At length, worn out by persecution and having abandoned all hope of succour, the Jews of Roumania began to emigrate in considerable numbers. In the year 1900 there was a great exodus; but the stream was temporarily stemmed by the accession to power of M. Carp, from whose well-known liberality the would-be exiles anticipated a mitigation of their sufferings. They were disappointed. M. Carp’s cabinet was short-lived, and its successor, instead of relieving rather aggravated the sorrows of Israel. Emigration was resumed and continued on an ever-increasing scale. The Jews now began to leave the country by tens of thousands, on their way to England and America, assisted thereto by wealthy co-religionists abroad.[219]
The outpouring of this crowd of needy refugees into Austria was not calculated to please the inhabitants of that empire. Measures were taken to prevent any of them from seeking a permanent home in the dominions of the Hapsburgs, and the police were charged, gently but firmly, to speed the unwelcome guests on their journey. When the funds, generously contributed for the purpose, fell short of the requirements of the travellers, the Austrian authorities hastened to send them back, and the Austrian newspapers began to denounce the Government through whose tyranny these destitute Israelites were compelled to leave their native country. This protest elicited from the Roumanian Government one of its customary démentis. Those who had not hesitated to deny the very existence of “Roumanian Jews” could have no difficulty in declaring that “There is absolutely no foundation for the malicious statement published by some foreign papers regarding a wholesale emigration of the Jews from Roumania.” The statement was based “on a perversion of the new Roumanian Labour Law,” and the Roumanian Government deprecated the publication of such articles, “as they might call forth, as was the case years ago, an unhealthy excitement in the minds of the people.”[220]
But, facts being more convincing than official denials, the exodus grew more alarming, because the forces to which it owed its origin continued in operation. The “Jewish Colonization Association” now came to the aid of the indigent exiles, and endeavoured to save them from additional suffering by preventing those who were not provided with the necessary passage money, or were not physically fit, from leaving their homes.[221] These wise measures restrained to a certain extent indiscriminate expatriation, but, as might have been foreseen, failed to check it entirely. The exodus continued, and the outcry against Roumania spread, for now the countries into which the undesirable current flowed were compelled by self-interest to do what they had hitherto vainly attempted to effect from a sense of philanthropy.
America, the favourite haven of refuge for the fortune-seeker of every colour and clime, undertook the task of spokesman. The late Mr. Hay, Secretary of State, in September, 1902, through the representatives of the United States in the countries which took part in the Congress of Berlin, reminded the Governments of those countries of Art. 44 of the Treaty signed by them in 1878, urging them to bring home to Roumania her flagrant and persistent failure to fulfil the conditions on which she had obtained her independence. After a handsome tribute to the intellectual and moral qualities of the Jew, based on history and experience, the American Minister protested, on behalf of his country, against “the treatment to which the Jews of Roumania are subjected, not alone because it has unimpeachable ground to remonstrate against resultant injury to itself, but in the name of humanity.” He concluded with a vigorous appeal to “the principles of International Law and eternal justice,” and with an offer to lend the moral support of the United States to any effort made to enforce respect for the Treaty of Berlin.[222]
This powerful impeachment, coming as it did from a distant party in no way connected with the affairs of Continental Europe, may have caused heart-searchings in nearer and more immediately concerned countries; but it failed to awaken those countries to a proper sense of their interests, not to say duties. The only quarter in which America’s appeal to humanity found an echo was England. A number of representative men, such as the late Archbishop of Canterbury, the present Bishop of London, Lord Kelvin, the Marquess of Ripon, the late Mr. Lecky, Sir Charles Dilke, the Master of Balliol, and others, publicly expressed their profound sympathy with the victims of persecution. Mr. Chamberlain also seized the opportunity of declaring that, as history proves, the Jews, “while preserving with extraordinary tenacity their national characteristics and the tenets of their religion, have been amongst the most loyal subjects of the states in which they have found a home, and the impolicy of persecution in such a case is almost greater than its cruelty.”[223] Other Englishmen also joined in the denunciation of Roumania not so much from pity for the victims of oppression as from fear lest, unless the Roumanian Government was compelled to change its policy, England should have to face another inroad of “undesirable” Jewish immigrants.
In like manner, the only Government which volunteered to second Mr. Hay’s Note was the British, and on the common basis of these two representations, the signatory Powers of the Treaty of Berlin “exchanged views.” The results of this exchange can be summed up only too easily. The historian of the future will probably derive therefrom some interesting lessons regarding European politics and ethics in the beginning of the twentieth century. They are as follows:
Germany, under whose presidency the stipulation concerning the Jews of Roumania was framed, did not choose to consider herself called upon to insist on the execution of that stipulation. The Liberal section of the German press received the American Note with sincere, but ineffectual, appreciation; while of the Conservative majority some pronounced it naïve, and others affected to regard it as an attempt on America’s part to interfere in European affairs, or even as an electioneering trick having for its sole object to enhance President Roosevelt’s political prestige! The German Government, though more courteous than the German press, proved equally cold. As we have already seen, that Government was the last to join in the efforts to improve the lot of the Roumanian Jews and the first to declare itself satisfied with the deceptive revision of Article 7 of the Roumanian Constitution. This attitude, when considered in conjunction with the fact that a Hohenzollern reigns in Roumania, and with that kingdom’s place in the present political combinations of the Continent, enables us to understand, if not to applaud, Germany’s reception of Mr. Hay’s Note.
Austria-Hungary, whose proximity to Roumania pointed her out as the Power primarily concerned, and entitled to act, declined to take any steps singly or collectively. The self-restraint of Austria, like that of Germany, and even in a greater degree, was dictated by political considerations, Roumania being practically the only State in the Balkans, where the influence of Austria-Hungary and of the Triple Alliance still counts for something. Besides, the Vienna Cabinet could not decently join in advocating Jewish emancipation, for it was Austria which in May, 1887, concluded with Roumania a treaty whereby some seventy thousand Jewish residents in the latter kingdom—who, according to a practice common in Mohammedan countries, had enjoyed Austrian protection while Roumania was under Ottoman rule—were deprived of the status of Austrian subjects, without receiving any other status in exchange.
Italy was deterred from lending her support to the American Note by Roumania’s relations with the Triple Alliance and also by the vogue which the “Roman” idea obtains in the land which the Roumanians are pleased to regard as “the cradle of their race.”
Russia, whose treatment of her own Jewish subjects would have made an appeal to “humanity and eternal justice” on behalf of the Jews in another country a sad mockery, decorously refrained from supporting the American Note. It is true that the Russian press imitated the Teutonic in scoffing at America’s action as a pretext for gaining admission to the counsels of the European Areopagus, and in condemning it as an impertinence! But the Czar’s Government, with better taste, extricated itself from an awkward position by basing its refusal on the ground that the grievances set forth in Mr. Hay’s despatch were so old that it was hardly worth while troubling about them. In the opinion of the Russian Ministers, the Jews must by now be thoroughly accustomed to starvation.