Great Britain -- Foreign relations -- Russia; Russia -- Foreign relations -- Great Britain; Russia -- Social life and customs
"I adjourn the further discussion of the Jewish question until you have
had, let us say, ten per cent of the immigration which these meetings
will invite."
In a little more than the ten years I mentioned the Aliens Act had
become law!
The Guildhall meeting was held on December 10th, 1890, and the Memorial
to the Russian Emperor was carried without a dissentient voice and duly
sent to Petrograd. In February the Russian Ambassador handed the
Memorial to Lord Salisbury {116} with a request that he would have the
kindness to return it to the Lord Mayor unanswered; as a matter of fact
it had not even been read in Russia.
I need scarcely add that I was assailed by Jews from every quarter as
"one whom the whole Jewish race recognised as their bitterest enemy,"
and yet all I said in effect was that if the Montagues hate the
Capulets, and the Capulets the Montagues, then all the Acts of
Parliament will not ensure peace. And yet we women are called
unreasonable.
I will quote again from one of my letters to _The Times_, for although
written thirty-four years ago, I see no reason to change so much as a
word.
"The Jewish question is not entirely religious, but social. Englishmen
ought to understand it, for they have to deal very often with the same
difficulties. An Anglo-Indian member of Parliament, of great eminence
as an administrator in Bengal, was kind enough to lend me the other day
an interesting Blue Book on the riots in the Deccan, from which I learn
that the most innocent agriculturists in India have repeatedly attacked
the Hindoo money-lenders, exactly as our peasants attacked the Jews,
and for the same reason. And how did you deal with this difficulty?
Not by increasing the licence, but by restricting the opportunities of
the Hindoo money-lenders; and as you do it with some success, your
example can be useful indeed. In short, you do as General Ignatieff
proposed to do in his famous rescript which you abuse so much. Seek to
remove the cause of the disorder by protecting the peasants against the
extortionate practices of the village usurers."
{117}
In those days I was not lazy and wrote as well as I could; but how
difficult people were to convince. They seemed unable to distinguish
between a Yiddish-speaking Jew, who had been domiciled in Russia, and a
true Russian, and nothing can be more insulting to a Russian than this.
The Yiddish jargon is not used by men of the Russian race, who have at
their command so rich, so musical, so melodious a language as that
which Pouschkin, Tourguenieff, and Tolstoy found an adequate instrument
for the expression of their genius.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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