“As long as you remain an idealist, my dear boy, you will never be able to take a dispassionate view of the matter,” he returned, with deliberation. “It is that sentimental clinging to tradition which is your people’s bane. My standpoint, however, is simply this: A Jewish element in a nation is a desirable and almost an essential thing to have, but as soon as that element preponderates—as now—it becomes a danger to the State. Therefore it must be kept within bounds, and those Jews who refuse to conform to the customs of this country must be weeded out. The only way out of the present crisis, it seems to me, is absorption, for as long as you Jews remain separatists you have no right to the full privileges of the land of your adoption. Therefore the Government has thought fit to take stringent measures to bring about this result; and although I admit that those measures seem unnecessarily harsh, I know that they are for the benefit of the nation at large. Let those Jews who cherish the scriptural tradition and maintain their clannishness return to the land of their fathers. There must be either assimilation or a separate Jewish state.” “And you think this justifies the persecution of two hundred and seventy thousand people, the majority of whom are loyal subjects of the King?” The Minister frowned. “I do not call it persecution when the alternative is such a reasonable one,” he replied. “It is not as if we were compelling you to become Christians. You can retain your religious belief in the Absolute Unity by declaring yourselves Theists or Monotheists instead of Jews; the change is only in the name.” “But we are to give up our customs and our Sabbath, our fasts and our feasts, and everything which throughout the centuries has made Judaism the bond of union twixt Jew and Jew!” He sighed, knowing that they might argue till Doomsday, and yet remain as far asunder as the poles. Mr. Lawson Holmes was well informed concerning the Jews, and indeed possessed more knowledge than the average Gentile; but he was not capable of putting himself in the position of a Jew; he could not understand the racial claim.