LORD READING-—VICEROY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16360, 24 February 1921, Page 6

LORD READING-—VICEROY.

THE SUCCESS OF A BAD BOY THE DAZZLiNC SIR RUFUS. [From Orr. Corresfomernt.] LONDON. January 12. Nothing strikes a visitor to tho Old Country from the dominions more than to find "that the Jewish comm unity lives a life so much apart from the rest as it does, and to find that thei-e is actually a very virile, or at least- vociferous anti-Semitic Press of which the “ Morning Post ” and tho “Spectator ’’ are the chief organs- But that visiter's amazement will be as naught when he finds AJ’ha’t exists rn France, where the anti-Semitic feeling runs so high as to be almost ludicrous —during the Peace Conference everything from tho most obscure to the ’ largest international agreement being, so said the alarmist, adversely affected to French interests by Jewish machinations. Tt is therefore no small thing that Lord Reading, better known as Sir Rufus Isaacs, should have accepted the post, so long a-begging, of X iceroy of India. His career in this great office will provide an acid test of Jewish capacity. Whether or no when he is in power he will embodv the “ Morning Post “ bogey of the Jew as a world dominator, he may of course prove his own powers equal to a more difficult task than has yet been before him, without- in any* wav making his race world dominant. For does not Israel Zan gw ill himself say in his new book, “ The Voice of Jerusalem ” (Heinemann). “But T can readily understand that the Gentile, seeing himself surrounded or even swamped on every hand by famous Jewish figures, should imagipe a menacing cohesion, when there is no more solidarity among the celebrities than among 'those at Madame Tussaud's.” And Mr Zangwill adds bitterly: “X suppose nobody is in a better position than J to give the lie to the charge of Jewish solidarity. T. whose life hns been half wasted in tho effort to bring it about, who for twentv years toiled t-o unite the Jewish millionaires in the quest for a Jewish State, and whose supreme triumph lay in assembling three of ’them, a British, a Rnsshm. and :ui American, in one cominittoeroom to promote- emigration from a Jewish centre!” Mr Zangwill is not always bitter and one can almost believe lie was envisaging the dominions when he wrote : “ The. modern Jew is a pro-Christian. only too eager to admire the ideals of whatever nations he lives amid, only too uncritical. There can be little doubt, thorefoTe. that were the Jewleft to himself and given a free run and free elbow-room he would in any country immune from the influxes of Jews he practically merged with his environment in the course of a few generations. For this consummation, however, Christendom is too unchristian to wait.” With the advent of Lord Rending to so high a position, with the future of India in his care, some answers must become plain to the questioning of Jewish influence. Let us see what Lord Reading’s life has been. Isaacs Secundus. you will go to the devil,” was the oft-repeated prophecy of his harassed schoolmaster, which Isaacs Secundiis„ fulfilled by going to the “ Devil’s Own ” —in other words, the Bar. Before this adventure was taken in 1887 he had made two successful casts for fortune. He had run away to sea and spent a long, hard voyage “'before the mast.” He once told a Welsh gathering that be made the acquaintance of Wales as a sailor at Penarth Dock. He sailed to Rio. and there he shovelled out the coal which had come from Wales. His next adventure was on the Stock Exchange, where h© acquired a great deal of experience and very little money. Then he went to the Bar and found his vocation. His most impassioned address, the lawyers say, was his defence of Bob Sievier, who was charged at the Old Bailey with blackmailing Mr Jack Joel. He secured the acquittal of his client amid tremendous applause. Probably Air Rufus Isaacs’s most wonderful cross-examination was that of Whitaker Wright, when that hold financier gave evidence at his own trial in January, 1904. Here his old experience of the Stock Exchange served him well, and the man who had mesmerised hundreds of shareholders with the glittering prospects of. his companies was literally turned inside out by his searching questioner, suave hut deadly. _ His appointment as Lord Chief Justice in 1914 was so grout a break with precedent that he told the Maccabeans he had been astounded at the extraordinary interest it had excited in the Jewish community throughout the whole world. Lord Reading is indeed the champion precedent-smasher of his age—the first Chief Justice to leave his Court to become an Ambassador, the first Lord Chief since the office was created to relinquish it in life. Coleridge, Russell, Alverton, that majestic procession of “ Chiefs ” clung to to their latest breath : now “ Rufus ” has given up that high estate for a still more trying and perilous office