One hundred years ago
A GREAT meeting was held in the Guildhall on Wednesday to express sympathy with Jews under the renewed persecution of their race in Russia. The meeting had the approval of a great number of dignitaries, including Car- dinal Manning, who clearly does not endorse the proceedings of the Inquisi- tion in Spain, and the first speech was made by the Duke of Westminster. He gave a temperate but striking descrip- tion of the increasing severity of the Laws against Russian Jews, whose num- bers, he said, "exceeded those of the whole people of Scotland," and moved that their treatment was deeply to be deplored, as contrary to the principle of religious freedom. He was followed by the Bishop of Ripon, who, in an elo- quent but much too lengthy discourse, maintained that the law of Christ ought to be the law of the world; and by the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes, who satirised Madame Novikoff for defending the persecution, and writing about the great power of Russia, with her two millions of soldiers. The best speech, perhaps, was the short one of the Lord Mayor, in which he justified his presence in the meeting as the descendant of a Huguenot driven out by a persecution akin to that from which the Jews are at present suffering. That — the failure of persecution to produce anything but hatred — seems to us the argument which will most affect the rulers of Russia, who do not care much about creeds, but are carrying out a policy of "Russifying Russia." Jews, if left alone, would be the most Russian of all Rus- sians, it being their speciality to ex- aggerate slightly the patriotism of every nation with which they dwell.
The Spectator, 13 December 1890
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