In connection with the Balkan complications of the last ten years, which form the overture to the present war, the Jewish organisations in Western Europe and America--chiefly the London Jewish Conjoint Committee--lost no opportunity of keeping the grievances of the Rumanian Jews before the Great Powers and of maintaining the liberties already won in South-Eastern Europe. The work has been of a more arduous and far-reaching character than the public suspect, and, although it has not achieved final success, it has been far from unfruitful. Of this work it is only possible to speak in a very summary way, as much of it is still confidential and all of it is directly related to negotiations still pending and necessarily belonging to the domain of what is invidiously called secret diplomacy. In 1908, on the occasion of the annexation of Bosnia and the Herzegovina by Austria-Hungary, the Conjoint Committee seized the opportunity of endeavouring to reopen the Rumano-Jewish Question. The annexation was a technical infraction of the Berlin Treaty and required the sanction of the Great Powers, for which probably a Conference would be held. The Conjoint Committee addressed to Sir Edward Grey a request that the scope of the proposed Conference should be extended to other infractions of the Treaty, and accompanied it with a review of the Rumano-Jewish Question, which constitutes one of the most important State Papers produced in the Jewish community.[46] Unfortunately the projected Conference was abandoned, but Sir Edward Grey was so impressed by the statements of the Conjoint Committee that he ordered an investigation to be made, and he afterwards formally avowed, in a letter to the Conjoint Committee, that the charges made in the Memorandum were accurate and that Rumania had not fulfilled her Treaty pledges. This perhaps may not seem to be a great gain, but those who know anything of international politics will be aware that an official statement of this kind has considerable practical importance, and, indeed, it was not lost upon the Cabinet of Bucharest.