IN DEFENCE OF THE JEWS

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21826, 4 July 1936, Page 20

IN DEFENCE OF THE JEWS

TO THE EDITOS OF THE PRESS, Sir,—l was very sorry to see in “The Press” a few days ago a letter by K. A. Lovell-Smith, in which an attack was made upon the Jews in another of his tirades against capitalists. From what he has written before I should have thought that Mr Lovell-Smith would have known that when national capitalists find that they have got to the end of their legal tether they must, if they wish to survive in the struggle for economic pasturage, resort to foul means, and that in the past they have found themselves able to preserve their businesses and markets, and to obtain new ones, by persuading governments and peoples to destroy those of their rivals who happen to be of foregin blood or extraction, particularly those of the Jewish race. Many people can still be bluffed by antiSemitic propaganda; but it surprised me to discover that Mr Lovell-Smith had been beguiled by it to the' extent that he would bowl for the “anti team. It is long since time that everyone belonging to the wage and salaryearning class realised that whatever oppression and injustice he suffers are not caused - necessarily by foreigners but by financiers ruling by the capitalist system. In our own empire, for instance, our oppressors, for by far the greater part, are of our own nationality. In Italy the oppressors ore Italian; in Japan, Japanese; in Germany, Germans; in America, Americans; and so on. True it is that in these countries, as in others, there is oppression by people of other nationalities, but largely because of the international workings of the wealthiest and most powerful of the capitalists. The accusation that the worst capitalist combines are controlled by Jews is a lie intended to conceal the real oppressors. That there are Jews in the oppressing class none can deny, but that Jews exclusively, or for the greater part, comprise it, no sensible person would for a moment believe. What has happened in Germany is typical of the tactics of national capitalists. The Jews were accused, and without anything approaching fair trial, were found guilty of being responsible for the Fatherland’s troubles. And now, after the pogrom the people are worse off than before, still under brutal rulers of their own nationality chiefly. But it is not because they, are German, French, English, Italian, < or Chinese that capitalist rulers become brutal, but because capitalism

breeds brutality, by which it is also sustained. —Yours, etc., i t July 3, 1936. c -