be tried by a mixed jury -in which the Jew's own compatriots were present in equal numbers with -the English. - -All during the Angevin period Jewish financial domination continued, up -to the end of the twelfth century and even into the beginning of the -thirteenth. But with the first half of the thirteenth century, for some -reason of which I have never seen a sufficient historical analysis and -of which, perhaps, the full causes have been lost, the Jewish power -began to decline very rapidly, so far as England was concerned. - -And here it may be noted that the misfortunes of the Jews in any country -never begin until their financial position is shaken. As long as they -are the financial masters of the Government they are protected; but woe -to them when they begin to lose their financial power! Then there is no -longer any reason for supporting them either on the part of the -governing classes in general or of the Executive in particular. Popular -passion is let loose and disaster follows. - -At any rate, the thirteenth century saw in England a rapid decline of -Jewish financial power and at the same time a rapid rise of official -animosity towards them. They got poorer and poorer as the century -proceeded. Their activities were at the same time more and more -restricted. They had lent money largely upon land and yet, in the public -interest, were at last forbidden to foreclose upon it. The final step -came when their special licence to practise usury was withdrawn by -Edward I in the earlier part of his reign; and at last, in 1290, after -increasing severities, they were all expelled the country under penalty -of death. - -The unhappy people, already reduced by two generations of falling -fortune, were hurried out of the country, carrying, by permission, their -money and movables. They were protected, indeed, at the ports by the -royal officers, who even paid the passage of the indigent among them; -but they were plundered at sea and some even murdered. The murderers -were punished, but the memory of the persecution remained in the Jews' -mind and England became a natural object of their hate. The Jewish -community expelled by the English was surprisingly small, not 17,000, -and suggests the historical truth that in the Middle Ages, and indeed -until quite modern times, the Jewish community in Northern France and -England was a community of people in the main well-to-do. It so remained -until quite modern times. - -There followed three and a half centuries and more during which England -was the one example in Europe of a State that would not tolerate the -Jews upon any terms whatsoever. There certainly remained throughout this -time, or at any rate visited the island, not a few of what the Jews -themselves called "Crypto-Jews," that is, Jews who outwardly deny their -nationality and practise our religion for the purpose of private gain. -These, when they could defeat the law successfully, remained within the -British seas. But their effect was slight; and the English people during -the whole of their great military advance in France, during the whole -period when their language and culture was forming, during the whole -great national episode of the Tudors and of the Reformation, formed the -one great exception out of all Europe in that the Jew remained unknown -to them and was rigorously excluded from their Commonwealth. - -They returned, as everybody knows, under Cromwell. Their numbers, and -still more their wealth, increased at the end of the seventeenth century -and concomitantly with this, partly as an effect of it (but here we must -not exaggerate), a number of novel financial features appeared in the -English State each of which shows the increased power of the Jews. The -institution of the Bank, of the National Debt, of speculation in -Exchange and in the fluctuation of stock. - -But the real causes of that alliance between the English and the Jews -which is seen in the late seventeenth century, which quickened -throughout the eighteenth and became so very marked in the nineteenth -century, was the cosmopolitan position of England as the leading -commercial State. This it was which led to something like identity -between the interests of Israel and the interests of Britain, an -identity which has lasted so long that now, when divergence is beginning -to appear, it still seems odd and novel to the older generation that -there should be any Jewish action which is not favourable to England. -They cannot understand what the new indifference to Jewish interests, -let alone the new hostility to them, can mean. - -There were, of course, many other causes contributory to the peculiar -position which the Jew came to enjoy in modern England, a position which -he has not yet lost in external circumstance, though it is so badly -shaken morally. There was the fact that England was the Protestant power -of the West. - -This religious motive played a great part. Between the Catholic Church -and the Synagogue there had been hostility from the first century. In so -far as it was possible to take sides in that quarrel it was natural for -the Protestant power to take sides against the Catholic tradition and -therefore in favour of the Jews. Again, the English were not only -Protestant, their middle classes were steeped in the reading of the Old -Testament. The Jews seemed to them the heroes of an epic and the shrines -of a religion. You will find strong relics of this attitude in -Provincial England to this day. One should add a certain national -distaste for violence, which feeling was exasperated by hearing of the -Jewish persecution abroad. One should also further add the pride which -modern Englishmen take in the feeling that their country is an asylum -for the oppressed. - -Meanwhile there was not, until quite lately, any considerable body of -poor Jews in the country to excite the animosity of the populace. That -was an important negative factor in bringing the Jew within the -boundaries of the English State. But with all these factors fully -considered, it remains true that the main cause of the accidental Jewish -position in England was the cosmopolitan character of English commerce -and the essentially commercial character of the English State. As -English export and English shipping began to cover the globe, the -English financial system covered it as well. London became after -Waterloo the money market and the clearing house of the world. The -interests of the Jew as a financial dealer and the interests of this -great commercial polity approximated more and more. One may say that by -the last third of the nineteenth century they had become virtually -identical. - -Every new economic enterprise of the British State appealed to the -Jewish genius for commerce and especially for negotiation in its most -abstract form--finance. Conversely, every Jewish enterprise, every new -conception of the Jew in his cosmopolitan activities (until these became -revolutionary) appealed to the English merchant and banker. - -The two things dovetailed one into the other and fitted exactly, and all -subsidiary activities fitted in as well. The Jewish news agencies of the -nineteenth century favoured England in all her policy, political as well -as commercial; they opposed those of her rivals and especially those of -her enemies. The Jewish knowledge of the East was at the service of -England. His international penetration of the European governments was -also at her service--so was his secret information. With the -consolidation of the Indian Empire after the Mutiny the Jews were again -an ally from their traditional hatred of the Russian people, which -hatred has led them in our time to wreak so awful a vengeance upon their -former oppressors. The Jew might almost be called a British agent upon -the Continent of Europe, and still more in the Near and Far East, where -the economic power of England extended even more rapidly than her -political power. - -And the Jew pointed to the English State as that one in which all that -his nation required of the _goyim_ was to be found. He here enjoyed a -situation the like of which he could not hope to enjoy in any other -country of the world. All antagonism to him had died down. He was -admitted to every institution in the State, a prominent member of his -nation became chief officer of the English Executive, and, an influence -more subtle and penetrating, marriages began to take place, wholesale, -between what had once been the aristocratic territorial families of this -country and the Jewish commercial fortunes. - -After two generations of this, with the opening of the twentieth century -those of the great territorial English families in which there was no -Jewish blood were the exception. In nearly all of them was the strain -more or less marked, in some of them so strong that though the name was -still an English name and the traditions those of a purely English -lineage of the long past, the physique and character had become wholly -Jewish and the members of the family were taken for Jews whenever they -travelled in countries where the gentry had not yet suffered or enjoyed -this admixture. - -Specially Jewish institutions, such as Freemasonry (which the Jews had -inaugurated as a sort of bridge between themselves and their hosts in -the seventeenth century), were particularly strong in Britain, and there -arose a political tradition, active, and ultimately to prove of great -importance, whereby the British State was tacitly accepted by foreign -governments as the official protector of the Jews in other countries. It -was Britain which was expected to interfere, within the measure of her -power, whenever a persecution of the Jews took place in the East of -Christendom: to support the Jewish financial energies throughout the -world, and to receive in return the benefit of that connection. - -We shall have a most imperfect picture of the causes which gradually -made the Jews regard this country as their centre of action if we omit -one essential point. - -England was secure. - -During the whole period which saw the rise of the Jews to eminence in -this island and their ultimate alliance with its political and -commercial system, English society enjoyed a profound peace. Save for -the petty incidents of the '15 and '45 (the first of no effect south of -the border, the second ephemeral and confined to the North), no -hostilities took place upon English soil between the rebellion of -Monmouth under James II and the bombarding of London by the Germans from -the air during the late war. There has been (save for some quite -insignificant local riots) complete security for property and especially -for large property. There have been since the middle of the eighteenth -century no confiscations, and of commercial fortunes none since the -middle of the seventeenth: no invasion, no civil war, and therefore no -loot: no personal danger from violence. - -Such conditions formed an environment ideal for the permanent -establishment and rooting of Jewish power, and for the organization of a -Jewish base. - -The political situation reflected itself, as it always does, in -literature. The Jew began to appear in English fiction as an exalted -character, quite specially removed to his advantage from the mass of -mankind. He is already a hero in Sir Walter Scott, but the full -development was much later. You could still have a Jewish villain as -late as _Oliver Twist_, but with writers as different as Charles Reade -and George Eliot we reach a time where the Jew is impeccable. The worst -any writer dares do at the end of the process is to be silent. The best -is to flatter the Jewish type out of all knowledge. This singular -interlude was in part due to the divorce between literature and popular -feeling in the middle and latter part of the nineteenth century; at -least, it was permitted by that divorce. But the active cause of it was -the reflection of the Jew's political position upon the mind of the -educated class as expressed in its literary art. - -At the same time a parallel movement appeared on the historical side of -literature. A convention arose that in the clash between the Jews and -the English of the Middle Ages the Jews were invariably right and the -English invariably wrong. Where the struggle was between the Jew and the -non-Jew abroad, the historian exceeded all bounds. The European hostile -to the Jew was a senseless monster, and the Jew hostile to the European -was a holy victim. - -The whole story of Europe and of this country, in so far as it was -affected by this very considerable factor, was distorted through -suppression, and false emphasis and quite exceptional lying. - -The general reader of history neither knew what part the Jewish -question had played nor the claims that could be advanced for his own -race in the conflict. And as historians live by copying one another, the -legend was established in every school and college. - -At the end of the process the Jews, in proportion to their numbers, held -a power in this country beyond anything that has been seen in any other -of the world. Poland at the end of the Middle Ages, when that country -was most nearly comparable to Britain for the harbouring and support of -the Jewish people, is the only parallel, and that a remote one. - -Every English Government had (and has) its quota of Jews. They had -entered the diplomatic service and the House of Lords; they swarmed in -the House of Commons, in the Universities, in all the Government offices -save the Foreign Office (and even there representatives of the Jewish -nation have recently entered); they were exceedingly powerful in the -Press: they were all-powerful in the City. No custom unsympathetic to -their race, from the duel to popular clamour, survived. They could boast -that England was not only the country where no distinction whatever was -made in practice, let alone in law, between the Jew and the native, but -that England was the only country where the Jew was always well -received, where his natural defects counted least and where his natural -abilities had most scope. - -Such a state of affairs could not last. It was not natural. It was not -consonant with hidden but deep popular tradition or with popular -appetites; it corresponded only to the mood of one European community in -its wealthier classes. A divergence between the cosmopolitan financial -interests of the Jew and the particular national interests of Britain -was bound to come. War on a large scale, though it did not imperil the -country itself, was a warning of change. It appeared with the South -African campaign before the end of the century. The position of the Jew -was altered. Some dissatisfaction with his power began to stir. It was -already muttering and beginning to show itself with the rise of -commercial and maritime competition in the new German Empire which, in -its turn, had become led, upon all its commercial side, by Jews. There -was bound, I say, to be a reaction and a permanent one. While it was yet -taking place, in the heat of the Great War, before it had reached the -official world, that one of the English politicians who was best fitted -to speak for the Jews, who was most intimate with them through manifold -ties of friendship and hospitality, Mr. Arthur Balfour, was chosen to -make the famous pronouncement in favour of Zionism. It came within a -month of the great crisis of the war. Its object was to divide the -general influence of the Jews throughout the world, which had hitherto -been upon the whole opposed to the cause of the Allies, because, like -every other neutral, the Jews were more and more convinced, as the -campaigns dragged on, that the Central Empires were certain of victory. - -Though this was the motive, the effect was to tie the British state yet -closer to the fortunes of Israel, for here was England pledged to -support, to defend, to act as a special protector over, the peculiar -interests of the Jews, just where those interests would most challenge -the whole of Christendom and of Islam, just where it would be most -acutely difficult to confirm Jewish claims. - -The declaration in favour of Zionism, the solemn pledge of the forces of -the British State to an exceptional support of the Jew in a matter -wholly to his benefit and not in any way to that of England, coming -though it did after the climax of Jewish power had been reached and -passed, was the last stage of that long process of alliance between the -British commercial policy and its ruling classes on the one hand and the -Jews upon the other. - -Already, as I have said, that alliance was morally shaken. The great -influx of poor Jews had shaken it. The mere effect of time, the -inevitable revolt of the human conscience against an unnatural pretence -and an obvious fiction, was bound to come, and was overdue. But although -the alliance was already shaken, the English State remained officially -closely interlocked with Jewry, and its last action, the demand for the -establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine, was, as has so often -happened in the story of human development, at once the term and the -turning-point of a process which had reached its conclusion; for it will -be remarked throughout history that any force is most expressive, its -manifestation of power most crude and most emphatic, in the perilous -interval _after_ its real strength has begun to decline and _before_ its -first open defeat. - -But the problems presented by this experiment in Palestine merit a -separate examination. To this I will now turn. - - -ZIONISM - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -ZIONISM - - -The question of Zionism has been discussed from every possible aspect -save one, and that one is the only factor which relates to the thesis of -this book. - -It has been argued, as a purely Jewish matter; there has been debate -upon its justice or injustice among the Jews themselves, as to its -advantage or disadvantage to their race; debate among the various -non-Jewish forces concerned as to the advantage or disadvantage it would -be to them; debate upon the rights and wrongs of the native population -among which the Jews might find a home; debate as to whether that home -should be in Palestine or elsewhere--and so on. - -All these discussions avoid the ultimate issue. Some of them, of course, -are of evident importance within the Jewish community, but so far as the -essential problem we are discussing in this book is concerned, they do -not apply. The one question which is at issue from the point of view of -our thesis is this:-- - -_Whether the Zionist experiment will tend to increase or to relax the -strain created by the presence of the Jew in the midst of a non-Jewish -world._ - -That, and that only, is our concern, and from that point of view we may -examine the theory of Zionism which has now emerged into an attempted -practice. - -First let us consider its necessary general implications: the -implications which Zionism involves, no matter where or how the -experiment were tried. - -The Zionist theory is that Israel would benefit if of its many millions -(some twelve millions, counting those of the partly Jewish fringe, who -are sufficiently Jewish to make one with the race) a core--say a -tenth--were to have a fixed territorial "city," a country of their own, -a habitation. This country, wherever it might be chosen, should be, as -far as possible, a purely Jewish State: "as Jewish," one of its -exponents has said, "as England is English." - -Now, suppose the place chosen were (to-day we may say "had been") an -empty or almost undeveloped country, and supposing the Jews had found -that their own people could bear the expense of reaching that place with -sufficient capital, and of colonizing it in large numbers. Supposing a -small State of a million to a million and a half inhabitants to be thus -formed, to be wholly Jewish in character, and independent in the fullest -sense. The question immediately arises: _Would the Jews throughout the -world be:--_ - -(a) _permitted to regard themselves as citizens of that State?_ - -(b) _regarded in any case as citizens of that State, whether they willed -or no, and registered as such, with or without the consent of the -registered person?_ - -If not, what would be the status of the Jew outside this territorial -unit, which he had chosen to be much more than a symbol of his national -unity--its actual seat and establishment? - -That is the question which, so far as I have watched the discussion, -everybody hesitates to face; yet that is the question which will have to -be faced sooner or later as the main political crux of the whole affair. - -Observe that there is no question of establishing a State wherein the -whole or even the great mass of the Jewish people shall reside. No one -would repudiate such an idea more vigorously than the chief pioneers of -Zionism. The great mass of Jews would, of course, ridicule it as -impracticable and refuse it as extremely undesirable. They live and they -desire to live following their present interests in the nations among -whom they are dispersed. They live and they desire to live the -semi-nomadic life, the international life, which has become theirs by -every tradition, and which one might now almost call instinctive in -them. Also the greater part of them desire to pursue those careers which -go with such a life, especially the careers of negotiation and of -intermediary work. They not only feel the advantage of such a position, -they also feel a need and appetite for such a condition. - -Whatever form Zionism might have taken before it appeared in its present -experimental form, whatever was said of the theory in the past, _this -point_ was always capital: - -The Jews as a nation would remain as they were, moving among all the -peoples. The new Zion was to be no more than a fixed rallying point, an -established but small territorial nationhood, which should do no more -than proclaim their unity. It follows, therefore, necessarily, that the -great mass of Jews, outside the territorial settlement, would have, -after such a settlement had been formed, to obtain a definition of -their political character. What is that definition to be? - -I think myself the Jews would answer: "It is to be precisely what it is -to-day, or, rather, what it has been in the Occidental nations during -the past generation." That is, the Jew is to be regarded as the full -national in the nation in which he happens to be for the time. Nothing -shall debar him from any position whatever in that nation. He shall be -regarded in exactly the same light as all the other citizens, and, -conversely, he shall obtain no privilege. In countries where there is -conscription, for instance, he shall be a conscript like anybody else; -where a nation in which he happens to find himself goes to war, he shall -be compelled to risk his life for it like any other citizen. If he -happens a year or two before the war to have settled in the enemy's -country, then he shall be equally compelled to fight for the enemy -against his former country. He shall in every respect be regarded, by a -legal fiction, as identical with the community in which he happens to be -settled for the moment, _but at the same time he is to have some special -relation with the Jewish State_. - -He and he alone is to be (certainly in practice and, of right, in legal -decisions) eligible for admission to that city, for office in it. His -opinion is to count in the conduct of that State, wherever he may -personally be placed in the world. He is to regard himself--indeed that -is inevitable from the definition of the new State--as personally allied -to it, if not a member of it. He cannot dissociate himself from its -fortunes nor be indifferent to its success or failure. He must in effect -be _loyal_ to it. He owes it allegiance of a moral kind. He will -necessarily be in much the same position as are men of Irish descent in -the Colonies, in England, and in the United States, to the surviving and -now increasing remnant of their race which has clung to its native land. -But in the particular case of the Jew this allegiance will not diminish -with time. It will remain ever vivacious. The race, as its individual -components pass from one country to another, will make one body, -generation after generation, with the fixed polity settled in the New -Zion. That certainly is the ideal, as I hear it expressed on every side -in conversation and in writing by the Jews who support it. - -Well, if the ideal is left in that condition (and it is admitted to be -in practice in that condition), it will result in a grievous prejudice -to the Jewish people, and will be a source of more permanent evil to -them than any other policy they could have undertaken. It will emphasize -that very point of dual allegiance which it must be their object to -soften if the Jewish problem is to be solved. - -The existence of a Zionist State will bring into relief the separate -character of the Jew. The Jewish nation will no longer be able to depend -for one of its defences upon the indifference or the ignorance still -widely present among its hosts. Whereas before the experiment was -attempted, many of those hosts could forget the difference between him -and them, many had no experience of it and many remarked it without its -affecting their attitude towards the Jew; after the experiment has been -put in practice there must necessarily be a change. - -To give a concrete instance, no one could in his anger say to a Jew, -"You disturb our repose; you are an alien element in our community; you -must leave it." For if he meant that, he was at the same time condemning -his victim to universal exile. But once an established national State -exists, once you have in the world a considerable number--say a million -and a half Jews--who are not the nationals of any other nation, but are -the citizens of a Jewish nation with a known locality, an organized -State, _then_ the suggestion of exile changes its meaning. The opponent -of the Jew is now able to say: "Go back to your own country," and you -may be very certain that he _will_ say that unless some other solution -than the legal fiction of full citizenship in one country and of moral -allegiance to another is dropped. - -The presence of the new Zion will do for the Jewish people what a frame -does for a picture. It will not be universal to them; it will not cover -the whole field of Jewish activity. It will be but a fraction of the -whole. But it will inevitably emphasize the separation, the individual -and alien character of the whole. It will concentrate attention upon all -those things which the nineteenth century--in what I have called "the -Liberal solution"--carefully put in the background and tried to forget. -It will militate against an honest solution which would recognize the -completely distinct character of the Jew and yet refuse to subject them -to any indignity or suffering on that account. - -There is more than this. The various nations, taken as a whole--the -Roumanians as a whole, the Poles as a whole, the French, the Italians, -the English as a whole--take up very different attitudes at any one time -toward Israel, and in each the attitude varies from generation to -generation; there is always, at any one time of history, including our -own time, a certain number of national units which are openly hostile to -the Jew, regretting his presence among them, restricting his activities -and determined, above all, to separate him, by a sharp legal definition -if possible, at any rate by universal social practice, from the rest of -the community. - -Now these hostile peoples cannot possibly be prevented from using the -weapon put into their hands by the existence of a new Zion, with the -implications I have just defined. It is difficult enough even now for -the countries where Jewish finance controls the politicians (and these -are still the most powerful countries) to restrain the anti-Jewish -feelings in the lesser nations. It is only done by elaborate rules which -are imperfectly obeyed and which are felt in these smaller nations to be -imposed by alien interference with their domestic rights. The protection -by the French, English and American Governments of what are called by a -euphemism "national minorities"--which means, of course, everywhere the -Jews--is a perilous affair, and one which can only be carried out most -imperfectly even as it is. But the one foundation for that task, the one -argument which its promoters appeal to, is the fact that the "national -minority"--that is, the Jews present in a hostile community--can plead -universal exile. - -If you turn them out in order to suppress them, they can only leave for -another country. They have none of their own to go to. Or again, if your -treatment of the Jews is harsher than that of your neighbour, you are -virtually directing a Jewish emigration over your neighbour's borders, -and to that your neighbour has a right to object. But once an -independent Jewish seat is established, this argument falls to the -ground. It is no reply _then_ to tell these nations that the new Jewish -State cannot contain the whole Jewish race. It will answer that it is -not concerned with the whole Jewish race but only with its own section -of that race. - -Further, it will of course always be to the interest of those who desire -to be rid of the Jewish element in their midst to argue that the Jewish -State could be more peopled and that there is plenty of room for more -citizens. Again, those hostile to the Jews in their midst can say: "Very -well. Since there is no room for the whole mass of our Jews in your new -State, we will not deal with the whole mass; allow us to suggest that -such and such individuals shall leave our State, where they are not -wanted, and shall go to their own." And they would pick out the Jews -whose exile would most weaken the Jewish community in their midst. - -In the present state of affairs, with the Cabinets of Rome, Washington, -London and Paris still heavily influenced by Jewish finance, they have, -for the moment, a military force behind them sufficient to impose their -orders in some measure upon the reluctant nations of Eastern Europe and -in some measure to create an artificial protection for the Jews there. -Even if this protection were to last another generation (which is -unlikely), the presence of Zionism, interpreted in the sense I have just -quoted, would be enough to undermine its work. On any change in the -situation, in case of any conflict between these Western powers, or of -any change by one or more of them in its attitude towards the Jews, -Zionism, thus interpreted, would be the ruin of the Jews in the Centre -and East of Europe. The danger is of such great practical importance -that it ought to be the very first matter for discussion. It is only our -acquired habit of falsehood and secrecy upon the Jewish problem which -has thrust it in the background. In the nature of things it must come to -the front, and it would be far better to have the lines of some solution -laid down before it becomes insistent. - -What are those lines to be? - -Their general character is clear enough. - -Whether it be of advantage or no to have a purely Jewish State (I mean -whether it be of advantage to Israel or no) may be safely left to the -Jews themselves to discuss. But one thing is certain: if they decide in -favour of its continuance, then they must decide also in favour of some -form of recognition for the purely Jewish nationality of the Jews -_outside_ that State. - -Thus only will the situation become open and therefore innocuous. If -they try under the new conditions to maintain the old fiction that a Jew -is at the same time a Jew and yet not a Jew, that he can be at the same -time a Jew and an Englishman, or a Jew and a Russian, or a Jew and an -Italian, they will be trying to maintain it under conditions quite other -than those of the past, and under conditions where the falsehood will -break down in practice. - -Suppose you were to make such recognition partly voluntary, and leave it -to the Jew wherever he might be to claim or not to claim his nationality -as a Jew; to be regarded, if he so willed, as a national of the Jewish -nation in Zion, or as a national of the people among whom he happened -to be living for the moment. You may say that under this purely -voluntary system (which would, I suppose, be more just) very few would -choose for Zion. The great majority would like to go on under the old -fiction. That is certainly true of the West; but would it be true of the -East? Would it be true of either East or West in a moment of -persecution? I think it would not. Even if it be true of the East -to-day, it certainly would not be true of any body of Jews suffering -there, in the future, any degree of molestation. - -But apart from that: Supposing but a small minority availed themselves -of this voluntary form of recognition, supposing only a small minority -to claim Jewish nationality as defined in the terms of the Zionist -State, there would still be the contrast between those who had thus -publicly proclaimed themselves nationals of Zion and those who hung -back. In other words, short of a general admitted maintenance of the old -fiction (of which Zionism more than any other force must accelerate the -breakdown), you must have, through Zionism, an accelerated tendency to -treating Jews throughout the world as being, whether without the New -Zionist State or within it, a separate people. And they are a separate -people, they cannot be other. My whole plea is that this truth should be -recognized and acted upon; for if it is shirked or denied it will take -its revenge. Reality always takes its revenge upon unreal pretence. - -There remains in connection with Zionism another consideration which is -also of importance, though of a very different kind. Is the new Jewish -State to rely upon its own military strength and its own police--though -perhaps guaranteed (for what that may be worth) by international -agreement--or is it to be a protected State occupied, defended and -policed by the strength and fighting qualities of some other kind of -men, not Jews--Englishmen, Frenchmen or what not? - -As we know, the particular solution attempted, the particular Zionism of -which the experiment is now being made in Palestine, plumps for the -_second_ solution. The protection of Jews from natives is to be -undertaken by a garrison of Englishmen. It plumps for this solution -under conditions as adverse as they well can be. The present experiment -is, as we noted at the end of the last chapter, not an independent -Jewish State, national, guaranteed, standing in its own strength; but a -_protected_ State; and that State protected by one nation: Great -Britain. The new Zion does not depend for its internal peace, for its -establishment against highly hostile forces, for the ex-propriation of -the local landowners, for the keeping of the peace between local -elements highly hostile to itself, upon Jewish soldiers and Jewish -courage. It depends upon British soldiers, British organization and -British sacrifice. Those who have promoted the Zionist experiment have -deliberately chosen the very worst moment for such a folly. - -Granted that whoever was to be the Protector he must be a friendly -Protector, no worse solution could have been devised. A little nation is -always morally guaranteed in its independence, if only by the balance of -the greater nations. The violation of the neutrality of Belgium offers -nothing of a rule; on the contrary, it was an odious exception. And an -exception it would have been just as much if the neutrality had not -been officially guaranteed under Prussia's own hand. The smaller -nations, of which the modern world is full, will have, we may be very -certain, a long lease of life. The larger nations envy but applaud their -security and happiness. They will not be allowed to disappear. The same, -I think, would be true of the Jewish national seat, could it be -established, inhabited wholly or mainly by men of the Jewish race, -religion and culture; presenting to the world the same aspect as does, -for instance, Denmark to-day. But to depend for its establishment upon -the superior power, upon the military and financial sacrifice, of -another and totally different people, is a challenge and a provocation. -It is the building of the pyramid upwards from its apex. It is an -experiment in the most unstable of unstable equilibriums. - -The matter is, of course, being discussed everywhere from the point of -view of Great Britain, and nowhere more eagerly than among those who -have to do the policing and the armed protection. But we are not here -concerned with the ill effects such a situation must have on Great -Britain--effects so ill that the experiment as a merely British -Protectorate is bound to break down--we are rather concerned with the -effect it may have upon the Jews themselves. No great nation will -sacrifice its foreign policy, will admit a point of acute weakness, -simply to please the Jews. Sooner or later such a nation is bound to -say: "_We_ cannot sacrifice our interests to yours. Look after -yourselves." And that is where the peril to the Jews of this system, a -protectorate, comes in. - -If there were any reason to suppose a natural alliance between the -British Army and the Jews; if we could imagine British officers and men -taking a natural pleasure in ousting the Arab and making way for the -Jew, it would be another matter. If there were something in the nature -of things which made that alliance permanent and stable, if the Jews -were a fully accepted part of the British Commonwealth as are, for -instance, the Scots or the Welsh, some permanent arrangement might be -possible. But they are nothing of the sort. The position is wholly -unnatural. It cannot last. And if it cannot last with the British -connection, how should it last with any other? How shall the transition -be made from a British Protectorate to another protectorate? Or how, -seeing what violent hatreds have already been roused by the mere -beginnings of the experiment, shall the conflict which makes the -protectorate necessary be avoided? - -So far the dislike of the position, which is very far-reaching, and -already very deep in England, is a passive dislike. No English soldier -has yet been killed; there has been but little necessity, as yet, to -repress the Arab and create hostility, though even what little necessity -there has been was odious to the troops concerned. But things cannot -remain in that state. The conflict is inevitable. When the conflict -comes the feeling which has hitherto been passive will become active. -People will not tolerate the loss of sons and brothers in a quarrel -which is none of theirs, which cannot possibly strengthen the British -State; which, if anything, must weaken it; which is felt to be -precarious and ephemeral, and which will be undertaken against those -with whom British sympathy naturally lies, and in favour of those with -whom the average soldier and citizen--unlike the professional -politician--has no ties and no sympathy. - -The matter can be very plainly put thus: - -If a Zionist experiment is necessary, or advisable, then let it be made -in such a fashion that it can be dependent upon Jewish police and a -Jewish army alone. Let it not rely upon a foreign protectorate, which -will not last long, which is a weakness to the directing power, and -which creates a false position. - -If it be answered that the Jews are not capable of producing such an -army or such a police, that they would inevitably be defeated and -oppressed by the hostile and more warlike majority among whom they would -find themselves, then let them make the experiment elsewhere. But it is -certain that the present form of the new Protectorate is the most -perilous form which could have been chosen for it, so far as the Jews -themselves are concerned. I appeal confidently to the near future to -confirm this judgment. - -From one most poignant aspect of the matter which we all have in mind I -deliberately abstain--I mean the effect of the experiment upon Christian -and Mohammedan feelings throughout the world of an attempt to establish -Jewish control over the Holy Places. I abstain because of the emotions -aroused by it, which are violent and universal, and are of the sort I -have deliberately determined, as my Preface has informed the reader, to -keep out of this essay. Things indeed are not yet at the point of open -quarrel in this most perilous of all the results of Zionism. We must -trust for a solution before it is too late, but that solution will not -be reached if we select for discussion matters upon which there can be -no agreement, and on which there is now aroused the most passionate -feeling. - -Still, though I abstain from discussing that point, I would beg the -Jewish readers of this my book to bear it in mind. If they believe the -religious emotions to be dead in the modern world, or even to be -lessening, they may find themselves terribly disillusioned. - -I also refrain from making comment here--I have made it strongly enough -elsewhere--upon the strange selection made by the Jews for their first -ruler of the Arabs and Christians in Palestine. I will do no more than -to say that a desire to shield the less worthy specimens of one's race -is natural and even praiseworthy. One may even take a certain glory in -that one is able to protect them from outsiders. But to give them too -great a prominence is a mistake, and it is indeed deplorable that of the -whole world of Jews--from crowds of Jews eminent in administration, and -political science, known for their upright dealing and blameless -careers--Mr. Balfour's Jewish advisers (whoever they were) should have -pitched on the author of the Marconi contract and the spokesman of the -famous declaration in the House of Commons that no politician had -touched Marconi shares. - - * * * * * - - -OUR DUTY - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -OUR DUTY - - -The solution which I propose, which I believe could be made stable, and -which I further believe is the only stable one, demands a greater, a -more necessary effort upon our side than upon that of our guests. - -It is the average man who must do his duty in the matter, and it is upon -him that the responsibility will fall, if we take up once again that -wretched sequence of ill-ease, persecution, reaction, which has marked -so many centuries. - -We are the vast majority, we are the organism within which this small -minority moves. We are, or could be if we chose, the makers of our own -laws, and we are certainly the makers of our own political moods. - -I know it is the custom to throw all the responsibility upon the other -side, to be perpetually devising instruments for their guidance which -soon become instruments for their oppression, and in general to imagine -a problem wherein the part of the European is purely negative and all -the work has to be done by the Jewish stranger. - -That attitude is not only false but grossly undignified. When men accuse -some one weaker than themselves of interference with, and even of -acquiring power over, them they condemn themselves. It is in the main -our fault if an equilibrium has so rarely been reached in all these -sixty generations of debate. For however alien, however irritant the -foreign body be, it is we who have in our hands the solvent of that -irritant and of relieving the strain which it causes. - -Here let me recall at the risk of repetition (for repetition is -necessary to lucidity in such arguments) the logical process with which -I opened this essay. I say that the vast majority, the fixed race -through which in fluid and nomadic form Israel goes moving from century -to century, is not free to discharge its responsibility by any one of -those attempted solutions which I have condemned. No man, I trust, will -have the cynicism to say that mere persecution, let alone its horrible -extreme, is or should be a solution. No man can predict the same of -exile either. No man can discharge our responsibility by pretending that -any solution arrived at must be for our good alone and may disregard -that of those who live among us. - -It is a statement one hears frequently enough that the masters of house -have alone to decide what shall be done under their roof: that the -interloper, the alien element, has no standing and no right to complain -of whatever measures may be taken for the protection of the household. -The thing so put sounds plausible. It is essentially false. It is -comparable to the argument applied to private property--that because -private property is a right, and that because a man "may do what he -likes with his own," therefore he may use it to the manifest hurt of -others. Moreover, the analogy is false; for when a man is talking of -"the master of the house" having the right in his household to decide -its own way of living and of treating its guests, he is considering a -very small unit in a great community; his household in the whole nation: -a little body which, if it discharge or in any other way deal with -something alien to itself, will inflict no great injury upon that -foreign body, since there is all the world for it to turn to outside. -But in the relations between the Jew and Christendom, or the Jew and -Islam, the parallel fails. It is precisely because there is no "outside" -to which the exile can turn that a duty is imposed on us. - -It is true indeed that when a small and alien minority assumes to -dictate the policy of the rest, to regard its own advantages alone and -subordinate to those advantages the life of all, the claim is grotesque -and must be disallowed. But we should remember upon the other side that -it is only by exaggerating its claim that a minority can live at all. It -is only by fierce insistence upon its right to survive that its survival -is guaranteed. We can arrive at justice in this matter by the process of -putting ourselves in the shoes of those in relation to whom we propose -to act. - -Put yourself in the shoes of the Jew and ask how this doctrine of "doing -what one likes with one's own" and being "the master of one's own -household" would look to you. - -A public example which very rightly made a stir a few months before this -book was published, may serve as text. A learned and distinguished Jew, -Dr. Oscar Levy, a man who was an asset to any community, was turned out -of the country under circumstances which many of my readers will recall. -He pleaded with perfect justice that as a Jew such an exile left him -homeless; that the original country of which he was nominally a citizen -(under the broken-down fiction that Jews can be Germans, or Austrians, -or what not, and cease to be themselves) would not have him; that his -interests, his livelihood had attached him to this country; he had never -hidden his true nationality nor changed his name, nor used any of those -subterfuges which, even when excusable, are dangerous and contemptible -in so many of his compatriots. There was no conceivable reason why such -rigour should be used against this man, save indeed that he was a Jew. - -Put yourself in his shoes and see how the thing looks. There is no -nation to which you could have returned: there is no society to receive -you as a member of it. You are not permitted to remain in the atmosphere -with which you have grown familiar, in the surroundings which have -become those of your later life, and your consonance with which it is -too late for you to change. Could there be a grosser cruelty or a -grosser injustice? It is the very core of the whole problem that -_somewhere_ the Jew must be harboured, and therefore to some one of us -the question must be put, "Will you harbour him, and if so upon what -terms?" If each man answer, "No, I will not," then all collectively -become oppressors. It is no answer to say, "These men are not of us, and -therefore they may conspire against us," or "Their interests are -divergent from ours and therefore may and do clash with ours." All that -is granted. That is merely stating the problem, not solving it. What do -we say in daily life of men who merely state their grievances, harp upon -them, and make no effort to put them right? What do we think of men who -perpetually complain of something naturally weaker than themselves, make -no effort to understand its necessities and attempt only to rid -themselves of the nuisance without considering reciprocal duty and -mutual relations? The same should we think of those who so act towards -the Jewish community in our midst which, for all its domination and -exaggerated modern power, is ultimately at our mercy, far weaker than we -are in numbers and situation. Without further elaboration of what should -be an obvious political and moral principle, let us consider our part in -the task. - -It consists, I conceive, in two very different determinations: two very -different but allied lines of conduct to which we must pledge ourselves. -The first, until recently the most difficult, is the determination to -speak of the Jewish people as openly, as continuously, with as much -interest, with as close an examination as we speak of any other foreign -body with which we are brought in contact. - -The second, which will perhaps be the more difficult duty to practise in -the future, will be to avoid, in the individual public recognition of -those with whom we must live, all futile anger and all mere reaction. I -mean by mere reaction, blind reaction. The instinctive thrusting back -against a thing which presses on us, the uncalculated and animal return -blow, the consequences of which, either to ourselves or to others, are -not weighed when it is delivered; the futile complaint, the futile rage, -the futile cruelty. - -Unless those two duties are undertaken together, unless the -determination to practise both be of equal weight, the solution I -propose will fail. To discuss the problem presented by the presence of -the Jewish people, to talk of them as one would of any other, openly and -frankly, to interest oneself in their history and in their present -doings: all this is only to aggravate the trouble if we use that open -dealing for the purpose of doing them a hurt, or if, in the course of -it, we allow ourselves (merely from irritation or contrast, from the -sense which all must have of opposition to things alien) to react -against them without consideration of the immediate and ultimate -consequences not only to themselves but to us. - -Conversely, the determination to regard their interests and to avoid -every possible occasion of conflict, to hold a just measure with them, -is quite useless if we falsify the whole relation by secrecy and false -convention. - -The moment that comes in, there comes in with it a secret -dissatisfaction with oneself and with the whole situation. The position -is falsified, the seed of animosity greatly stimulated, the danger of -mutual contempt made inevitable. - -Now let us look at these two branches of what we have to do in the -matter, and see what difficulties lie in the way. - -In the way of frankly recognizing, examining, taking an open interest in -the Jewish minority in our midst there lie three very powerful -obstacles. First the inherited convention of polite society; secondly, -and much the most powerful, fear; and thirdly, the very reputable desire -to avoid offence. - -The first of these, the fear of convention, has many roots--the -necessity for harmony in a leisured life, that is, the desire to avoid -friction even at the expense of truth, the mere momentum of a quiet -habit, the fear of misunderstanding which may come from one side casting -ridicule upon the other, which may offend the person whom we have -misunderstood, or make us ridiculous in his eyes and those of our -audience. - -There is also, of course, as a cause, more powerful than any other, the -force which lies behind all convention, the force which makes a man take -off his hat in a church, which forbids his walking without boots in the -street on the driest day, that is, the pressure of general practice. But -the thing to realize is that in this form--I mean as distinct from any -feeling of fear or of charity--the thing is a convention and a -convention only. Difficult as it is to break with conventions, unless -_this_ convention is broken once and for all, the Jewish problem remains -with us unsolved and growing in acuteness and peril. - -You can meet an Irishman and discuss with him the conditions of his -nation. You can ask an Italian when he was last in Italy, or -congratulate a Frenchman upon his acquisition of your tongue or tell him -that it is difficult for him to understand your own customs: but a -convention arose under the Liberal fiction--to which I have devoted so -much space in the earlier part of this book--that to do any of these -very natural things in the case of a Jew is monstrous. Your audience is -shocked if you ask some learned Jew at a public table a question upon -his national literature or history. It is a solecism to refer to his -nationality at all, save perhaps now and then in terms of foolish -praise--in nine times out of ten praise not to the point and not -desired by its recipient. And even praise must be approached most -gingerly. You may not ask a Jew in London, however keen your desire for -information, whether he had cousins in Lithuania or Galicia who have -told him of the conditions of those distressed countries. You may not -ask him when his family came to England, nor, if he be a recent arrival, -what he thinks of the country. The whole thing is _taboo_. - -More than this: you must, you are expected (or were until quite recently -expected) to emphasize in a most extravagant manner the complete -identity of your Jewish guest with the people among whom he lives. I do -not take offence if some chance acquaintance, noting my French name, -talks to me about France, and is interested in my experience as a -conscript long ago in that country. Mr. Redmond did not feel himself -insulted when those he met in London discussed Irish matters with him, -from the most acute difficulty in politics, to the most general allusion -to the Abbey Theatre. The editor of an Italian review visiting England -is not shocked if you ask him when he left Florence, nor are those -around you horrified at the ill-breeding of your question. But in the -matter of the Jew there stands this convention cutting you off from any -such straightforward and simple way of dealing with a fellow-being. That -convention, I say, must be broken down if we are to get any results at -all and to establish a permanent peace. - -The thing was not, of course, entirely irrational in origin. No custom -is. It was to be excused upon several grounds. - -First, there was the fact that many people were known to cherish so -strong an hostility to Jews that to emphasize the Jewish character of -anyone present might awaken that hostility. - -Then there was the peculiar rapid transition both of Jewish movements -and of Jewish fortunes. In the case I have suggested, of asking a London -Jew whether he had relatives in Galicia or Lithuania, you might be -stumbling upon relations much poorer than himself in the East End of -London; or, again, you might seem to be emphasizing the nomadic -character of the race and thereby also emphasizing the contrast between -it and our own. - -But much the strongest excuse for the convention was the well-founded -idea that its exercise pleased the Jews themselves. Men avoided direct -mention of Jewish nationality because it was felt that such direct -mention was almost an insult. It was a thing which the Jew in whose -presence you found yourself desired to have kept in the background; and -though we might not understand why he desired it, yet we respected his -desire as we do that of anyone with whom we wish to preserve harmonious -relations. Most men, for instance, are indifferent upon, say, the matter -of smoking. Most men are quite at their ease when they are asked whether -they smoke or not, and if they do, whether they prefer this or that -brand of tobacco. But now and then one comes across a man who, from some -accident of training (as, for instance, a man whose mother brought him -up to think smoking a mortal sin), does not like to have it alluded to. - -I myself know the case of a man of the highest culture and of -considerable social position to whom you may not say anything about pigs -either in connection with farming or in connection with food; for his -sympathies are Mohammedan. In these exceptional cases, when we know of -our guest's particular desire, we yield to it for the sake of harmony -and of right living. So is it in this matter of the former convention -against alluding to Jewish nationality or Jewish interests in any form. -Whether the Jews were wise or not to cherish that convention, as they -undoubtedly did, does not concern this part of my argument. I am talking -of our duty and not of theirs. But I say that unless the convention is -softened and at last dissolved, nothing can be done. Both parties should -know that it only does harm. It renders stilted and absurd all our -relations; it fosters that suspicion of secrecy which I have insisted -upon as the chief irritant in those relations, and it creates a feeling -of exception, of oddity, which is the very worst service that could be -rendered to the Jews themselves. - -Some little time ago the convention went so far that even a mention, a -neutral--nay, a laudatory mention, of anything Jewish in a general -company led to an immediate awkwardness. Men looked over their -shoulders, women gave downward glances right and left. A sort of hunt -began, to see whether anyone present could possibly in any remote -connection be offended by the monstrous deed. If a man said, "What a -poet Heine was and how thoroughly Jewish is his irony!" and said it in a -room full of people, the adjective "Jewish" acted like a pistol -shot--could anything be more absurd! Yet so it was. - -But the point I make is not against the absurdity of this convention but -against its peril. It is an obstacle to all right handling of what is -becoming daily a more and more insistent and acute difficulty. - -It is obvious that the getting rid of such a convention is not to be -effected by violent methods, nor immediately. But our duty is to -accelerate its decline and, within reason, to enlarge every opportunity -for treating the Jewish nationality precisely as one treats any other. I -mean precisely as one treats any other in conversation or in writing. We -all know the insane type which loves to break convention merely because -it is a convention, and we shall certainly have to be on our guard -against this sort of person in the near future, as this particular -convention begins to break down. But without encouraging such -eccentricities there is ample room for an increasing ease in the -recognition of what after all we know to be reality, a reality which -requires open discussion for the good of us all. The danger is lest even -this merely conventional obstacle should by too long a resistance dam up -forces which tend to break it down and therefore lest, when it is pulled -down, we should admit the other extreme of licence, with its opportunity -for insult and damage. That is what has happened in the case of other -much more reasonable Victorian conventions, and we must not have it -happen in the case of the convention which for so long forbade us to -admit that a Jew was a Jew or to take any open interest, when he was -present, in the things which he himself thinks the most interesting of -all. - -And if anyone shall answer that convention is necessary, lest on its -decline open hostility should follow, I can only say that this is to -despair of any equitable solution at all. But my whole thesis in this -book is that such a solution need not yet be despaired of. - -There is one more thing to be said in this matter of the old _taboo_. -However long it may linger in the small educated class, it has gone for -ever among the populace, and it is the popular instinct we shall have -mainly to deal with in the difficult times ahead of us. - -The populace in this country talks upon Jewish matters with a frankness -which would astonish the drawing-rooms, and has so talked upon them for -a generation past--ever since the great novel influx of poor Jews began -to pour into our towns. It not only talks thus openly to and of Jews -upon its own level, but it is thoroughly alive to the presence and power -of Jews in government. Those who think that a continuance of the -convention can put off the necessity for a solution would be -disillusioned if they would spend a few days east of Aldgate, and mix -with their fellow-citizens there. - -Allied to this obstacle of convention is the very real obstacle of -charity. - -Now we are here dealing not with a positive charity but with a negative -one and with a form of charity uncommonly like slackness. - -The man who honestly thinks that any allusion to Jewish races in -contemporary art, history or letters in the presence of a Jew is -offensive and therefore to be avoided, from goodness of heart, _and who -also practises the same virtue where any other foreigner is concerned_ -is rare indeed. There are such men, for men of exceptional goodness -coupled with exceptional stupidity are to be found. But the excuse of -charity as it is generally put forward is not wholly ingenuous. Where it -is ingenuous our reply to-day must be that even at the risk of -occasional ill-ease, the danger of offence must be risked; for unless we -risk it there is increasing peril of a much greater offence against -justice. For whatever reason open discussion is burked, even for the -reason of charity, we only put off the evil day, and charity so used may -be compared to the charity which refuses to take action in any other -critical problem of increasing gravity. The charity which hesitates to -control the supplies of a spendthrift, or to wage a defensive war in a -just cause, or to defend an oppressed man at the risk of quarrelling -with his oppressor, is a charity misdirected. - -But, as I have said, with much the greater part of men who plead this -motive the plea is, if they would only examine their own consciences, -found to be false. And the test of its falsity will be apparent when the -convention slackens. When it is no longer conventional to avoid all -mention of Jews, how many will remain silent merely from the love of -their fellow-men? One might go further and say that when the convention -has gone, any need for this kind of charity will go with it. There is an -exception, of course, in the case of the man whose dislike of Jews is so -violent that he fears himself if he gives any rein to his tongue. That -mania is exceptional; but where it is found certainly its victim will do -well to keep silence. If a man cannot mention the Hebrew alphabet -without a sneer, or the economics of Ricardo without betraying his ill -feeling for Ricardo's lineage, then certainly he had better hold his -tongue when Jews are there. So, too, a Frenchman who raves against the -English had far better not discuss the British Constitution or the -genius of Newton in any society where an Englishman may be present. - -There remains the chief obstacle--that of fear. - -There is no doubt that the strongest force still restraining an -expression of hostility to the Jew is fear. - -In a sense, of course, there is a "fear" of breaking convention--but -that is fear only in metaphor. I mean not this, but the very real dread -of consequences: the feeling that an expression of hostility to Jewish -power may bring definite evils on the individual guilty of it, and a -panic lest those evils should fall upon him. How strong this feeling is, -anyone can testify who has explored, as I have, this most insistent of -modern political ills; and doubtless the greater part of my non-Jewish -readers will recall examples to the point. - -It is a fear of two consequences, social and economic, and even of both -combined. Men dread lest hostility to the Jew Domination should bring -them into the grip of some unknown but suspected world-wide power--some -would call it a conspiracy--which can destroy the individual who shall -be so rash as to challenge it. Some perhaps have gone to the length--the -insane length--of reading the word "destroy" in its literal sense and of -fearing for their lives. Such an illusion is laughable. But very many -more are affected by the reasonable conception that they will have -against them, if they provoke it, an intelligent, combined action which -they cannot meet because there is no organization upon their side: -because it is international; because there is behind it a great -intensity of feeling; because through finance it controls the political -machines of all the nations, because it is all-powerful in the -Press--and so forth. - -They dread, I say, the social consequences. They also (and that with -more definition and more sense) dread the economic consequences. They -recognize (they also exaggerate) the grip of the Jew over finance. They -conceive that if they speak they will be dragged down, their enterprises -ruined, their credit dissolved. And that is the most powerful instrument -which can be brought to bear. When supernatural motives disappear the -strongest motive remaining after appetite is avarice; and avarice is -more universal than appetite and more continuous. Nor is it only avarice -which is at work here, but also the respectable desire for security. -There are to-day innumerable men who would express publicly on Jews what -they continually express in private, but who conceal their feelings for -fear that their salaries may be lost or their modest enterprises -wrecked, their investments lowered, and their position ruined. Above -them are a lesser number, equally convinced that their large fortunes -would be in peril were they so to act. - -The characteristic of all this feeling is two-fold. In the first place, -as would seem to be the case with convention, though in a much greater -degree, it dams up and enormously increases the latent force of anger -against Jewish power both real and imaginary. It is like the piling up -of a head of water when a river valley is obstructed, or like the -introducing of resistance into an electric current. The suppression of -resentment, though that suppression is the act of the men who themselves -feel the resentment and not directly of their opponents, is a fierce -irritant and accounts for the high pressure at which attack escapes when -once it is loosened. - -I speak only of hostility and of attack, for it is in these least -rational examples that the strength of the thing is to be found. But it -applies also to mere discussion. There is hardly anyone to-day who does -not desire to discuss as an urgent political problem the present -position, the present power, the present disabilities, the present -claims of Israel. But for one that will openly discuss these things -there are ten who, in varying degrees, forbid themselves so plain a -freedom of speech in dread of what consequences might follow. It has, -like all panic, a ridiculous element. It is informed by the most absurd -illusions; it suffers from grotesque imaginings and phantasms. In some -this dread of the Jewish power has very plainly passed the line which -divides the stable from the unstable mind and even the sane from the -insane. But it is none the less a formidable element in our problem. -This obstacle, much more than that of convention, bears a character of -rigidity. It works for a certain time, then it breaks down and releases -a flood. - -That is why the first expressions of hostility in our time were so -exaggerated and ill-proportioned. That is why so many of them were -plainly mad. This very character of exaggeration, this very wildness in -proportion, rendered those against whom the attack was delivered more -contemptuous of it than they should have been. - -The forerunners of the present movement--I mean, of the movement hostile -to Israel--were not calculated to excite the respect of their opponent -or even to carry with them the men on their own side. They lacked that -"common" sense which is the first quality of leadership. For the power -of leadership implies a soul in common with those who are led. The -enthusiast can lead permanently, but the extravagant man never for long. - -I say that these first attacks were on that account despised: they were -unduly despised by those whom they menaced. - -There lay in reserve behind all the exaggeration and wildness a great -bulk of very different opinion; the opinion of men normal in their -appreciation of values and of proportion, not given to "seeing things," -fully in touch with reality; men who know that they have hitherto only -been silent through the action of fear, who despise themselves on that -account and who are the more ready to act. For the sense of fear not -only degrades but angers: at least in our race. The European who admits -to himself that he has restrained an instinct not from religion, nor -from a general sense of right, but from cowardice, is always angry with -himself and awaits the moment when he can take his own revenge upon his -own past and clear himself of reproach in his own eyes. - -Herein lies the peril to Israel of such a state of affairs. But with -that I am not here concerned. I am only concerned with its effect upon -ourselves. So long as we degrade ourselves, so long as we humiliate -ourselves by our own cowardice, so long as we shirk all reasonable -discussion, let alone all expression of hostility because we dread the -consequences at the hands of our opponents, so long there are present in -rising intensity two evil things: first, the postponement of the right -solution; secondly, the turning of a reasoned policy into mere hatred -with all the consequences that flow from such evil emotion. - -The longer we maintain whatever remains of that barrier to free speech -(happily it is already crumbling) the longer do we produce the two fatal -results of postponing justice and of creating enmity. The destruction of -that barrier, the ridding of ourselves of fear in the matter, is, as is -always the case in the exercising of this unmanly thing, a matter for -individual effort. As the proverb goes, "Some one must bell the cat," -which is another way of saying that if each man waits upon his -neighbour, things will only grow worse and worse. - -It is for each in his place, before it is too late, to approach the -Jewish problem and to discuss it openly; to preface that discussion by a -frank interest and a general expression upon all those things in the -minority which directly concern its relations with the majority; to deal -with the Jewish nation exactly as one would with any other. - -It used to be a dictum in those who pleaded a lifetime ago for the open -criticism of Scripture, that "the Bible should be approached like any -other book."[2] The result is not of good augury to my present argument -and I rather dread the parallel; but since the phrase is well known I -will use it as a model. It is time, I say, to be rid of treating the -Jewish nation as something closed, mysterious and secret. Let us treat -it "like any other nation." It is no wonder if men, moved by nothing but -a blind hatred, feel some hesitation upon the consequence of that -hatred. But I am convinced that if we on our side get rid of this absurd -modern fear, take the Jew in his right proportions, rid our mind of -exaggeration in his regard--especially of the conception of some inhuman -ability capable of conducting a plot of diabolical ingenuity and -magnitude--we shall be met from the other side. - -The Jews are not the only force which is international nor the only -international force the dread of which has disturbed men's judgments. -They are not the only international force which has some degree of -organization and cohesion. If you desire to vent your active dislike of -the Scotch or of the Irish you must be prepared for a certain amount of -Scotch or Irish hostility. You will come across something of an -organization and suffer accordingly; but if you cherish the conception -of a vast subterranean force, Scotch or Irish, watching you with a -malignant power and capable of your destruction, you are, I think, out -of the real world. - -If you desire to vent your active dislike of the Catholic Church you -will find ubiquitous opposition. But if you conclude from this that you -are at grips with a monster then you are out of touch with reality. - -So it is, surely, with this dread of the Jewish power, which has sullied -so many men's minds, postponed the right discussion of the problem and -nourished ill-ease everywhere. If we simply act as though that dread -were despicable like any other dread, and turned to perfectly open -discussion of the whole affair, even to an open expression of hostility -where hostility is deserved, we shall be the better for it. In any case -it is our duty to ourselves as well as to the State to get rid of fear -in the business, for until we are rid of it no advance towards a -solution can be made. - -FOOTNOTE: - -[2] I beg leave to introduce an anecdote. An undergraduate once said to -Dr. Jowett, the Master of Balliol, "I take up the Gospels and treat them -as an ordinary book." The Master answered: "Did you not find them a very -extraordinary book?" So it will prove, I think, with the fascination of -Israel. - - -THEIR DUTY - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - -THEIR DUTY - - -Where positive causes have been found for an evil it is obvious that the -cure of that evil consists in the removal of the causes, in so far as -they can be removed. - -In the particular case of the friction between the Jewish community and -their hosts the causes of that friction are the foolish and dangerous -habit of secrecy and the irritating expression of superiority. The -causes the Jew can remove if he will. The matter is in his own hands: we -can do nothing: he can do everything. - -But beyond this negative duty which is incumbent upon the Jews if they -would achieve a peaceful issue of the perils which menace their future, -there is a positive action also incumbent upon them. They must foster, -they must even propose, institutions which will the better mark them off -from a society not their own and restore to them the dignity of a -nation. I shall in the last chapter of this book contend that the policy -leading to a solution must repose not upon direct laws of our own -imagining, not upon reactions which will almost certainly prove -oppressive, and almost certainly be evaded, but upon a general spirit -recognizing the separate nationality of the Jews. But though this is -true of every Christian Western State in which they find themselves, it -is not true of their own nation. They on their side may well come -forward with propositions which they have the capacity for making, -because they will know how to frame them (as we cannot) after a fashion -consistent with their own dignity and their own tradition. There is a -beginning of such things already present in the Jewish schools, the -Jewish guardians and the considerable separate organization which the -Jews have openly set up for their community in this country. These -beginnings have but to be extended. - -Those who are openly hostile to Jews will say that any proposals coming -from their side will conceal a trap. "This people" (they say) "will -always suggest things which will seem innocent enough and apparently do -no more than define their position plainly for the future; but we shall -find ourselves caught in an obligation and the Jews more our masters -than ever. They will," say these objectors, "remain as they are to-day, -and while they claim every privilege as a separate community, they will -also insist upon the full citizenship which is incompatible with this -attitude. We shall find that, whatever institutions we ask them to -frame, those institutions will work not only in their favour but also -heavily against us." - -I doubt it. The special Jewish institutions already at work have no such -effect. On the contrary, they already relieve the strain. One of those -institutions, for instance, is the Jewish press: the newspapers -specially devoted to Jewish interests and acting as spokesmen for Jewish -ideas. They are not always as polite as they might be. I have had myself -at times to lodge a complaint against the way in which they have -treated sincere efforts for the settlement of our difficulties and an -honest attempt at finding a way out. They have left a handle to their -enemies sometimes by too insistent or, as those enemies would call it, -too arrogant a claim, and they do write now and then as though we, the -vast majority, had no rights and the only thing worth considering was -the advancement of their own people. - -But, after all, it would be absurd to expect anything else. A small -minority vigorously fighting its own hand must exaggerate its claim; an -organism defending itself against very heavy pressure from without -cannot but appear aggressive, and I shall always maintain that the -presence of an openly Jewish institution speaking for Jewish interests, -no matter how insistently, is an excellent thing. It presents a healthy -contrast with the converse attempt to present Jewish arguments under the -cover of neutrality, and to spread Jewish ideas anonymously through what -are very far from being neutral agents. - -If I be asked what institutions I have in mind I can only repeat that it -is for the Jews themselves to make the first proposal, but I suggest an -extension of the system, which is already present in embryo, whereby -disputes between Jews shall be arbitrated before a Jewish tribunal. Not -only its extension but its confirmation at the request of the Jews -themselves, might be a good thing. It would also not be a bad thing -if--some time hence when things were ripe for the change--disputes -between Jews and non-Jews could be tried in Courts where the special -character of such disputes, the distinctive difference between them and -disputes between the fellow-citizens of the country in which they live, -should come before tribunals of a mixed character. To attempt this -to-day would, of course, be a very new departure in procedure, indeed a -revolutionary one; and there is no prospect of it for a long while; but -with the growing number among us, and the growing influence, of Jews it -will, I think, when it does come at last, be of advantage to both -parties. It would be fatal if it were imposed upon them. It would not be -accepted. It would not work. But if it were suggested by the Jewish -community spontaneously, and started and developed by them, it would -succeed. And it would add a great deal to the relief already experienced -for the functioning of the other institutions I have mentioned. - -There is little more to be said under this head. Apart from the duty of -open dealing and this specific policy of fostering separate institutions -we have no claim to press. - -All the main part of the mutual Duty is on _our_ side. Therefore have I -given it the space it seems to deserve and confined to no more than -these few lines correlative suggestions for those who, after all, are -not responsible to us for their actions and may properly resent the -airing of _our_ views on the domestic details of their alien -organization. - - -VARIOUS THEORIES - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - -VARIOUS THEORIES - - -Before approaching my conclusion it may be well to review certain -subsidiary theories which I have not hitherto touched in my discussion, -because they stand apart from its argument. - -There is a whole group of historical and other theories upon the -position of the Jews which either imply that there is no problem, or if -there is one that it cannot be solved, or even that if there is a -problem it is of a sort that does not need solution, because that -solution would be of no practical value. - -There come in the first place those theories upon the international -position of the Jews which are frankly non-rational, and which vary from -those which may be defended with some show of reason from the history of -the past, to those which are wholly imaginary. None of these, even -though some one of them should be true, can find much place here because -none lends itself to discussion. - -Thus there is the conception of a curse; the conception that Israel -must, until its conversion, suffer a perpetual pilgrimage and perpetual -hostility. It is a statement bound up with that other popular prophecy -that in the last days Israel will be reconciled with the Universal -Church. Those who have these ideas at the back of their minds (they are -more numerous than modern thought would like to admit), at heart despair -of any solution, and would not attempt to urge it with any hope of -success. They say, "The thing is fated and must continue." But even -they, I think, must admit that just as philosophy admits a paradox of -determination and free will, so political effort must admit a paradox of -foreseen failures and our duty, in spite of them, to aim at a political -good. - -Whether it be indeed true or not, that reconciliation is impossible and -that in the long run the quarrel must drag itself out, it is certainly -profoundly immoral to look on at the spectacle with no attempt to -ameliorate its evils. - -There is again the theory (which I mention in passing and leave to its -adherents) that the British and the Jews are in some way mysteriously -allied by Providence, so that any solution which does not give the -fullest satisfaction to Israel (no matter at what cost to poor Japhet) -is treason. These people mystically regard Britain as the handmaid of -Jewry, and there is a section of them who further regard their -fellow-countrymen as the ten lost tribes. I have in my library some -specimens of their literature. - -There is an opposite and, to me, detestable theory (but I must mention -it because it exists), that the antagonism hitherto found perpetually, -whether latent or active, between this people and the world about them -is the use of the one as a necessary and divine oppressor of the other. -To those who hold such a theory I can only reply that two can play at -that game, and it certainly absolves those whom they would oppress from -any obligation whatever of seeking a solution on their side. If a man -thinks he can do harm to Israel wantonly, without suffering the -reproaches of his own conscience, he is in error; and I confess that -were I free (as I am not in a book of discussion and argument) to -indulge in mere affirmation I should be inclined to say that those who -set out with this remarkable object in view will catch a Tartar. - -There is the opposite theory that a special and Divine protection is -still exercised, not only for the preservation of the Jews but for -judgment upon their enemies. _That_ theory, I think, lies at the back of -many a Jewish action in history and of much Jewish policy to-day. -Non-rational, religious in origin, it is, I fancy, to very many of the -race which has suffered so much, a consolation and a support. - -Now all these non-rational theories (I use the word without any bad -connotation: the non-rational--what is often inaccurately called the -mystical--attitude towards any problem may well be more practical than -the rational approach to it) I leave on one side as improper to rational -discussion. - -I have heard it maintained, again, by both parties to this debate, that -the presence of an alien force, migratory, intense, full of tradition, -experience and cohesion, was essential to the height and the activity of -our own civilization. - -These are not content to discover individual instances of Jewish -excellence in the mass around them, or to extend the renown of -individual Jewish genius. They are rather concerned with the general -proposition that _some_ such flux is necessary to the full action of a -high and diverse culture. They tell us that but for the Jew the -civilization of Europe would have grown torpid, would have settled into -a fixed groove, incapable of change and of creative progress. The Jew, -by this theory, is regarded as a sort of activating principle, who, -whether as an irritant at the worst, or an inspiration at the best, -keeps all our European life agog, and is necessary to its continuous -business. These also incline to see the Jew at the origin of every great -movement in European thought. They see him indirectly producing the vast -transformation of the Roman Empire from a pagan, not indeed to a Jew but -to a Christian, that is (in their eyes) to an Oriental mood. They see -the Jew at the root of the great revolutionary philosophy which springs -from the eleventh century and reaches its culmination in the great -scholastics of the thirteenth. They insist upon the name of Averroes -(Ibn Roshd), the philosopher of the twelfth century, the Kadi of -Cordova: the exponent of Aristotle, the expositor--whom the Jews -preserved: upon the great Moses ben Maimon, our Maimonides. These also -put Nicolas de Lyra at the root of the Reformation: "_Si Lyra non -lyrasset Luther non saltasset._" But I may remind them that the Jewish -character of this man is at least doubtful, that he was of the religious -Orders of Christendom. - -These also will certainly and with some reason ascribe to Jewish -influence the great economic revolution of the seventeenth century, -which has been followed by so vast an extension of wealth and of -population, though hardly of human happiness. - -Now for all this there is certainly something to be said as an aspect of -historical truth. How far it may be extended to cover, as its exponents -would make it cover, the whole historical field, may be debated, but I -would ask my readers to consider what change we should have seen in the -development of Europe if by some magical instrument Jewish influence -had been upon some one date removed. It is a theory fascinating, in a -way applicable, and arresting. It is, at any rate, not nonsense. - -It is particularly true that something in the continuous exercise of -analysis by the Jewish intelligence perpetually moves European -intelligence to action--The great disputations of the Early Middle Ages -were, largely, either directly disputations with Jews or disputations -provoked by the intellectual attitude of the Jew; and the Jew, in the -famous name of Spinoza, stands at the origin of that merely natural, -that Lucretian interpretation of the world which continued through -Descartes to its great expansion in the present day. You find that -element in economics as you do in philosophy, in political science as -you do in economics; and, talking of economics, it must not be forgotten -that the greatest name at the foundation of modern economic science is -the name of a Jew, Ricardo, while the most prominent name in the -development of its most prominent direct application is also a Jewish -name--the name of Karl Marx. - -It is not without significance that any one of these names recalls, side -by side with its Jewish origin, an aloofness from the general community -of the Jews. That community, I think it is fair to say, abandoned -Spinoza; Ricardo and, I believe, Karl Marx were alien to the national -religion, and the latter married out of his people and exercised his -enormous influence extraneously to the blood from which his family -sprang. For though it is true that the _direction_, the _staff_ of -Communism is Jewish, yet its convinced adherents are in the mass of our -blood. - -And in that connection I am reminded of another theory or fact -attaching to the history of Israel, which is that the intellectual -independence of the Jew has been as marked throughout the ages as his -solidarity. There are many, I know, of that nation who regard such -exceptions as vagaries and almost condemn them as traitors; yet they are -no small asset to the reputation of their people and their names, -however much they may be repudiated by their compatriots, shed lustre -upon the whole body from which they sprang. These include (let it be -remembered) not only the "sceptical" philosophers, not only the -materialists, but also those extraordinary exceptions who have lent the -vigour, the tenacity and the lustre of the Jewish intellect to the -service of the Catholic Church. I make bold to say that in no one of the -Faith has there been more devotion than in those who, like Ratisbonne -(and he was but one among many), have put such qualities at the service -of what they have discovered to be alone divine. A cynic might add St. -Paul, but, for that matter, the whole origin of the Church was -intermixed with the intense individual efforts of such men. - -In this connection also every wise man will admit that there is no -greater error than to exaggerate the consciousness of Jewish action -whether the error proceed from those who admire or who detest it. To -hear their modern opponents talk one might imagine that the Jewish -people formed a small club of which every member knew every other while -each worked in the unison of a disciplined body. That aberration I have -dealt with more than once upon former pages. The truth is that no nation -on earth presents so many surprising exceptions to its general action -as does this nation, and that no nation on earth, when it moves in one -general direction, as it often does, is actuated by a common motive less -conscious. We who stand outside the Jewish body may mark its cohesion, -and will mark it, I hope, to its honour; but its own members complain -rather of its lack of cohesion. I have heard them complain--I know not -how often--of the way in which the wealthier Jews left their society for -that of an alien body, sneered at the general body of Israel, and -remained indifferent to the common cry of the race. It is this -unconsciousness in action, this frequent replacement of motive by -instinct which accounts for what all observers have noticed, especially -in times of persecution. I mean the bewilderment of the oppressed at the -action of their oppressors. - -I remember once listening to a most eloquent speech delivered in the -course of a debate in which, with that long recollection which is -characteristic of his people, an Israelite passionately declaimed the -gratitude of that people to St. Bernard who saved their remnant upon the -Rhine from the popular fury. I remember also how another in a debate -(for I have attended many such up and down the country and have heard -from as many aspects as possible what the Jewish attitude towards us is) -stated simply, in reply to my description of the Jewish financial -position in this country after the Conquest: "Your cathedral and your -abbeys and even your castles were built with _our_ money." The phrase -was significant of the way in which what the English community of the -time regarded as a tolerated abuse, those fortunes which _they_ never -thought of as Jewish at all, but as moneys temporarily unjustly wrung -from the people at large, were regarded in contemporary Jewry as private -property legitimately acquired, held in full possession. - -I could wish in this connection that some learned Jew would produce a -History of Europe from the point of view of his people: a short -textbook, I mean, intended for our consumption; to show us ourselves -from a standpoint very different from our own. It may be that such a -book exists. I am certain it would be more useful than those indirect -attacks (for they are attacks) upon the Christian tradition which -pretend to a spirit of impartiality but are none the less hostile to -that tradition in every line. I would much rather read the story of -Europe as it was seen by a practising Jewish scholar than a so-called -impartial and agnostic account which grotesquely represents the Church -as something external to the body of Europe and even inimical to it. - -In this connection also we should have (what now we lack), and that is a -conspectus of the Jewish action over Christendom and Islam combined. We -are aware of the tolerance, or rather favour, displayed to their Jewish -subjects by the Mohammedans of Spain. It was neither universal nor -continuous. What we do not sufficiently hear, what we have to piece -together from chance allusions, is the connection between the Moorish -Jews, before and during the Reconquista, and their fellows to the north. - -Before I leave these cursory and sporadic notes on what I have called -the "theories" upon our problem, I should mention one which would -unhappily seem to have acquired widespread support to-day and which is -surely the least satisfactory of all--even less satisfactory than the -now dying fiction which pretended that the Jewish nation was not present -in our midst, but consisted only of a mass of individuals already -absorbed by their alien surroundings. I mean the theory that it is -possible to continue in a sort of simmering atmosphere of partial -repression, with the Jew treated as something alien and hostile, yet his -presence unceasingly tolerated. That would seem to be the imperfect -conclusion implied, if not stated, in a hundred modern pamphlets and -discussions, the authors of which repudiate the name of Anti-Semite -though they sympathize apparently with action even less logical than the -politics of the Anti-Semite. There is no such equilibrium possible, even -if its establishment were as moral as it is in fact immoral. If a frank -solution be not found, nothing firm can be established. All we shall be -establishing will be a violent and successive fluctuation. It is -impossible to maintain an attitude permanently hostile to one's -neighbour, yet count on that hostility remaining permanently repressed. -You fall inevitably along the slope of such a tendency into those -excesses which it should be our whole object to condemn, to foresee and -to prevent. - -You cannot continue, as so many modern men seem, from their -conversation, to wish, with political equality on the one side and a -living spirit of enmity upon the other. You cannot get peace by giving a -mere legal definition to the status of a minority, which is also -necessarily your neighbour, and refusing a social action consonant with -the legal definition. If you try to do that you are trying to do two -things, one of which will destroy the other. No one can doubt which -will be victorious in a conflict between a living sentient motive and a -mere definition in public law. - -One attitude towards the question which I have heard fairly often in the -mouths of Jews and seen in their writings is something like this: "Our -affairs have nothing to do with people outside our nation. This -discussion of what you call 'the Jewish problem' is an impertinence upon -your part. There is a Jewish problem indeed, but it is a domestic -problem, and we request you (with some asperity) to mind your own -business." - -If this attitude were sound, the search for what I have called a -solution, though it might satisfy the intelligence, would be a breach of -civic morals. In the same way it would be a breach of civic morals for -me to work out a solution for the quarrel between Mr. Jones and his -mother-in-law, neither of whom I have ever met and with whom I have no -relations, and then to press this solution upon the contending parties. -But the flaw in this attitude is that the problem is essentially one -involving two parties, the Jews and the non-Jews. The problem we are -attempting to solve is a problem expressed in terms of both. Some would -even say that there is hardly a domestic question within the Jewish -nation which does not have its reaction upon society outside it, and -which it is not the business of that society outside to inquire into. -That would be pressing things rather far. But the main problem is -intimately concerned with both parties and as much with the one as with -the other. It is true, indeed, that the consequences of a false -solution, or of shirking the solution altogether, would be more acute -for the Jew than for us; but we should both suffer, and even on our -side the suffering would be grievous. - -Even if there were no question of suffering in the ordinary sense of the -term, there would still be the question of justice. The Jews who resent -a statement of the problem and an attempt at solving it are not doing -their own people any good and are at the same time denying us the right -of putting our own affairs in order, which denial is, of course, -intolerable: for the position of the Jews in our great States and in -Islamic society is something which those States and that society have to -determine. They cannot leave it in the air. To some conclusion they -_must_ come, and soon, and on the nature of that conclusion depends -their peace. - -Two theories, proceeding from very different states of mind, the -opposite each of the other, but each exclusive of any solution, spring -from the root idea that there is something inexorably malignant in the -relations between the Jew and his surroundings. In the one form this -takes the shape of affirming that the unfortunate Jew is invariably -ill-treated by his wicked hosts and always will be so ill-treated. In -the other it takes the form of saying that the wicked Jew will always be -conspiring and trying to hurt his good, kind hosts and always will be so -conspiring. In either case it is no good trying to find a solution, for -it is affirmed that the quarrel is in the nature of things. People will -say to one, "Why attempt to change something which cannot be changed? -Why talk of your material as something other than what it is? Cats will -always quarrel with dogs, and if you want to avoid a quarrel the only -thing to do is to keep the dogs and cats of your household apart." - -It is precisely because I do not believe either form of this idea to be -true that I have sought for a solution. I do not believe either form of -doctrine to be true because the evidence is against it. That evidence is -to my hand and can be examined by my own unaided powers, as it can be -examined by any other person in our modern society. I cannot recollect -one single case in all the hundreds of Jews I have come across--not one -in the score whom I can count as intimates--who showed any sign of this -malignant hatred. I have heard many outbursts of exasperation which, -when we think of the past, are natural enough; but of some persistent -and evil desire to hurt those among whom they live, some instinctive -desire unconnected with past suffering, and acting as a sort of -instinct, I have seen no trace. If such were to be discovered in some -exceptional Jew out of a large acquaintance I should conclude that it -might be true of a small minority, but common sense and common -experience are sufficient to show that it does not affect the mass. - -Of the causes of friction, even of acute friction, which I have -enumerated in former pages, there is the habit of secrecy, there is the -mutual contempt, arising in each from a sense of superiority over the -other; there is the quarrel between what is national and what is -international, between what is of us and what is alien. There are, in a -word, plenty of elements suggesting accidental antagonism, but of -intrinsic antagonism there is no evidence--there is no evidence, I mean, -that the Jews would still desire to destroy a society in which they -found themselves at their ease. - -And, if we examine ourselves, we shall be equally convinced that there -is no corresponding desire upon our side to do a wrong to the Jew. We -also are exasperated by the memory of insult in moments of quarrel, of -international action opposing our national interests and of friction -between what is native and what is alien; but that is a very different -thing from permanent and necessary antagonism. I know very well what is -called "modern thought" gives to the unconscious part of man a large -place and reduces, as much as it can, the field of reason. I cannot -agree with it. It seems to me that man is essentially rational; and his -political relations can be arranged consonantly with his conscious -morals and his conscious logic. - -At any rate, if they cannot, there is an end of all statesmanship and of -all useful political action even in details. - -Next, there are the two converse attitudes towards the question which -certainly are affecting, the one an increasing audience upon our side -and the other perhaps an interested though but secret audience upon the -other; I mean those two converse theories whereby, on the one side, -there is the Messianic idea of the Jew ultimately controlling the world, -on the other an extreme dread of that idea and a belief that it is being -actively pursued to the destruction of our institutions and religion. - -I can understand that, with the traditions of his race behind him and -with the tone of their sacred writings in his ears, a Jew should lean in -some degree to such a conception, or at any rate that some Jews should -lean towards it. Certainly in face of the ridiculously exaggerated power -of the Jews in recent times (it is now declining, for secrecy was of its -essence and it has now been brought into the arena of open discussion) -it was natural that men should fall into the exaggeration of panic. They -saw the Jew, a tiny fraction of most communities, not more than a -twentieth of any community, exercising a power quite out of proportion -to his numbers or, indeed, to his ability; and they saw that power -directed towards ends which were Jewish ends and therefore hostile or -indifferent to the rest of mankind. But my reason for rejecting not only -exaggerations of this idea but its fundamental implication is that it -seems to me practically impossible. It connotes abilities upon the -Jewish side, a continuous will upon the Jewish side, both of which are -obviously absent. And you have only to look at history to see that long -before things come to anything like a struggle for supremacy it is the -Jew who suffers most from the suspicion of holding such a design, not -we. Indeed, that is one of the important elements in the dangerous -situation which has been created to-day. - -That large and greatly increasing body of men who so fear Jewish -domination, and are vigorously reacting against the Jews under the -influence of that fear, are much more likely to end with injustice to -the Jew than with subservience to him. It is from this atmosphere that -the great misfortunes of the past have arisen. It is of the essence of -any solution that this mood should be exorcised upon the one side as -upon the other. - -There is another theory which I have read of in more than one learned -Jewish treatise and which has been repeated (after Jewish authors -themselves had launched it) by many non-Jewish societies and historians, -to the effect that the very survival of the Jews, their very existence -as a separate community, was due to conditions common in the past, now -disappeared, and that therefore the present difficulties can safely be -left to time. - -This is, of course, to make the general assertion that the Jewish race -can be absorbed, and that absorption is the solution. That conclusion I -summarily rejected in the earlier pages of this book on the historical -ground that it has had the most favourable circumstances for success and -yet has always failed. But in the particular case stated it has an -argument of its own and one needing very special examination: it is -this:-- - -Those who defend this theory tell us that however favourable the -opportunities for absorption were in the past they are nothing to the -opportunities of the present and the future, and that therefore the -argument from history fails. In the past (they tell us) the Jews were -exclusive and even made of their exclusiveness a religion. They on their -side mixed as little as possible with the world around them and we on -our side maintained that exclusion by an equal insistence upon the -difference between ourselves and them. We had in those days, it is -maintained, a religion based upon the Incarnation and therefore -abhorrent to the Jew; that religion is dead or dying, and with it the -tendency to exclusion from outside has disappeared; while on the Jewish -side there is also a great weakening of the old religious bond, less of -the old Messianic dogma, and on both sides the enormous melting-pot[3] -that makes for absorption with an intensity and rapidity quite unknown -in the past. It was one thing to absorb the Jew when it took a month to -go as an ordinary traveller from London to Rome, it is another thing -when it takes three days. It was one thing to absorb the Jew when in the -greater part of cases there was a bar to the mixing of the races, based -upon the nerves of religion, it is quite another thing to absorb the Jew -when those most powerful of emotional forces have disappeared--and so -forth. - -Now the reasons which bring me to reject this theory are two-fold. - -In the first place, I think it exaggerates the contrast between the past -and the present. In the second place, I know that in the actual world -before me and precisely under those conditions where the fusion, the -action of the "melting-pot," ought to be most complete, the most violent -reaction against absorption is to be observed. - -As to the contrast between the past and the present, I think it is based -upon an imperfect apprehension of what our past has been. It comes of -that "telescoping up" of history to which I alluded in another -connection in my second chapter. - -The long story of our race between the Roman occupation of Judaea and the -modern local and ephemeral industrial phase of the great modern towns is -not divided into two chapters, the strange past and the comprehensible -present. It is much of a muchness. The constant developments which -astonish us to-day in physical science, for instance, are not more -remarkable than the vast new developments in architecture and philosophy -which marked the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The disturbance of -thought which may be called "modern scepticism" is not anything like so -important a spiritual change as that tremendous revolution which we call -the conversion of the Roman Empire. The area of scepticism is not larger -to-day than it has been in many special periods of the past. The feeling -of strong religious emotion which forbids this or that action is still -present among us, sometimes attached to its older objects, sometimes (as -in the craze for prohibition) to some novel object. The indifference -which you will find to the particular religious barrier between Jew and -non-Jew is not peculiar to our times. It has come and gone in the past; -after a wave of such indifference you have had a wave of the most acute -reaction, and I think you are observing a wave of such reaction to-day. - -Nor do I see how the rapidity of mere physical communications affects -the matter, nor even how the volume of emigration affects the matter. -You can get a million Jews from Lithuania to New York--a distance of -5,000 miles--in less time than you could get a million Jews from the -Valley of the Rhine into Poland some centuries ago; but the million Jews -seem to remain Jews just the same under modern conditions as they did in -the past. Indeed, the toleration of Jews, the friendly reception of -them, and therefore the opportunities for their absorption were -indefinitely greater in mediaeval Poland than they are in modern -America. It seems to me that the whole of this part of the argument is -based upon that prevalent view of history which comes from reading our -little modern text-books: and our little modern text-books are very -rubbishy. It is a view which comes from that absurd emphasis upon -whatever is contemporary. The modern advance of physical science is -regarded as having totally changed the world inwardly as well as -outwardly. We have only to look at the modern world and to compare it -with any _two_ distant, special periods we know, to discover that the -difference between any pair of these three is equally striking. In many -ways the modern world is much more like the world of the Antonines than -it is like the world of Innocent the Great. In many ways the world of -Innocent the Great is much more like the Roman Empire than the modern -world. In many ways the world of Innocent the Great and our world have -more in common than either has with the pagan Roman Empire. The general -lesson is, therefore, that our time, with all its remarkable -specialities, is but one specimen out of a great number equally -individual, and certainly there is nothing in it either of religious -scepticism breaking down old religious barriers or of rapidity of -communication, or of any other fundamental factor, which specially -suggests the absorption of the Jew. - -For instance, the Jews mixed much more readily, on a much more equal -footing and with far less friction among the Mohammedans at particular -periods during the Islamic occupation of Spain than they do even in -England to-day. Yet they were not absorbed there, any more than they -were absorbed in Poland. They were not absorbed into that older, -tolerant, very denationalized pagan Roman world where they so often had -full civic rights and where they even manipulated, as they manipulate -to-day, the finances of the community. - -As for the decay of exclusiveness on their part, I see no sign of it. -For this exclusiveness proceeds not so much from a particular -observance which may relax at one period and tighten up at another, as -from an invariable national tradition which fluctuates in intensity but -never sinks so low as to jeopardize the continuance of the people. - -If we turn from argument to observation, the falsity of the theory -stares us in the face. We have but to take one point, where the metaphor -of the "melting-pot" most applies (and to which it was originally -applied), the city of New York. What has been the effect of this great -influx of Jews into New York, this turning of New York into a city a -third Jewish under our eyes and in so short a space of time? As we all -know, the effect has been the uprising, in that once indifferent -atmosphere, of such a feeling against the Jews as would appal us did we -see it in the Old World. It is red hot. It is an intense reaction -expressing itself with greater and greater violence every day; and the -spirit of that reaction cannot be better expressed than in a phrase -which we owe, I think, to Mr. Ford and his famous propaganda against the -Jews, through his paper the "Dearborn Independent." "It is all very well -to talk of the melting-pot," says he, "but so far from the Jews melting -in that pot, _it looks as though they wanted to melt the pot itself_." - -There you have, in New York, if anywhere, an opportunity for the theory -of absorption to prove itself. You have present in the field a score of -different races, including great masses of a race so utterly different -from ours as the negro. You have a certain small proportion of Chinamen -and you have of European stocks an indefinite variety--most of them in -large numbers. You have not only in local establishments or even only -in civic theory, but in actual practice--in enthusiastic practice--a -complete equality and a positive pride in the reception of no matter -what elements of immigration, in the certitude that all can rapidly be -moulded into the American form. Most of these elements were absorbed, -and absorbed rapidly; where they were not absorbed there was at least -peace between them. Then arrives the Jew and a totally new situation at -once appears. A situation of challenge, of provocation, of admitted -exclusion, of violent debate and even of clamour: but no sign of -absorption. In presence of all the elements that should make for -absorption, difference and hatred between Jew and non-Jew is growing in -New York with the vitality of a tropical plant. - -There is yet another theory which, if it were not widely held and if it -had not been advanced by so many Jews themselves, I should leave aside -as something comic, something unfit for serious discussion. But it has -been advanced and it must be met. It is no less than the theory that -there are no such people as the Jews, that the whole thing is illusion. - -This monstrous affirmation is based, I need hardly say, upon what is -called a "scientific" examination of the affair: for that word -"scientific" has come to be associated with every kind of unreason. Men, -especially Jewish men, have been found to affirm most solemnly that they -had measured skulls, taken sections of hair, catalogued the colours of -eyes, established facial angles, analysed blood, and applied I know not -how many other tricks, with the result that no Jewish type could be -discovered! People who can reason thus do not seem to appreciate the -fundamental quarrel between nominalism and realism, or to have heard of -the old philosophic joke on the definition of "a thing." - -We know a horse to be a horse, an apple to be an apple, a Chinaman to be -a Chinaman, or a Jew to be a Jew by some process on which philosophers -can debate, but upon the virtue of which no sane man doubts and upon the -right action of which we base all our lives. The chemist may tell me -that the chemical analysis of a lump of coal gives the same result as -the chemical analysis of a diamond, to which any man capable of using -his reason at all will reply that upon a very large number of other -lines of analysis, colour, touch, combustibility, hardness and softness, -economic value, prevalence (and so on indefinitely), the two are _not_ -the same. No analysis is complete, and if we had made no conscious -analysis at all, we could still perceive at once that a lump of coal is -not a diamond. - -It is just the same with these pseudo-scientific attempts to disprove -obvious truth. They pullulate and they are all equally ridiculous -because they deduce from insufficient data. The existence and -differentiation of the Jewish people as a race ethnically and as a -nation politically is as much a fact as the existence of coal or -diamonds. They are a nation politically because they act as a nation, -because their individual members feel and exercise a corporate function. -We know them to be a separate race because we can see that they are. -When you meet a Jew, whether you are his enemy or his friend, you meet a -Jew. He has a certain expression, a certain manner, certain physical -characteristics which you may not be able to analyse at the moment you -see him, but which give you the impression and the certitude that you -are dealing with a particular thing, to wit, the Jewish race. It is -true, of course, that the type, like all general types, fades off at the -edges, and there will always be cases where you may be in doubt of -whether you are dealing with a Jew or with a non-Jew, but there is a -marked central type round which the Jewish racial type is built up. That -is as certain as that there is a Mongolian type, or a negroid type, and -so forth. - -I do not take the objection very seriously. I only note it because it -_has_ been made, and may crop up in the course of any discussion on this -grave political issue. - -FOOTNOTE: - -[3] I borrow the metaphor from Mr. Zangwill, who applied it to New York -particularly. I apply it to the whole modern industrial world. - - -HABIT OR LAW? - - - - -CHAPTER XV - -HABIT OR LAW? - - -If it be true that the friction between the Jew and the civilization in -which he lives is aggravated by his habit of secrecy and by our -disingenuousness, by his expression of a sense of superiority which -galls us, and on our side by a lack of charity and of intelligence in -dealing with him, it would follow that no solution can be more than -approximate: that whatever arrangement be come to the contrast will -remain, and with it a certain latent friction, which always accompanies -contrast. - -But there is between a simmering of that kind and the active boiling of -the question to-day (with the threat of its boiling _over_) all the -difference in the world. But even though the solution be imperfect, it -might be reasonably stable: we might at least have peace, though not -friendship. It further follows from the elements of the problem that the -solution lies along the lines of either party modifying whatever in its -action is an irritant to the other; whatever, that is, can be modified -by the will, and is not mixed up with something ineradicable. - -The Jew cannot help feeling superior, but he can help the expression of -that superiority--at any rate he can modify such expression. He can -certainly, though it be at a great expense of tradition and habit, get -rid of that pestilent pseudo-defence of secrecy which poisons all the -relations between him and ourselves. We on our side can drop what is the -converse of that secrecy, the disingenuousness, the lack of candour, -into which we are fallen in our relations with the Jew. That cannot but -mean a great breach with our tradition and with habit also, but the -advantage is worth the sacrifice. We can (it must be the work of each -individual, it cannot be a corporate work) approach the Jew with more -respect and yet with more frequency. We can, I think, advance by many -degrees from the lack of charity we now show, even if we despair of -living in real intimacy with a people so different in their deepest -qualities from ourselves. - -Personally, I am not sure that such closer intimacy might not be -established; I have never found any difficulty in reaching and retaining -intimate acquaintance with the Jews of my own circle--but I may have -been fortunate. I know that with most of my fellows it is not so, and -perhaps the Jew will always remain to the mass of those about him -something strange and unapproachable, and I fear, repulsive. But there -is no reason, why we should mix with that hesitation in our relations an -element of indifference, still less of contempt, still less, again, of -cruelty. - -I repeat the formula for a solution: it is recognition and respect. - -Recognition is here no more than the telling of the truth: there is a -Jewish nation. Jews are citizens of that nation; and recognition means -not only the telling of this truth on special occasions but the use of -it as a regular habit in our relations on both sides. - -This statement is, upon any just analysis of the Jewish question, so -obvious and so simple, that it needs neither insistence upon it nor -development. Its plain statement is sufficient. But there attaches to a -solution so determined a much more active and complicated question, upon -the uncertainty of which not only this reform but many another has made -shipwreck. The question must be answered rightly, because, if we answer -it wrongly, the whole scheme fails. - -The question is this: Should the social habit, the general method in -writing and speaking and in all relations, precede in this case the -institutional action, legal changes, constitutional definitions? Or -should the legal changes, the new institutions, the constitutional -definitions come first? - -To decide rightly is of great moment, for this reason, that a wrong -decision may destroy all the effect of goodwill. - -In my judgment the wrong decision would be that which would give -precedence to legal change, to new definitions, to new institutions, and -attempt out of them to build a new spirit. I take it that this reversal -of the true order would make all stable peace impossible. - -It must be admitted, of course, that changes suggested by the Jews -themselves, the development of their own institutions, a voluntary -segregation of their community in other fields than those in which they -have already effected that segregation, stand in another category. These -new and definitely Jewish institutions we should always welcome. But the -attempt at framing public regulations, which are to defend the community -as a whole against an alien minority, when that minority must live with -one permanently and as a regular feature of the life of the community, -invariably tends to oppression, if such regulations are made the first -steps in a settlement instead of being left, as they should be, to the -last. Any separatist legislation should arise naturally out of a long -practice and full recognition of the Jews as a separate people and of -the accompaniment of that recognition with respect. If the advance is -made on our side, the Jew may refuse any such bargain. He may dig his -heels in and insist, as many another privileged class has insisted -before him, that he will continue to enjoy all that he has ever enjoyed, -that he will continue his demand for a dual allegiance, that he will -insist on the very fullest recognition as a Jew, and at the same time on -what is fatal to such recognition, the fullest recognition as a member -of our own community. - -If he does _that_ (and there are those who tell us he will certainly do -so, and will refuse all reform), then the community will be compelled to -legislate in spite of him. It will be perilous for him and for us; it -may even be the beginning of grievous trouble for both, but it will be -inevitable. It will appear in a mass of legislation all over Europe, -which will affect this country with the rest. - -The present situation cannot last indefinitely. It is already uncertain -even here, in England; it has reached further stages on the road to ruin -elsewhere. But if the Jew sees the peril in time, and appreciates the -nature of that change, the beginnings of which we have all seen and -which is proceeding at so great a pace, then relations can be -established out of which (later) formal rules, acceptable to both -parties, should proceed. And in that case it would be, I repeat, the -gravest of errors to initiate new positive laws and a new status before -a foundation had been prepared by the re-establishment of honest -relations; and that can only be done by a frank admission of reality, by -the open and continual admission everywhere that Israel is a nation -apart, is not, and cannot be, of us, and shall not be confounded with -ourselves. - -There is great temptation to delay, because the acuteness of the problem -is not felt here as yet, among the well-to-do, and still more because it -differs in different communities. The peril seems still far distant from -us, though it may be at the very door of our neighbours. Routine, the -inheritance of the immediate past, the false security produced by the -conventions of that past, may well tempt those who dislike the effort of -a change to shirk that change. But I would ask any intelligent and -thoughtful Jew who still thinks he can rely upon the false position of -the nineteenth century whether the same forces are there to support him -to-day as were present then? - -Take a particular example. In Poland and in Roumania the old fiction has -been temporarily imposed by force. The Jew, who in both these countries -is felt to be more alien than any other foreign European could be, is -imposed upon the Government and society of each country by the Western -Governments as a full citizen. The strain here is immensely aggravated -because it arose not from the nature of society but from the action of -outsiders; the English, the French, the American Governments (but -particularly the American and the English) have erected in Eastern -Europe this unstable, unjust and artificial state of affairs. It cannot -last, for it is unreal. - -The communities in question may make no laws which recognize the Jew; -alternatively, the door is open for oppression: and the moment the hated -foreign interference weakens, oppression will come. - -Well, when under the pressure of a real social difficulty and a crucial -one, the unreal settlement is torn up, by the passing of new laws -recognizing the Jew (but harshly, and under no agreement with him) or by -actual hostility, does the Jew in his heart of hearts think that he -would have the same support from the West now as he would have had -thirty years ago? He knows very well he would not. - -Thirty years ago you would have got from all the traditional Liberalism -of France, from the great bulk of its governing class and the whole of -its academic organization, from what was then the solid and still -respected body of old Republicans, an immediate answer to the Jewish -appeal. In England that answer would have been unanimous and -enthusiastic. You would have had torrents of leading articles, great -public meetings, Cabinet Ministers speechifying all over the place in -the sacred cause of toleration. Every one knows that to-day the appeal -of the Eastern Jews, though it might still be supported officially, -would be received by the public with indifference. Ten years hence it -may be received with derision. - -Or take another example. Let us suppose--it is highly probable--that the -Zionist experiment breaks down, that Englishmen refuse to have their -soldiers' lives risked in a quarrel which is not their own and refuse to -support out of their inordinate taxation a top-heavy colony which gives -them no advantage and concerns them not at all. On the breakdown of that -experiment, should it come soon, would there still be the support for -its re-establishment that you would have had even ten years ago? There -certainly would not. Ten years hence it is probable enough that you -would get, not indifference to such re-establishment, but the most -active hostility. All over the world the stream has turned in the same -direction. - -Unfortunately the effect of that change has been to excite hatred rather -than a desire for a settlement and to move men towards blind action -rather than towards a reasoned examination of the difficulty. That is -why the thing seems to me urgent, although there are still large areas -of Western society in which its urgency is masked and half forgotten. - -When I say "_urgent_" I mean that this my essay, which is to-day still -to the point, and the solution recommended in which is still feasible, -may very well, within the lifetime of its writer, become old-fashioned -out of all recognition. The peaceful settlement here proposed with -deliberate vagueness and softness of outline may seem in a few years as -out of date, as unreal through the intervening change, as do to-day the -old tags about the purity of parliamentary life and the seriousness of -party politics. - -My solution may appear at the end of this generation as mildly -inapplicable to the acute situation _then_ arisen between the Jews and -ourselves as appear to-day the old debates on the very tentative demand -for Home Rule in the '80's. Let us act as soon as possible and settle -the thing while there is yet time. For in the swirl and rapids of the -modern world, which grow not less as towards a calm, but more intense as -towards a cataract, every great debate takes on with every year a -stronger form, a nearer approach to conflict; and none more than the -immemorial debate, still unconcluded, between Islam and Christendom and -the Beni-Israel. - -But for my part, I say, "Peace be to Israel." - - -_Printed in Great Britain by_ Butler & Tanner, _Frome and London_. - - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JEWS*** - - -******* This file should be named 50556.txt or 50556.zip ******* - - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/5/0/5/5/50556 - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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