In making this proposal we are chiefly actuated by a desire to obviate as far as may be possible a repetition in the territories annexed to the Kingdom of Roumania of the cruel evasion of Article XLIV of the Treaty of Berlin by which the native Jews of Roumania have hitherto been deprived of their civil and political rights. It will be within your recollection that this evasion was contrived by arbitrarily declaring all the native Jews to be _ipso facto_ foreigners and by submitting them in that capacity to harsh disabilities which, while apparently applicable to all foreigners, in reality only affected them. We are further impressed by the fact that Bulgaria, Servia and Greece have each acquired a considerable addition to their Jewish populations and, although we acknowledge most gratefully the fidelity with which those States have hitherto performed their obligation in regard to civil and religious liberty, we think it wise, in view of the evil precedent created by Roumania, to strengthen the hands of their rulers and statesmen by extending those obligations in the form we now suggest to the territories they have recently acquired. Our aims will, we think, be attained by the formula suggested above without in any way enlarging the scope of the original stipulations, as those stipulations were understood by their authors and the majority of the States to which they have hitherto been applied. It is to be noted that a similar amendment of Article XLIV was actually suggested by the Italian representative, the Count de Launay, at the Berlin Congress, with a view to obviating the very evasion of the Treaty subsequently effected by Roumania, and it was only rejected by the Congress because it was desired to adopt an identic formula for all the Balkan States and because it was felt that the formula as it stood "paraît de nature à concilier tous les intérêts en cause." (British and Foreign State Papers, vol. lxix. pp. 1058-9.) Now that it has been shown that this anticipation was illusory, we venture to hope that His Majesty's Government may see their way to realize the intentions of the Berlin Congress by suggesting to the Great Powers the amendment we have proposed, and that their recognition of the territorial changes in the Near East will be made conditional upon its adoption by all the annexing States, and more particularly by the Kingdom of Roumania. We are, Sir, Your most obedient humble servants, DAVID L. ALEXANDER, _President, London Committee of Deputies of British Jews_, CLAUDE G. MONTEFIORE, _President, Anglo-Jewish Association_. TO THE RIGHT HON. SIR EDWARD GREY, BART., M.P., K.G., ETC., ETC., ETC. * * * * * (For the humanitarian interventions on behalf of the Jews of Morocco see "The Conferences of Madrid and Algeciras," _infra_, pp. 88-99.) (_i_) THE JEWISH QUESTION AND THE BALANCE OF POWER (1890 AND 1906).