In England, the Jewish population, according to estimates prepared by Lord Rothschild, furnished more than its share of recruits to the British army, its quota of 17,000 comprising about eight and a half per cent. of the total Jewish population as compared with the six per cent. furnished by the non-Jewish population. The Lord Chief Justice, Baron Reading, a Jew, mobilized the financial resources of the country and was called upon to head the Anglo-French commission which negotiated the $500,000,000 credit secured in the United States. Lord Rothschild is treasurer of the Red Cross organization. Hon. Herbert Samuels is a member of the Coalition cabinet. A Jewish battalion organized by Palestinian fugitives rendered exceptional service to the allies in the Gallipoli Peninsula. Many rewards, including the bestowal of Victoria Crosses and promotions, are listed in the Anglo-Jewish press every week.
In Germany the Jews, although without complete social privileges, have borne their full share of the burdens of war. To Herr Ballin, the head of the mercantile marine, was given the task of organizing the national food supply, and other Jews have been prominently identified with every department of the industrial mobilization of the country. In France and Italy, Austria-Hungary and Turkey, Jews are to be found in the ministerial cabinets, in command of troops in the field, and prominent in charge of the medical service of the armies.
Thus the present war has again demonstrated the great truth that, in times of struggle as in times of peace, the Jews constitute a most valuable asset to those nations that accept them as an integral part of their population and permit them to develop freely, but wherever an autocratic government demoralizes its people by confronting them with the spectacle of an unprotected minority denied all human rights, the government itself feels the reaction and the moral tone of the nation is thereby impaired.