MR. HAY'S NOTE. T HE diplomatists of the Continent are obviously
much disturbed by Mr. Hay's Note to American Ambassa- dors complaining of the Roumanian persecution of the Jews. The more conservative among them consider it a fresh instance of the American disposition to interfere in Europe, and ask with professional horror how America, which refused to sign the Treaty of Berlin, can now, when it suits her purpose, appeal to its provisions. That is a quibble worthy only of a clever attorney's clerk. The Treaty of Berlin may surely be appealed to as against those who consider it part of the public law of Europe, by those who, though outside its provisions, so strongly approve one of them that they only ask for its full execution. Mr. Hay is not objecting to a Treaty, but implicitly adhering to it. Again, every Government has, by universal admission, a right to argue or protest diplomatically when- ever its interests are affected ; and the Government of Washington affirm that the Roumanian persecution does so affect them, a point upon which, again by universal admission, they are their own independent judges. The mere fact that public feeling is deeply stirred has been held over and over again to justify " interferences " on behalf of religious liberty, while the endless despatches on the slave trade had for their basis nothing else. The ulti- mate reason for those despatches was that the trade shocked average humanity, and the reason was admitted. There is, too, another argument of a broader kind, which diplomatists, if they wish to understand the forces that now move the world, will do well to consider more carefully than they have hitherto done. The " public opinion of the civilised world " has become an executive force of the strongest kind, a force, for example, which, to give a single illustration, has enabled Europe to distribute an uncivilised continent without fighting for its right. If that is admitted—and to deny it would be futile—surely a civilised State has as much right to express its opinions as any individual within it. That is all the Foreign Office of Washington has done in this matter. It has not threatened Roumania with war on account of its internal legislation, but has only expressed the opinion of the United States that such legislation is opposed to European treaties and contrary to the dictates of common humanity. If that is " unwarrantable interference," then we are landed in this absurdity. It is reported, we hope truly, that Great Britain has backed Mr. Hay's Note by a despatch of remonstrance and appeal to the Powers which signed the Treaty of Berlin. That, the diplomatists will say, is all right, and in entire accordance with international law, for Great Britain signed the Treaty. Therefore it is right for a State to instigate or persuade another State to express an opinion, but not right for the State itself to express it and take the responsibility ! The world cannot be guided by such cobwebby reins.
But, it will be said, Mr. Hay's rein is itself of the most cobwebby kind. America has remonstrated in a despatch. America being very strong, and to a certain degree unac- countable, that despatch when read to the Foreign Offices concerned will receive civil but evasive replies, discussion will turn to something else, and everything will go on as before. Not a Jew in Roumania, it is said, will be any better treated. That remains to be seen. We are not dis- posed to exaggerate either the power or the wisdom of public opinion, but we believe that whenever its decrees are in accordance with the instinctive, though, it may be, latent, conscience of humanity, it is almost invariably, though sometimes after long delays, obeyed. What else extinguished in Europe the practice of torture for the pur- pose of obtaining evidence ? What else extinguished the slave trade, and ultimately slavery itself ? What else has made the civilised world, even in Russia and Roumania, ashamed to inflict death in legal forms as a penalty for misbelieving? There are precedents in our own British history on this subject which have never received the attention they deserved. Two or three times English opinion has roughly interfered with practices sanctioned in India by etiquettes of immemorial antiquity said to be based upon religion. In each case it has been declared that the reform would. be met by determined resistance, and in each resistance has not so much disappeared as failed to come to the birth. In the case of suttee, in particular, it was gravely alleged that all the gentlefolk of India would rise in defence of a custom so antique, so entwined with religious feeling, so deeply in- volving Hindoo ideas of family honour. Neverthe- less suttee was peremptorily forbidden, and at once, in silence, it disappeared. Not one Hindoo gentleman rose in arms to defend his inalienable and hereditary right to roast his mother alive. The instinctive conscience sup- ported civilised opinion, and it became instantly effective. It would be so now if any State burned Jews for being Jews, and it may be so yet, though a hideous persecution is in Roumania veiled by abstinence from bloodshedding. The stake, which is too visible, is replaced by starvation, which is almost invisible. No Jew is burnt iu Roumania ; he is only told through a constantly multiplied series of laws, a few of which we describe elsewhere, that he shall only live by the labour of his hands, and that those hands shall not be used in any handicraft. The alternatives, therefore, are starvation or flight, and the Roumanian Jews, who have been settlers in the country for hundreds of years, are therefore flying, to the dismay of Austria-Hungary and the annoyance of England and America, who, though entirely willing to receive Jewish immigrants, do not wish to receive the whole race all at once, and so have to face an industrial revolution. This is foul persecution, and we are by no means certain that when this is once fully realised the opinion of the civilised will be, as is expected, inoperative. There must be people even in Roumania with influence over their countrymen who can feel that while they have a clear right to prevent immigration if they like to destroy that source of wealth, they have no more right to starve a section of their countrymen because of their religious belief than they have to burn them ; and if their consciences are once pricked, the laws will at least be administered with more lenity. We will not use the threat, very serious to Roumania, that Roumanian stocks may be boycotted on every Bourse in Europe, and only appeal to that better feeling without which any State, whatever its pretensions, must be pronounced uncivilised.
We wish we could understand more clearly the reason for this sudden recrudescence all over the Continent of the mediaeval hatred for the Jews. It is said to be their religion ; but Theism, which is their faith, is of all kinds of religious opinion the one which spreads fastest and is least persecuted. It is said to be their unsocial exclusive- ness about marriage ; but they are no more exclusive than the Continental aristocracies, whom nobody even wishes to expel. It is said to be their habit of becoming money- lenders ; but Christian moneylenders, though they are not liked, because they can only profit by the suffering of others, are not persecuted anywhere. It is said they are so prolific that their neighbours and rivals feat to be eaten out ; but if Jews had ever multiplied like Slays or English- men, they would by now be five hundred millions, and they are only seven or eight. We suppose, in reality, they are hated, or rather dreaded, for their separateness, which is made painfully visible by their capacity and their habit of accumulation, but the explanation is hardly satisfactory. At all events, they are in danger all over the Continent, where in every country a great party, followed often by a majority, would. if they could treat them as the Roumanians do, and pile up laws which once beginn would soon rival the monstrous Roumanian list published in the Rounzanian Bulletin,—a list which makes the blood boil even in men to whom Jews are not entirely acceptable. Just let any decent En4lishina,n read that list and then condemn Mr. Hay for " unwarrantable interference."
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