So excessive is the agitation in Roumania, against the free
admis- sion of Jews to all the privileges of citizens ordered by the Treaty of Berlin, that the Government of Bucharest has submitted a Bill intended as a compromise. Under this proposal, Roumanian Jews will enjoy all civil and political rights, except that of possessing agricultural land in the interior, a clause intended to reassure the Boyars, who believe the Jews, if permitted to hold estates, will oust them all from their properties. The restriction, not in itself a sensible one, angers the Jewish Alli- ance, and it would be more expedient, if a compromise must be made, to emancipate the Jews completely by the Constitution, but add a clause enabling the Skuptsehina to pass an annual measure imposing the disabilities alleged to be unavoidable, Under that arrangement, the moment public opinion had ripened sufficiently, the disabling Bill would be allowed to expire, and the Jews would remain under the Constitution free. They are not exactly persecuted, as it is, but they are debarred from many trades, and insufficiently protected against mob violence, which everywhere in the East takes atrocious forms.
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