France And Foreign Relations

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 28 November 1938, Page 11

France And Foreign Relations

Notes on the News

“The Times” says that definite uneasiness in Anglo-French relations was inevitable as long as France had commitments in Eastern Europe, to which Britain was not, and could not, be a party, but in which in a moment she might reluctantly become involved through her commitments to France. The Paris correspondent of the “New York Times” expressed a view 12 months ago that is on “all fours” with “The Times’s” conclusion. He said: “If ever an object lesson was needed in the wisdom of avoiding foreign entanglements, it is being proved just now by France and her relations with other countries. She has treaties with Russia. Czechoslovakia, Yugoslovakia, and Rumania, but all of them are in reality liabilities rather than assets. “She has no treaty with Britain, the l uited States or Belgium, and yet it is on the goodwill and friendship of these three countries that she is depending more than on anything else to help her maintain her position and l>eaee. There is more than one highly placed Frenchman jnst now who is thinking that the policy of the good neighbour without any written word is far better than any treaty or text from which the spirit is departed. “I is not true, of course, of all these treaties which France has made ‘within the framework of the League of Nations’ in recent years for the preservation of peace that they become empty engagements without spiritual substance. but it is getting more and more true of the Franco-Soviet pact, among others.” “What is happening now i* that those !• renchmen who follow world movements closely and are not bound by p.ejudice are wondering whether that Franco-Russian treaty, meagre as it was, is uot a kind of handicap to a new and real step being made toward improving Franco German relations.”

House Of Rothschild

Ihree thousand donations, representing £42,000, have been received by tire London House of Rothschild in response to the non-sectarian appeal for •I ‘wish refugees issued by leaders of tin* British Jewry on November 18. Toward the close of the eighteenth century England was indisputably the most important commercial [tower in Europe, and the House of Rothschild "’as considered to have made an exceedingly clever move in arranging that one of its sons, and tlie most i talented one at that, should take up J his residence in that kingdom. Nathan had first settled in Manchester, the centre for the manufacture of all kinds of cloth, as he had long had business connexions with that city. In view of the numerous armies that had to be clothed, the cloth trade offered opportunities of making exceptional profits The considerable sum of money which he brought with him £-0,000 constituted a very respectJ| bit* capital sum in those days—gave him an assured position from the

start, though lie could not speak :• J word of English. Nathan came to Manchester, there- I fore*, not as a small tradesman, but as a fairly important representative of an established commercial firm on the 1 Continent, with a considerable sum of I money at his command. Being shrewd I and level-headed, he saw that profits I were made on the purchase of raw materials, on the issue of those materials for dying purposes, as well I as on the sale of the finished article, [ each of these activities in England being the province of a separate merchant. He determined to secure for himself the profit at each stage in the process. He did not confine himself to cloth. He bought everywhere, and anything that he thought was good and cheap. His capital doubled and 1 rebled. He left Manchester for London in 1804. and in 1800 applied for, and was granted, naturalization as a British subject. He was then only 20 years old. Ho married the daughter of a rich Jewish family, increasing not only his wealth but his power. From then on the business never looked back and the Rothschilds became a big power in England’s finance. Jews In England The Jews, said Mr. Meltzer, first went to England at about the time of William the Conqueror. But even in | England trouble arose, and in 1290 i they were expelled. They came back ' again under Cromwell, and were com- ! pletely emancipated in England a little ' more than 100 years ago. The first appearance of Jews in Eng- | land is said to have been due to Wii- j liam the Conqueror, who brought over i a Jewish colony from Rouen to London. They were special favourites of Wil- ! liam Rufus; under Henry they played j a less conspicuous part; hut in the next reign they were to be found in i most of the chief English towns. They \ formed, however, no part of the towns folk. The Jew was not a member of the State; lie was the King’s chattel, not j to he meddled with, for good or for evil, save at the King’s own bidding. Exempt from toll and tax and from i lie fines of justice, he had the means I of accumulating a hoard of weal.li which might indeed he seized at any j moment by an arbitrary act of the king, but which the king’s protection guarded with jealous care against all I other interference. When in 1290 Edward 1 banished all the Jews, more than 10,000 are said to | have left England; nor did they re- j appear till Cromwell connived at their return in 1054. The expulsion was made in compliance with, a demand made by Parliament four years before, when, “in one night, all the Jews in England were filing into prison, and would most likely have been expelled (here and then had thev ! not paid the King £12.000” [a tremendous sum in those days.] Referring to Cromwell’s permission for Jews to re-enter England, F. I*. Guizot says: “Cromwell . . . was able to overcome neither the arguments of the theologians, nor the jealousies j of the merchants, nor the prejudices of the indifferent (Against re-entry] ; and seeing that the conference was not likely to end as lie desired, he put an j end to its deliberations. Then, without granting the Jews the public estab- j lisliment which li'iey had solicited, be j authorized a certain number of them | to take up their residence in London, where they built a synagogue, pur- ! chased (In* land for a burial ground, and quietly commenced the formation i of a sort: of corporation, devoted to the Protector, on whose tolerance their safety depended.” I