Part 7

As for the Vatican, it must be remembered first of all that the Protestant Government of Germany has recognised long ago the full importance of the Holy See for the defence of the traditional foundations of European culture. While in its internal policy, it is leaning on the Catholic Centre-party, it has necessarily arrived at a friendly accord with the Pope in its foreign policy as well. As for Russia, the friendly assistance of the Vatican might likewise prove to be of supreme importance just in the sense indicated above. Even apart from the authoritative influence of the Holy See, through the medium of the local clergy, especially in our Polish affairs--in this respect, the latest Encyclical of the Pope to the Bishops of Poland presents a significant step in meeting the wishes of the Russian Government--the Vatican could render us an invaluable service by communicating matter-of-fact data on the dissolving Jewish freemasonry organisation and its branches, whose threads converge in Paris--an organisation about which our Government is unfortunately but little informed, whereas the Vatican is sure to watch its activity in the most attentive manner.

As for Germany, on the other hand, any further approach of its Government towards Russia--and one of a still closer nature than the agreement founded on the Protocol of March 1st, 1904, on combating Anarchism--would meet with unqualified sympathy at Berlin, since it cannot be overlooked that, next to Russia, Germany is undoubtedly the first State that will have to sustain the struggle with the Social-Revolutionary party. Both the Government and Society in Germany already take note at the present moment with the greatest apprehension of the indubitable effect of the Russian events on the Social-Democratic and Labour question, not to mention the movement of specific hostility to the Government in the Provinces of Prussian Poland.

Indeed, the West-European Socialists of various nationalities do not consider it any longer necessary to make a secret of their intention to inaugurate in this very month of January 1906, a movement hostile to the Government of Germany--which is to reach its highest development on the 1st of May 1906--and has already started it in Prussia and in Saxony with the self-same watchword of "Universal Suffrage." It could hardly be doubted that behind this movement--which they intend to organise, in accordance with the resolutions passed by the Socialist Congresses held at Jena and Breslau, by the same means as in Russia--there stand in reality the above indicated international aims and considerations of principle, that is to say, the same anti-Christian and anti-monarchical factors which had likewise been and are still in operation in the Russian revolutionary movement. At any rate, according to an observation by the _Deutsche Tageszeitung_, which has made it its special aim to organise the fight against the impending general European revolution, the more candid publicists of Social-Revolutionary tendencies are already expressing unceremoniously their hope that the Russian movement of hostility to the Government only presents a prelude to that general European upheaval which, among other things, is to destroy utterly the monarchical order of contemporary Europe. When one places oneself on this standpoint, one cannot help perceiving in everything said above nothing else but partial manifestations of a general revolutionary scheme the menace of which is not confined to Russia, and which, according to the formula of the well-known Liebknecht, consists essentially in realising a Republic in politics, Socialism in economics, and Atheism in the domain of religion.

In view of the considerations set forth above, no doubt can remain as to the absolute necessity of a confidential and sincere exchange of views on our part, in the sense indicated above, with the leading spheres both at Berlin and Rome. It could become the foundation of a most useful joint action, first, for the purpose of organising a vigilant supervision, and then also for an active joint struggle against the common foe of the Christian and monarchical order of Europe. As a first step in the said direction, and for the purpose of elucidating the main principles for a future programme of joint action, it seems to be desirable to confine ourselves for the present to a quite confidential exchange of views with the German Government.

(Signed) COUNT LAMSDORF.

Negotiations must be entered into _immediately_. } I share entirely the opinions herein expressed. } Endorsement in the } Tsar's handwriting. TSARSKOYE SELO, } _January 3rd (O.S.) 1906_. }

(Translated from the Russian text in vol. vi. of "Secret Documents," published by the Soviet Commission of Foreign Affairs.)

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NOTES.

[A] _Supra_, p. 56 (note).

[B] How these pogroms were organised by the Russian Secret Police will be found described from authentic documents in Semenoff: _The Russian Government and the Massacres_.

[C] This is not quite accurate. The object of the Committee was to assist the Self-Defence groups of Russian Jews in resisting the pogroms. No arms were exported to Russia, as the groups in question, and indeed the Russian Revolutionists themselves, found it quite easy to purchase arms from the Imperial Russian magazines.

[D] This also is quite untrue, as the published accounts of the Funds show.

[E] Freemasons will be able to judge of the accuracy of this statement. It will suffice to say here that it is as untrue as it is ludicrous. The same remark applies to the absurd reference to the Alliance Israélite.

[F] This is clearly a reference to the Bjoerkoe interview and shows that M. Izvolsky was in error when he stated that the Agreement resulting from the interview was disapproved by Count Lamsdorf. (See interview with M. Izvolsky in _Le Temps_, September 15, 1917.)

III. INTERVENTIONS BY RIGHT.

(_a_) STATUS OF JEWS IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES.

Not all the diplomatic interventions on behalf of Jews have proceeded on humanitarian grounds. Through the political assimilation of the Jews with the populations among whom they dwell, and more particularly through their emancipation in the various countries of Western Europe and America, they have acquired the same rights in foreign countries under International Law and treaties as their Christian fellow-citizens. Unfortunately this has not been universally recognised, and it has frequently happened that, when they travelled into countries where Jewish disabilities still lingered, they were held liable as Jews to ill-treatment from which their Christian fellow-countrymen were free. The question of the legality of this ill-treatment arose at an early date.

In 1556, the Jews in the Papal States suffered a terrible persecution at the hands of the fanatical Pope Paul IV. This culminated in the imprisonment of all the Marranos or Crypto Jews of Ancona, and their sentence to the stake. At that time the most influential Jews in Europe were the Mendes or Nasi Family of Portugal and the Low Countries, the head of which was the famous Donna Gracia Nasi. Her son-in-law, who afterwards became Duke of Naxos in the service of the Porte, for whom he conquered Cyprus, was the Rothschild as well as the Disraeli of his day.[62] The Italian Jews sent piteous appeals to Donna Gracia, who was then settled in Constantinople. She at once addressed herself to the reigning Sultan, Solyman the Magnificent, and entreated his intervention, on the ground that the Marrano Jews in Ancona were for the most part Turkish subjects. The appeal was well conceived, for the Sultan was outraged by the idea that subjects of his could be maltreated by a foreign potentate. He promptly responded (March 9, 1556) by sending an ultimatum to the Pope, demanding the immediate release of his unjustly accused lieges, under pain of reprisals on the foreign Christians within his own dominions.[63] The Turk in those days was not in the habit of treating Christian States with an excess of ceremony, and the Pope realised the wisdom of complying with the ultimatum. He revenged himself, however, by burning those of the prisoners who could not be shown to be Turkish subjects.[64]

This incident is of peculiar interest for its bearing on the still much debated question of the political status of Jews in the lands of their "Dispersion." The Turkish Jews in 1556 seem to have had no doubt that they were full nationals of the Ottoman Porte and as such entitled to the protection of the Turkish Sultan. The precedent, however, was far from decisive. In other circumstances other views have prevailed. Thus in 1655, when the Commonwealth declared war on Spain, and an order was issued for the confiscation of the property of Spaniards in England, some of the Spanish Crypto Jews, then resident in London, appealed against the order on the ground that their national status was that of Jews and not that of Spaniards. This plea was allowed by the Admiralty Commissioners, to whom it was referred, and they discharged the orders made against the appellants.[65]

The question slumbered for a century and a half, and when it reappeared the Turk was again on the side of the light. In 1815, there was a dispute on this subject between Austria and Turkey. At that time the Jews of Turkey were treated better than the Jews of Austria. Austria applied to Turkish Jews visiting her territories the disabilities imposed upon her own Jews. Turkey protested on the ground that, according to the treaties--mainly the Treaty of Carlowitz--in force between the two powers, Austria had no right to make any distinction between Turkish Jews and other subjects of the Ottoman Porte. This contention was held to be valid by the Austrian Government, and the incident was terminated by the issue of an instruction to the police of Lower Austria, where the disabilities complained of were in force, ordering them to treat all Turkish subjects alike without distinction of race or creed.

The Treaty of Carlowitz by which this case was governed left very little option to the Austrian Government,[66] inasmuch as the reciprocity for which it stipulated was not based, as in other treaties, on what is known as "National treatment," that is to say that the nationals of each contracting party visiting the territories of the other shall be treated on the same footing as the nationals of the territories they visit. The reason, no doubt, was that the racial and religious heterogeneity of both Empires, and the differential treatment to which it gave rise in their respective internal administrations, could not be recognised internationally without grave risk of friction and controversy. The lesson was not lost on other States, especially those which desired to maintain their differential treatment of Jews as against the doctrine of undenominational Nationality which was chiefly championed by France. The result was a strengthening of the "National treatment" clause of commercial treaties, and this, with the progress of religious liberty, led to a succession of fresh international disputes.

For many years, curiously enough, the chief offender was the democratic Swiss Confederation, the Federal constitution of which was exclusively Christian, while the Cantonal legislation was in many cases frankly and even aggressively anti-Semitic. Until 1827 the Swiss Commercial Treaties contained no hint of religious differentiation, but in that year, availing themselves of the reactionary and clerical sympathies of the government of Charles X, the Federal Authorities negotiated a Treaty with France containing a "National treatment" clause, under which the powers of the separate Cantons to deal as they pleased with Jews were, in effect, reserved. But this was not all. Lest the clause should be misinterpreted, the French Minister at Berne was authorised to address a secret Note to the President of the Swiss Diet acknowledging that it implied the desired restriction, on "the Jewish subjects of the King."[67] The transaction was obviously one which could not stand the light of the Revolution of 1830, and when three years later the Government of the Canton of Basle applied the Treaty in all its rigour to French Jews, the Duc de Broglie, then French Minister for Foreign Affairs, issued an Ordinance suspending the operation of the Treaty in regard to the offending Canton, and followed this up by severing diplomatic relations and by placing a military cordon on the frontier.[68] The King himself approved the action of his Minister in an energetic speech to a deputation of the Consistoire Israélite. However, in 1835 the Ordinance was withdrawn, and until 1850 the peace was more or less preserved by a tacit _modus vivendi_.

The resistance of France was rendered difficult, partly by perplexities of general politics, but more immediately by the fact that the question was a larger one than it had at first appeared. In February 1840 a French Jew had been refused a _permis de séjour_ by the police of Dresden on the ground that Jews were not permitted to reside in the city. The case was precisely similar to that of Switzerland, and M. Guizot, who was then Foreign Minister, hesitated to take up a strong attitude as he was afraid that the precedent might involve him in complications with other countries.[69] Nevertheless, French public opinion was aroused, and the Chamber, after a lively debate, called upon the Government to make suitable representations to Saxony.[70] In 1850 a Commercial Treaty between the United States and Switzerland was signed at Berne, but the American Senate, on the advice of the President, refused to ratify it because it discriminated against non-Christians.[71] This was followed almost immediately by a revival of the anti-Semitic activity of the Basle police, chiefly at the expense of French Jews resident in the Canton. The French Government again protested energetically and insisted on the withdrawal of the police measures. The demand was sulkily complied with, the Cantonal Government reserving what they called "the principle."[72]

In 1855 a new phase of the conflict was opened by the negotiation of two further Commercial Treaties with Switzerland--one by Great Britain and the other by the United States--in both of which the invidious reservations, substantially as in the French Treaty of 1827, were retained.[73] Some mystery attaches to the circumstances in which these treaties were signed and ratified,[74] but the probable explanation is that the Swiss negotiators promised in effect that there should be no discrimination. This conjecture is confirmed by the action of the Federal Assembly in the following year, in proposing a modification of the Constitution by which equal rights should be accorded to the Jews in all the Cantons. Unfortunately not all the Cantons agreed,[75] and in 1857 American public opinion became much excited at the discovery that in the Canton of Neufchatel American citizens of the Jewish faith could not be protected by American passports.[76] From this time until 1861 the United States took the place of France as the champion of Religious Liberty in Switzerland, and was strongly supported by Great Britain.[77] Her efforts, however, were not successful, and it was still reserved for France to settle the question.

The opportunity presented itself when in the early sixties, under the influence of Cobden and Chevalier, France denounced all her Commercial Treaties. In negotiating the new Treaty with Switzerland she resolutely set her face against all discriminations, or possibilities of discrimination, between French citizens on the score of religion. The result was that she obtained in her new Treaty (June 30, 1864) a form of article without precedent in instruments of the kind.[78] In place of "National treatment," French citizens in Switzerland "without distinction of creed" were assured the same treatment as was accorded to "Christians."[79] This striking victory was speedily followed by the abolition of all Jewish disabilities throughout the Confederation.[80]

A series of more formidable cases of the same kind arose at a later period out of the disabilities imposed on Jews in Russia. The Powers mainly affected were the United States and Great Britain. Both had Treaties of Commerce with Russia, the American Treaty having been concluded in 1832 and the British in 1859. Both Treaties contained, in substantially the same form, articles guaranteeing reciprocal "National treatment" to the subjects of the High Contracting parties. There is, however, an extraordinary contrast in the interpretation of these Treaties by the British and American Governments respectively.

The question first came up for consideration in 1862. Certain British Jews resident in Warsaw complained that the disabilities imposed upon native Jews were also imposed upon them, and they appealed to Her Majesty's Government for protection. Lord John Russell held that the articles of the Treaty of 1859, by which British subjects in Russia and Russian subjects in England were to be treated on an equal footing with the nationals of those countries, did not mean that British Jews in Russia should be treated as British subjects, but that they should only have equal treatment with their oppressed co-religionists. He accordingly declined to seek any relief for the petitioners.[81] The case gave rise to no controversy, not only because the British and Russian Governments were at one in their interpretation of the Treaty, but because the facts were not made public at the time. It proved, however, a fatal and humiliating precedent. In 1880 a terrible era of persecution was inaugurated for the Jews of Russia, and it soon reacted on their foreign brethren visiting the country. Towards the end of the year a naturalised British Jew named Lewisohn was expelled from St. Petersburg because he was a Jew, and he invoked the protection of his Government. Lord Granville, who was then Foreign Secretary, was at first disposed to regard the expulsion as a violation of the Treaty,[82] but later on he became acquainted with the precedent of 1862, and he declined to depart from it.[83] In 1890, at the instance of the Jewish Conjoint Committee, Lord Salisbury submitted the question to the Law Officers of the Crown, with the result that the precedent set by Lord John Russell was confirmed on its merits and not--as in the case of Lord Granville--_quâ_ precedent only.[84] The last occasion on which an effort was made to obtain a reversal of this decision was in 1912. The Conjoint Committee addressed to the Secretary of State, Sir Edward Grey, an elaborate Memorandum reviewing the history and legal aspects of the question.[85] The reply was in effect a reaffirmation of the previous decisions, but the grounds on which it was rested were different. Sir Edward Grey did not discuss the reasonableness of the established interpretation, but he pleaded that any departure from it would only lead to the termination of the Treaty, and that this would serve neither British nor Jewish interests.[86]

The dispute with the United States pursued a very different course. In its earliest stages it was dealt with by minor diplomatic and consular officials very much in the spirit of Lord John Russell,[87] but when in 1880 the Russian Government began to expel American Jews from St. Petersburg, the question was taken in hand by the Secretary of State as one of gravity. It was at once recognised that a religious discrimination between American citizens could not be tolerated in any American Treaty. This was quite apart from the question of the legal interpretation of the Treaty of 1832.[88] That question, however, was dealt with vigorously by Mr. Blaine in July 1881. He took the broad view that the intention of the United States in 1832 was not, and could not have been, that which the Russian Government read into the Treaty, that the Russian interpretation was indefensible on moral grounds, and that on such questions local law cannot be permitted to override the express terms of a Treaty.[89] On this basis the United States patiently sought a reversal of the Russian view, but without success. The fight lasted thirty years. Eventually American public opinion became agitated, an organised movement for the termination of the obnoxious treaty was set on foot, and in December 1911 the House of Representatives at Washington sent a strongly worded joint resolution to the Senate declaring that Russia had violated the Treaty and calling upon the President to denounce it. The Russian Ambassador in Washington expressed official disapproval of the resolution, but President Taft acted upon it without waiting for the Senate, and denounced the Treaty on December 15. Thereupon the Senate contented itself with a joint resolution approving the action of the President.[90]

The question of the status of Jews in foreign lands has also arisen in Palestine and Morocco. In 1882 the Turkish Government, fearing a Zionist propaganda, prohibited the settlement of foreign Jews in the Holy Land. The United States protested, and in 1887 and 1888 similar action was taken by Great Britain and France. In the following year the restriction was removed.[91] In the case of Morocco, Great Britain solved the question in advance by stipulating in her Treaty with that country, negotiated in 1855, that her Christian, Mohammedan, and Jewish subjects visiting and residing in Morocco should be treated on an equal footing.[92]

DOCUMENTS.

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ART. XIV.--TREATY OF CARLOWITZ BETWEEN THE EMPEROR AND THE GRAND SULTAN, _Jan. 26, 1699_.[93]

XIV. Trade shall be free for the Subjects of both Partys, in all the Kingdoms and Dominions of both Empires, according to the antient sacred Capitulations. And that it may be carry'd on by both Partys with Profit and without Fraud and Deceit, the same shall be settled by Stipulations between Commissarys deputed on both sides, well vers'd in Merchandize, at the time of solemn Embassys on both sides, and as has been observ'd with other Nations in Friendship with the Sublime Empire, so his Imperial Majesty's subjects of what Nation soever, shall enjoy the Security and Advantage of Trade in the Kingdoms of the Sublime Empire, as well as the usual Privileges in a fitting manner.

("Collection of Treatys of Peace and Commerce," London, 1732, vol. iv. p. 298.)

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_Interpretation by Austrian Government. Instructions to Police of Lower Austria, Dec. 28, 1815._

"All differences established between Turkish Jews and other subjects of the Ottoman Porte appear contrary to the spirit of the Treaties. These speak of 'Turkish subjects' without making any exception. It is consequently to this quality only that one must have regard, and not in any case to the religion or profession of individuals."

(Quoted by M. Carnot in Debate in French Chamber. _Moniteur_, May 29, 1841.)

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ARTS. I, III AND VI OF FRANCO-SWISS TREATY, MAY 30, 1827.

Article premier.--Les Français seront reçus et traités, dans chaque canton de la Confédération, relativement à leurs personnes et à leurs propriétés, sur le même pied et de la même manière que le sont ou pourront l'être à l'avenir les ressortissants suisses des autres cantons. Tout genre d'industrie et de commerce permis aux ressortissants suisses des divers cantons le sera également aux Français et sans qu'on puisse exiger d'eux aucune condition pécuniaire ou autre plus onéreuse. Lorsqu'ils prendront domicile ou formeront un établissement dans les cantons qui admettent les ressortissants de leurs co-états, ils ne seront également astreints à aucune autre condition que ces derniers.

Art. 3.--Les Suisses jouiront en France des mêmes droits et avantages que l'article premier assure aux Français en Suisse, de telle sorte qu'à l'égard des cantons qui, sous les rapports spécifiés audit article premier, traiteront les Français comme leurs propres ressortissants, ceux-ci seront, sous les mêmes rapports, traités en France comme les nationaux. Sa Majesté Très Chrétienne garantit aux autres cantons les mêmes droits et avantages dont ils feront jouir ses sujets.

Art. 6.--Les Français établis en Suisse, de même que les Suisses établis en France en vertu du traité de 1803, continueront à jouir des droits qui leur étaient acquis. Toutes les dispositions de la présente convention leur seront d'ailleurs applicables.

(Brisac: "Ce que les Israélites de la Suisse doivent à la France," pp. 10-11.)

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_Interpretation by French Negotiator. Secret Note to the Swiss Diet, August 7, 1826._