in all countries (except perhaps in France, where public opinion is blind to every Russian sin for the sake of an alliance which will never be realized); for those countries are placed in the alternative either of refusing hospitality to the unfortunate immigrants or of increasing vastly the ranks of their own penniless laborers. But this policy has had its reaction on Russia herself, for however autocratically governed and self-isolated from Europe, she is dependent for her credit on the European exchanges. In order to make her more independent Mr. Vishnegradski has contrived to amass large metallic reserves in foreign banks, drawing gold from every part of the world. These sums were destined to keep up the rate of exchange, but at the same time to be a war fund in case of foreign complications, and are stated to amount to at least 700,000,000 francs. These reserves may be withdrawn at any moment, and thus would seriously embarrass those banks. The recent loan was meant to increase this fund, but with its failure things will assume a different shape. Russia must pay her foreign creditors from the fund, which, consequently, will go on lessening. The "Novoe Vremya," a Panslavist paper, tries to console itself by the argument that Russia may convert her internal loans, but this is a fallacy, for the reaction of the European failure will not only be a fall of the rate of exchange of the rouble, but a rise of interest in Russia herself, so that the conversion will become impossible.

In short, I think the financial condition of Russia to be a most precarious one. Undoubtedly she has great resources; so has Turkey, but natural treasures are of no avail without the human hand to turn them to the benefit of the nation. As the French finance minister, Baron Louis, said to his colleagues, "Give me a good policy and I will give you good finances." Russia must reform her corrupt administration and her preposterous fiscal policy, she must abandon her aggressive external policy which constantly threatens peace, if she wants to inspire confidence in European creditors. Until she does so, I would warn every capitalist against investing his money in loans which offer no real and lasting security and are mainly calculated to form a fund against the interests of peace and civilization.

F HEINRICH GEFFCKEN.

THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS.

THE characteristic feature of the historical epoch in which we are living is an intimate connection between all the nations of the world. It is not mere humanitarianism or philanthropy that directs the attention of the whole world to the so-called "interior affairs" of each nation. In the seventeenth century the Cossacks could massacre 900,000 Jews in Little Russia without being disturbed in this pastime by the intervention of the neighboring nations; nowadays, when there are railroads and steamers to remove hundreds of thousands of wretched beings from the scene of their persecution, it becomes of deep vital interest for all countries, and especially for England and the United States, to consider the anti-Semitic crusade in Russia.

The Jews in Russia are often spoken of as foreigners and new-comers. In truth, very far from being new-comers, the Jews had settled in the places of their present residence some seven centuries before those places were conquered by Russia. In the Muscovite state the Jews were never allowed to settle permanently, and later on the St. Petersburg emperors pursued the same course. But with the acquisition of Poland and Lithuania, Russia received a heritage of about a million Jewish subjects who had been living there from time immemorial. The policy adopted toward the Jews was very simple: all the restrictive statutes excluding Jews from residence in Russia proper remained in full force, and in the provinces of the former Polish crown the Jews were left under the old Polish laws. These laws, which date from the seventeenth century and even further back, are still, with some exceptions, the foundation of the present legislation concerning Jews in Russia.

It would be idle to inquire into the justice or injustice of the legal discrimination practised against the Jews in old Poland, in the days when the bonfires of the Inquisition blazed throughout Europe and when Huguenots were driven from France by armed

force. As a matter of fact the Jews had nothing left to them except commerce. In a feudal state land could be owned only by the noble, or held by the bond slave. In the towns, again, the guild organization of handicrafts virtually debarred the Jew from trade, as the Jew was not allowed to join the guild. It is superflucus to add that, not belonging to the Polish nobility, a Jew could not be appointed to any public office. Poor, ignorant, fanatical, the Jews formed a lower class in the nation, despised and maltreated by all the rest of the people.

Such was the condition in which the Jews entered under the protection of the government of the Czars. The Russian law is altogether different from the law of any contemporary civilized country. The fundamental principle of constitutional law declares the state to exist for the purposes of the individual; in Russia, on the contrary, the individual is considered to exist for the purposes of the state. No exception, of course, was made for the Jews, who became objects of incessant experimentation in corpore vili. Now they were induced to join the Greek Church, in order to assimilate with the Russian people; now they were encouraged to purchase land and to practise agriculture; now they were expelled from the villages, in order to prevent them from selling intoxicants.

Prevailing among the Jews there is an impression that the advent of the Czar Alexander II. was attended by a revolution in the underlying principles governing legislation for Jews. But this was far from being the case; the Jews remained the objects of exceptional legislation as before. Political and economical conditions, however, caused Alexander II. to grant the Jews some additional immunities, some new privileges for certain classes of Jews, but no universal rights. In reply to a question about the condition of the Jews, the governors-general and governors of the provinces inhabited by Jews reported that there were many skilful artisans among them who still were living in abject poverty because of extreme competition. Prince Vasilchikov, governor-general of Kiev, stated his convictions as follows:

"Were Jewish artisans allowed to work at their trades in the interior provinces of Russia, it would deliver the Jewish communities from an

onerous burden in the paying of taxes, while on the other hand, it would supply mechanics to districts which are in need of them; besides-and this is of still greater importance-the baneful influence exerted at present by the revolutionary agitation of Poles upon an idle crowd, would be prevented by that measure." *

Thus, originating in financial and political considerations rather than in any solicitude for the interests of the Jews, the new legal measures fully answered the intended purpose. Skilled Jewish artisans belonging to guilds, and certain classes of merchants with their clerks, were allowed to stay permanently or temporarily without the boundaries of the so-called "pale of settlement" embracing the provinces which formerly belonged to the Polish crown, and New Russia. Thus it was that a Jewish population, some hundreds of thousands strong, was spread outside the established "pale." On the other hand, the government deemed it necessary to create in the western provinces a strong local element brought up in Russian civilization, as a counterweight to the Polish nationalistic aristocracy. The bulk of the Jewish population presented at that time, with some exceptions, quite a tabula rasa for any civilizing influence. The government opened to them the doors of almost all public educational institutions, and encouraged Jewish pupils by means of free tuition and fellowships, and by making accessible to Jews, in a measure, the public offices. The metamorphosis effected by this policy during the life of a single generation was indeed astounding. In large cities inhabited by Jews, where a quarter of a century ago scarcely a hundred people could be found who understood Russian, Russian has now become the mother tongue of a considerable portion of the Jewish population. One or two pupils of the Jewish race in a class of forty to fifty boys was the usual proportion as late as twenty years ago; in 1887 the number of Jews in the high schools or gymnasia attained in some places 80 per cent. and even more. A Jew with a high-school or university education is no longer a Jew, as a matter of nationality, but as good a Russian as any of his fellow citizens. Apart from the fact that in so short a

*"Principles of Russian Public Law," by A. Gradovsky, Professor at the Imperial University of St. Petersburg. Vol. i. (1875), pp. 423-424.

time the Jews have achieved prominence in every department of social life-commerce, law, medicine, science, literature, art, etc.-the participation of the Jewish youth of both sexes in the revolutionary struggle against autocracy is a most striking proof of the effected assimilation. The Poles, living side by side with the Jews, have appreciated better than some Russians do now the true extent to which the Jew has become Russian; hence a strong anti-Semitic feeling among the Poles.

The beginning of the present reign and the breaking out of the anti-Jewish riots in 1881, opened a new era in the history of the Russian Jews. The period of the so-called "national policy of Count Ignatiev was inaugurated by the famous "Provisional Regulations for Jews" of May 3, 1882, bearing the signature of the Czar. In virtue of these regulations, new settlement outside the towns and boroughs was prohibited to Jews, and the acquisition of titles to real estate, either as property or by mortgage or lease, was forbidden to Jews without the precincts of towns and boroughs. This "temporary" law became a source of innumerable "temporary " sufferings.

What is the meaning of "new settlements?" That headbreaking question was a great vexation to the local authorities. Now a family who had left home for a short time on account of business, or to take part in some religious service, were considered as "new settlers" on their return to the village where they had been living for scores of years.* Now a Jewish soldier who had served in His Majesty's army was not allowed to remain at home with his family, being a "new settler" in the opinion of the authorities. Then the governor-general of the south-western provinces discovered that the Jews were not allowed to remove from one house to another within the precincts of the same village, as that would constitute a "new settlement," and as, besides, Jews are not allowed to lease houses in villages. Some of those cases were brought before the Senate who, to do

*See the ukase issued by the Senate to the Provincial Council of Chernigov, November 2, 1884, in the matter of Khututzky and others.

Ukases of May 23, 1884, and January 30, 1885, in the matter of Rieznikov. Also "Niedielnaya Chronika Voskhoda” (a weekly paper), No. 45, 1890, letter from Brest-Litovsk; No. 20, 1889, letter from Liebiech.