The Wanganui Chronicle. "NULLA DIES SINE LINEA." TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1905. THE JEWS.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XLIX, Issue 12658, 21 November 1905, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. "NULLA DIES SINE LINEA." TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1905. THE JEWS.

A cable message from Capetown, r&portted in our yesterday's issue, intimated that a meeting of Jews held'in that city unanimously supported the movement in favour of an autonomous Jewish .State, without suzerainty. In view iof the various schemes which have been suggested for promoting Jewish colonisation in British territory this information ds certainly of interest. to colonial (readers. It 'has been pointed out that there are immense tracts of undeveloped land in the Empire, where thousands of unsettled Jews could be transplanted and left to realise the;r destiny. A Jewish territorial organisation, of which 'Mr Zangwill is president, has already been offered by Lord Lansdoivne just such ia tract 200 mike long," on the Uganda Railway, in South Africa, while Dr Max Nordau, a worthy compatriot of Mr Zangwill, supports the Jewish historic claim to Palestine, whera Lord Rothschild has already planted several small colonies with their appropriate industries. The Jews of ■Capetown evidently favour Dr Nordau's policy, as 'is evidenced by their disinclination to subject themselves to the suzerainty which, we take it, would be the inevitable consequence of the establishment of a Jewish State -within British dominions. One tihing appears to be oertain, and that is that the multitude

of Jews in Russia must be provided with another home. The frightful massacres of the past few weeks hare made it abundantly clear tihat the racial and religions differences of the Russians and the Jews are now beyond all hope of reconciliations * It would seem as if the traditional sentiment of the Russian people to-day: :s identical -with the antiSemitic hatred vtfhich Peter the Great bequeathed to his countrymen. " I had rather see (Moslems and heathens "within my empire than these knaves and cheats of Jews. They^muat be uprooted. There shall be neither trade" nor room for them inside .my borders, 'however hard they may strive for it." _ And if this is the traditional sentiment whaoh inspires the massacres of to-day,* it is easy to see why a Russian Government contrives them, and a leading Russian journalist, M.;O. iMenohikoffj of the " Novoe Vremya," dismisses them with the cynical remark that " they .show clearly, in face of the slackness (!) betrayed by the central powers, the people have taken upon themselves the solution of the problem. ... . 'If this vagrant tribe of pimps, smugglers, and usurers want to remain on Russian soil, let them renounce their nationality and their religion." The Melbourne " Age," in an article appealing for some sort of intervention on behalf of the persecuted peoples, argues that this admixture of religious fanaticism "with the racial and political prejudice -which can only be found in a semi-barbarous nation in the twentieth century is the outcome of the close association of the spiritual and temporal power which clothes the Czar with the sacro-sanot character of a Pope. If Jewish women are disembowelled, and Jewish children'torn limb from limb by a ferocious soldiery, it is not only 'because the historic conscience of the race necessarily makes them disloyal and unpatriotic subjects, but because they perform strange rites and address striange prayers in an unknown tongue to a God that is wot recognised by the Procurator-General. "In euoh circumstances." the " Age" continues, " the rules of Russia have felt themselves impelled by an irresistible' ohfigiaiion to persecute. In the struggle between Christianity and Paganism it was not the infamous Commodus and Elagabalus, but the pure and upright Marcus and Julian, -who were the fiercest and most implacable zealots in the cruel work. When we read of the frightful tortures inflicted in the 'Middle Ages upon one set' of heretics by another; when we remember the fiendish outrages perpetrated by the Spanish armies, in Holland and recall the fact that in Spain an auto de fe was one of the most imposing ceremonies of the -dominant church, we can see how the ingenuity of orthodox exegesis has always been equa' to the' task of selecting its • methods to suit its doctrines. All experience goes to show that racial differences in combination with theological have proved insurmountable factors in keeping people apart who are not without strong inducements to amalgamate. If the Jew is/jiarrowed in his sympathies and exclusive in" his ethics, it has to be: •admitted that the ostr.ic.sm '; to wii>eh he has; been subjected ny the world ißas helped to make him so. How could he live/cordially with a people who denied him the rights of citizenship, who plundered his goods, drove him from his 'home, prevented him from marrying whom he l.ked, made him wear a special garb and domiciled him in a special quarter, forbade Mm to use the same bath or employ the same physician, or even to enter the same bagnio with themselves, and when he was hanged for the piiblic amusement hanged him between two dogs with /his head downwards? -No Anglo-Saxon Jew, of our time at any rate, bas any reason to dread a reaction in this direction, though it is doubtless within the memory of Jews still living that an enlightened Christian minister like Dr Arnold, of Rugby, deprecated granting them the suffrage because he " could not understand the claim of Jewish strangers to become British citizens." In Russia, as we see, he is persecuted as he was in the days of Shylock and the Plantagenetsj in America he is occasionally boycotted; in France the mob within the last ten years broke the windows of his -most trusted representatives to the. cry of ' Down with tfce Jewish banker dogs'; and in Germiany anti-Semitio leagues a hundred thousand strong have been formed to drive,him out of the country with the connivance of statesmen like Bismarck; and when it was proposed to put a stained glass in the church of St. Thomas, at Leipsic, to the memory of (Moses Mendelssohn, the inhabitants rose up and stopped it-^and all because the Jews devoutly tried to realise the destiny assigned them by the great prophet of their nation, '-Ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves/ 1 and f buiid that the diet has agreed with them"; admirably.. That the Gentiles themselves object to the" part they play in tihe menu we have terrible evidence in the horrible scenes of carnage that are turning the most civilised cities of Russia into human shambles, and which the Russian Minister >of State, De Witte, has frankly confessed in the hearing of the whole worldthat the Czar and his Government are powerless to stop.'.' Under the British flag the Jews are accorded the full privileges of citizenship. They mingle -with us oh terms of equality, and a clean and healthy . public sentiment prohibits any unworthy discrimination on the grounds of -race or religion. Regarding the Jew, as we do, as a friend and neighbour, permitting him to live amongst us on the terms of the fullest equality and esteeming it an honour to know him as a tried and trusted personal friend, the average colonial is at a loss to oompre- - hend, the insensate hatred which has prompted the people of Russia, even in the dark 'hour of their own bitter troubles to rise up and slay the Jews. No wonder that the eons of Abraham cry aloud for a home that shall once again (be their own.