THE PERSECUTION OF THE ROUMANIAN JEWS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE 'SPECTATOR-'J SIR,—Mr. Montefiore's appeal (Spectator, June 28th) ought to receive the energetic support of every Englishman. The persecution of the Jews by the Roumanian Government is a breach of faith with the Powers that signed the Treaty at Berlin.* On this breach of faith is founded a policy which, as Mr. Montefiore points out, produces practical results in- jurious to every European country. What is far worse, this policy of intolerance does revolting injustice to a large body of defenceless people, and violates all the principles of civil and religious freedom which are supposed to prevail in civilised com- munities. But the greatest evil of all is that the ill-treatment of the Jews in Roumania, as elsewhere, perpetuates theological and racial hatreds which some thirty or forty years ago we all hoped had died away under the influence of enlightenment and humanity. The Dreyfus case has proved that such hopes were unfounded: it was the outward sign of a widespread moral disease, and warns us that every country is threatened with a fresh outbreak of the spirit of cruelty and persecution. The only way to avert this calamity is to resist strenuously every new manifestation of intolerance.—I am, Sir, &c., A. V. DICEY.
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