The Jews

by Hilaire Belloc

Before the Great War there was only one of which Europe as a whole was conscious, and that was the financial monopoly. Yet here the monopoly was far less perfect than in the case of the metals. The Great War brought thousands upon thousands of educated men (who took up public duties as temporary officials) up against the staggering secret they had never suspected—the complete control exercised over things absolutely necessary to the nation's survival by half a dozen Jews, who were completely indifferent as to whether we or the enemy should emerge alive from the struggle.

Incidentally, the wealth of these few and very wealthy Jews has been scandalously increased through the war on this very account. And at the moment in which I write the French press, which has a longer experience in the free discussion of the Jewish question than any other, is exposing the abominable increase in value of the Rothschild's lead mines, an increase mainly due to the use of lead for the killing of men.

But lead is only one of the monopolies, as I have said. A whole group already exists and the extension of the system is going on as rapidly as an epidemic. Not only must it cease before any solution of the Jewish question can be attempted, but the process must be reversed. If the various national Cabinets do not interfere to protect these monopolies, then good-bye to any attempt at justice for the Jew. In the legitimate anger against a few pitiful dozens among the worst specimens of the nation, Israel as a whole will be sacrificed.

There is in this formation of monopolies, as in the more reputable activities of the nation, even in its more justly famous activities, even in its glories, that element of racial character which is never absent from any Jewish action. And that is why I have put the point, modern and ephemeral as it is, among the general causes of trouble.

The reason these general monopolies are formed by Jews is that the Jew is international, tenacious and determined upon reaching the very end of his task. He is not satisfied in any trade until that trade is, as far as possible, under his complete control, and he has for the extension of that control the support of his brethren throughout the world. He has at the same time the international knowledge and international indifference which further aid his efforts.

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But even were the quite recent monopolies in metal and other trades taken, as they ought to be taken, from these few alien masters of them, there would remain that partial monopoly (it is not at all a complete monopoly) which a few Jews have exercised not only to-day, but recurrently throughout history, over the highest finance: that is, over the credit of the nations, and therefore to-day, as never before, over the whole field of the world's industry.

Should that partial financial monopoly remain uncorrected it will produce a sufficient hostility against the Jews to precipitate, of itself, the next general attack upon them.

It may be argued that this fear is groundless because the control has now lasted for a long time. It has lasted a lifetime even in its present hardly complete form: and it is secure because its operations are removed from general observation, and because it is mixed up with the interests of all the wealthier classes.