Yesterday week a deputation, composed of the Council of the
Anglo-Jewish Association, and headed by Baron Henry de- Worms, waited upon Lord Salisbury at the Foreign Office te urge that the 44th Article of the Treaty of Berlin, which secures to the Jews in Roumania equal rights with other- citizens, should be enforced. It was feared that the Rou- manian Government contemplated substituting for the full rights guaranteed to the Roumanian Jews by that article, some half-measure by which a few Jews only would be admitted to perfect civil and political rights, while the majority of the Roumanian Jews would be subjected to the uncertainties of a probationary period, and a com- plicated process for obtaining gradually their full citizen- ship. Lord Salisbury's reply to the deputation was given, he said, under strict reserves, the Roumanian Government being at present in a state of crisis, and informal propositions having been submitted to the European Powers, with which they were not satisfied. Great Britain was acting in the matter,. said Lord Salisbury, in perfect accord with Germany and France, and with Italy,—was acting as " one of an alliance," and not as a separate Power. He would not, then, compromise his allies by saying much at the present moment, but he would. only say that the political equilibrium of that part of the world was one of an unstable kind, and that Roumania would compromise her own future greatly if,. owing her existence, as she does, to the action of other Powers, she did not respect the Treaties which these other Powers had concluded. We wish Lord. Salisbury would oftener speak as " one of an alliance," instead of as the mere representative of "British interests ;" but consider- ing this position of his, it is not very easy to recognise the strict reserve for which he apologised. It is quite right to bring the bigotry of Roumania to reason on this matter ; but it would be difficult, we think, to give voice to diplomatic threats more explicit than Lord Salisbury's.
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