LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
[Letters of the length of one of our leading paragraphs are often more read, and therefore more effective, than those which fill treble the space.; THE JEWISH PERIL.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR.") Sm.,=-The alleged parallel to the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," quoted by " Britain for Britons " from Gougenot des Mousseaux, affords a striking illustration of the worthlessness of all such evidence. There is absolutely nothing Jewish about the document. It is avowedly Masonic, or rather pseudo- Masonic, and it no doubt emanated from one of the many schismatic lodges on the Continent which, as Robison—not Robinson—has luminously shown, gradually drifted into Atheism and Anarchism towards the end of the eighteenth century. Now how is this document made to serve the anti- Semitic purposes of Gougenot des Mousseaux? In two ways. He tells us (1) that the author was a Jew, and (2) that the reference in its concluding sentence to " the reconstruction of the Temple of Solomon" is a symbolic phrase meaning "the reconstruction of the Judaic power on the ruins of Christen- dom." There is absolutely no foundation for either of these statements, and no one knew. this better than Gougenot himself, for he actually admits (p. 343) that he knows nothing of the author beyond his pseudonym of " Piccolo-Tigre," while in regard to the allusion to the Temple of Solomon he says that its " true sense is only known to the high and invisible hierarchy of the Temple and of Freemasonry composed of Jewish Cabalists " (p. 344, not 342). How he, notwithstanding, manages to pierce these two mysteries he does not tell us, but we have elsewhere plenty of evidence of the alacrity with which he jumps to unwarranted conclusions. Thus, for example, on p. -343, he quotes with approval from a German source, and as confirming his own knowledge, a statement to the effect that in 1862 there were two Jewish Lodges in London, analogous to the Lodge of Piccolo-Tigre, which were under the protection of " the Grand Master Palmerston! "
This talk about the symbolical meaning of the " Reconstruc- tion of the Temple of Solomon " is, in short, the most childish nonsense, as any Freemason will tell you. But the great joke is this : Robison, who is the Chief Oracle of all this protocol- mongering, -has himself dealt with the -question in Chapter I. of his Proofs of a Conspiracy (London 1797), and he knows nothing either of the esoteric interpretation advanced by Gougenot or of its Jewish origin and significance. On the contrary, he attributes the interest shown by Freemasons in the Reconstruction of the Temple to the -influence exercised by the Jesuits and the Jacobites in the early Lodges (pp. 30, 38, 39, and 138). That is to say, that this symbolism of a Jewish triumph over Christianity is really a Christian invention. Whether he is right or wrong I will not pretend to say, but at any rate his authority is as good as that of Gougenot des Mousseaux.
May I add that while repudiating all Jewish significance or even relevance for the alleged document of the mysterious Piccolo-Tigre I am willing to admit—and, indeed, do so quite shamelessly—that we Jews do pray for the rebuilding of the Temple? But it is- not -necessary to go to the Italian Masonic lodges of a century ago for proofs of this horrible crime. They will, indeed, be found in a book published, curiously enough, by the publishers of the Jewish Peril, Messrs. Eyre and Spottis- woode. Its title is The Authorised Daily Prayer Book of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Empire. I com- mend it to the tender mercies of "Britain for Britons."—
I am, Sir, &c., Lease Wour. 2 Verulant Buildings, Gray's Inn Road, London, 1V.C. 1.
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