THE PERSECUTION OF THE ROUMANIAN JEWS.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPEOTATOR."1 SIB,—The Jewish community cannot but be grateful to the Spectator and other organs of public opinion for the sympa- thetic terms in which they have lately called attention to the terrible persecution of the Jews of Roumania. Many sugges- tions have been made as to what should be done, but the obvious remedy, and the desirability in the public interests of applying this remedy, have not received the attention they
deserve.
The remedy is prompt and resolute action by the signatory Powers of the Treaty of Berlin. The persecution of the Jews of Roumania is not only a violation of Articles XLIII. and %LW. of the Berlin Treaty, but it is a defiance of the Powers of the most cynical and scandalous kind, the mischievous effects of which are felt far beyond the Roumanian frontiers. Let me point out in a few words in what this defiance consists. In 1878 the Powers rightly resolved that the main condition of the recognition of the new status of the Christian States emancipated from the Turks in the name of religious liberty should be that those States should practise the virtue to which they had appealed. All of them accepted this condition with the exception of Roumania. The Government of the Principality urged that it had a large Jewish population in a very backward state of civilisation, and that to emancipate them immediately would be a source of serious em- barrassment to the State. They accordingly proposed to satisfy the principles laid down in the Treaty of Berlin by abolishing all religious disabilities which had formerly weighed on non-Christian nationals and aliens ; but in order to render the emancipation of the native Jews progressive instead of immediate, they stipulated that these Jews should be assimilated to aliens and naturalised on the same conditions. As this meant the probable rejection of all Jewish applications for naturalisation, which, under the law, had to be made individually to the Chambers, the Powers declined to accept this proposition. Eventually, on Roumania solemnly promising that the alien status of the native Jews should be regarded as a merely temporary expedient, and that every effort would be made to expedite their naturalisation and to treat them with greater indulgence than real aliens, the compromise was accepted.
Now mark the sequel. The lenity of the Powers has resulted in placing the Jews in a worse position than they were in before the Berlin. Treaty. Previously to 1878 they had at any rate been Roumanian nationals ; after the compromise of 1880 they were aliens, and aliens without any Government to whose protec- tion they could appeaL The Roumanians at once took advantage of this anomaly to redouble their persecutions. All sorts of disabilities were imposed upon "aliens," which the few real foreigners in the country did not, feel, but which to the Jews were crushing. They were excluded from the schools, from the professions, and from trade after trade. Every effort was made to prevent them from identifying themselves with the national life, and so to restrict their opportunities of earning their livings that by misery and emigration their numbers should be kept stationary. Gradually their alien status was given a special definition. They were "foreigners not subject to any foreign Powers," and, as such, obligations were imposed upon them—the liability to military service, for example—from which real aliens are exempt. At the same time they were made liable to expulsion with other aliens in the event of their protesting against their harsh treatment, or otherwise rendering themselves disagreeable. The unscrupulous ingenuity with which advantage has been taken of their anomalous political status is well illustrated by the new Artisans Law. This law is ostensibly designed to regulate the privileges of native and foreign workmen. Nowhere are the Jews mentioned, and yet the whole purpose of the Act is to exclude some hundred thousand Jewish workmen from trades in which they are now earning their bread. This will be seen from Article IV., which runs as follows :—" Foreigners who wish to exercise a handicraft in Roumania must prove a. right of rebiprocity in their own countries, or failing that must obtain an authorisation from a Chamber of Commerce or Industry." As Jews have no country of their own, they cannot prove a right of reciprocity, and as they are excluded from Chambers of Com- merce and Industry, which are filled with their Anti-Semitic rivals, they cannot obtain an authorisation to ply their trades. This is the condition of the Roumanian Jews to-day,—twenty-four years after the Treaty of Berlin. Out of two hundred and sixty-nine thousand fewer than three hundred have been naturalised] and the remainder are the victims of a persecution worse than any suffered by the Christian Bayahs in the old days of Turkish domination.
There is, however, a practical as well as a moral reason why the Powers should interfere. The object of the persecuting legis- lation of Roumania is twofold. In the first place, it is designed to keep the Jews in a more or less degraded state, so as to perpetuate the excuse for not emancipating them given in 1879 ; and in the second place, it is intended—and this is quite openly avowed- to force an emigration which will keep their numbers in the country stationary. Now all the countries of Western Europe object to the immigration of destitute aliens. Why then do they allow Roumania to favour a policy which results in a nuisance to them and to prevent which they have actually a Treaty-right ? The alleged evils of alien immigration can only be effectually dealt with at the sources of the immigrations. Foreign Powers suffering from these evils have not always the right to deal with them at their sources; but in the case of Roumania they have this right, and the public should see to it that it is used before any elaborate and expensive machinery for excluding destitute aliens is adopted.
[If the facts are accurately stated by Mr. Montefiore, as we do not doubt they are, the persecution of the Roumanian Jews is among the Most infamous of the 'many infamies perpetrated upon their unfortunate race. The case for action Under the Berlin Treaty appears to be overwhelming. We presume that the Anti-Semitic Powers would not move, but at any rate the British Government should take some action, if only by way of protest. When one contemplates the help- less misery of the Roumanian Jews, what a satire sound the allegations as to the international freemasonry of the jews and as to the terrible power and influence wielded by the race! ED. Spectator.]
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