MR. PAYNE AND ALIEN ENEMIES

NZ Truth, Issue 578, 15 July 1916, Page 3

MR. PAYNE AND ALIEN ENEMIES

Dear "Truth,"— Tho letter m your ifSno of July 8, over- the signature "Let Truth Prevail, ' appears to bo the characteristic effusion of a typical Anti-Semite, but It is In ho way a roply to mlno (17/6/16), as must bo obvious to roost of your readers. The first portion la a marvel of Imaginative Inaccuracy, but as it does bear some slight relevance to tbe point raised by me, I will deal with it. In my letter I accused Mr. Payne of advocating a policy of anti-Semitism, but not m the restricted sense implied by your correspondent. In fact, m justice to Mr. ■payne, as far as. 1> know, he has never attacked Jews as Jews, although he has done bo when they have been of German or Austrian birth or parentage, In which case It has been the German or Austrian, arid not the Jew, that haa boen tho object of his venom. I used tho term to do«crlbc a policy of perso- j cution on tho ground of race or nationality, m thi» particular Instance the victims being those*, who had tho misfortune to bo born m the countries with which the Allies are at war. Mr. Payne, Judging from his recent address at the Choral Hall, Chrlstchurch, at which I was present, would go still further, and would victimise New Zealandern whose parents, or one of them, happened to bavo boon horn m "enemy" territory. However, lot it bo said to his credit, I boliovo his' public bark is worse than his privato bite, seeing that ho admits employing a German at a picture theatre, to which fact Mr. Nosworihy recently drew Detention In tho Houso. That wob the "ralson tl'etro" of my letter, from which your correspondent haa drawn mien extraordinary conclusions. And It hi thla discrepancy between Mr. Payno's public utu-nmees and hl« private uctlonsi which warrants my suggestion that h£ l« a demagogue, tho dictionary definition of which 19 "one who I cadH ■; the mub for personal end»." In other words, Mr. Payne has a political- axe to grind, and Hun-bait-ing la a meant* to that end. Now, as regards your correspondent's references to myself, of whom ho admits having no personal knowledge. First, lot mo Inform him that I did not Hay 1 was a Kusjilnn, iH'iti;; m fact British born, but

as I had written over my own slgna- | ture, which is Hebraic, 1 thought it ad- j visablti to make it clear that I had no i German or Austrian antecedents, and j that my sole object was to protest t agulnst the fomenting of race hatred ; towards individuals whoso only offence was ' that they belonged to nations whose Governments (not the peoples themselves) have a quarrel with the Allied Governments. Such a mental attitud* la doubtless incomprehensible to your correspondent, but thero must be many among your readers who can fully appreciate it The analogy drawn by your correspondent between kittons born In a fish shop and Jews is fallacious, not to soy childish. The Jews, or more correctly Hebrews, are not a nation, but a wide-spread race of varying degrees of ethnic purity, the members of which profess tho Judaic faith and constitute a distinct element of the, nations among whom they dwell. A tace, as any student of anthropolpgy knows, is a term applied to a group and indicating a community of descent A nation Is also a group of people or peoples, but it Is artiflciaV the component parts not necessarily having any community of origin, but living to- j gother under tho same laws and insti- 1 tutlonß, etc. A race may be split Into Jialf-a-dozen different nationalities, a nation may consist of as many different races. In conclusion, allow me to state that I am In no way Interested ! m the bolsterlng-up of "Flnancialism," Jewish or Gentile, and If tho article by Mr. Payne, to which your correspondent refers, was m advocacy of Stato Banking. 1 have no quarrel with it Nor am I related, so far as I know, to any financier. LJke most anti-Semites, he makes much of tho Hebrew financier and his Iniquities, but carefully ignores the fact that the same evils are prevalent In countries where there are no Jews, and would havo us believe that tho wholo race has conspired to get tho world into its mercenary clutches, war being on© of the results of lt« evil machinations. If this be true, may I ask how it Is that all the warring nations have Jewish soldiers, both conscript and volunteer; also that a very large proportion of the leaders of German and Austrian Socialism are of Jewish origin, and that among the rank and file, men and women of Hebrow blood are more than. proportionately represented? — Yours, etc., J. ABRAHAM. Chriatchurch. ;