We fear the proposal of Sir Horace Rumbold for arresting
massacres of Jews will not do much towards preventing them. The veteran diplomatist in a letter to the Times last Saturday suggests that the Pope should issue a formal declaration that the Jews have never committed the ritual murders attributed to them, and that " the kindly and high-minded ruler of Russia" should be moved to give his subjects a similar assurance. He admits, however, that when in Austria he influenced the Nuncio in this direction the Vatican did not respond ; and we greatly doubt if the Czar will believe that he can remove so rooted a prejudice. The best protection for the Jews in Russia, Roumania, and even in Austria would be to inform the officials that Jews must be protected for reasons of State or of high finance, and that if they were murdered the dis- missal of those responsible for order would inevitably follow. Their danger, which is in places just now extreme, does not, however, proceed from the Sovereigns, but from the desire of the bureaucracy that they should be compelled to fly. Nobody, not even M. de Plehve, desires to kill them ; but they are deprived of protection in order that the consequent danger to their property may induce them to emigrate. It is the old Spanish policy of witolesale expulsion carried out through mobs instead of officers of the State. The Spaniards did not care to appear civilised ; the Russian and Roumanian bureau- cracy do.
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