“Of course,” he said, “your sense of proportion is shocked when any extreme measures are adopted, but, believe me, in this case it is necessary. The Jews are everywhere, and everywhere they claim the rights of citizenship. But they do not live as citizens: they retain their peculiar status; they claim the rights of the citizen and exceptional privileges of their own--in fact, their own laws. They wish to have the advantages of nationality without being a nation, without taking part in the functions of the State. We cannot tolerate this. The whole matter has been brought to the fore by the attitude of these so-called Christians, who are, I am obliged to say, extremely difficult to deal with: In the first place because they adopt the policy of passive resistance, against which it is so difficult to act, and in the second place because they are getting the women on their side--and you know what that means. I have no personal objection either to Jews or Christians. What one can’t tolerate is a secret society within the State which advocates and preaches neglect of the citizen’s duty to the State, the worthlessness of patriotism, and the utter non-existence of citizenship.” I said I quite understood this, but did not his Majesty agree with me in thinking that penal oppressions were rarely successful, and frequently defeated their own object. The Emperor replied that there was a great deal in what I said, but that he did not consider he was dealing with a national or universal movement, which had any element of duration in it, but with a particular fad which would soon pass out of fashion, as the majority of all sensible people were opposed to it.