M. Maioresco estime que les délégués sont unanimes à reconnaître pleinement, en fait et en droit, le principe qui a inspiré la note précitée, le droit public des États constitutionnels représentés à cette Conférence en ayant consacré de longue date l'application. Le Président pense donc que la note des États-Unis d'Amérique ne saurait soulever aucune difficulté: il est peut-être bon de rappeler quelquefois les principes, même lorsqu'ils sont universellement admis. Aussi, croit-il être l'interprète des sentiments de MM. les Plénipotentiaires en déclarant que les habitants de tout territoire nouvellement acquis auront, sans distinction de religion, la même pleine liberté civile et religieuse que tous les autres habitants de l'état.
M. Venizelos considère qu'à la suite des déclarations du Président, qui seront consignées au Protocole, toute insertion dans le traité à conclure, d'un principe déjà universellement reconnu serait superflue.
Cette manière de voir de M. le premier délégué de Grèce a recueilli l'assentiment unanime.
("Le Traité de Paix de Bucarest—Protocoles de la Conférence," Bucarest, 1913, pp. 24-25.)
Extracts from Correspondence between the Conjoint Committee and Sir Edward Grey.
Conjoint Jewish Committee,
19 Finsbury Circus, E.C.
13th October, 1913.
Sir,—The Jewish Conjoint Foreign Committee of the London Committee of Deputies of British Jews and the Anglo-Jewish Association have had under their consideration the diplomatic acts—principally the Treaty of Bucharest—by which the new territorial system in the Near East has been adjusted, and they have instructed us to invite the attention of His Majesty's Government to the omission from those documents of provisions either confirming or repeating on their own account, for the benefit of the annexed territories, the guarantees of civil and religious liberty and equality contained in the Protocol No. 3 of the Conference of London of February 3rd, 1830, and in Articles V, XXVII, XXXIV, XLIV, and LXII of the Treaty of Berlin.
Owing to the vast changes which have been made in the distribution of the Jewish communities throughout the region lying between the Danube and the Ægean, and more especially in view of the annexations to the Kingdom of Roumania, where hitherto the Civil and Religious Liberty Clauses of the Treaty of Berlin have been systematically evaded, this question has caused the Jewish people the gravest anxiety. The Conjoint Committee are well aware that in four of the annexing States, namely, Greece, Bulgaria, Servia, and Montenegro, the Constitutions provide for the equal rights of all religious denominations, and they gratefully acknowledge that for many years past the Jews in those countries have had no reason to complain; but in the new conditions of mixed races and creeds which confront those States, and in face of the symptoms already apparent of an accentuation of the long-standing inter-confessional bitterness and strife, they prefer not to relinquish the international obligations by which the rights of their co-religionists have hitherto been secured. In this view they find themselves supported not only by all the Jewish communities of the Balkans, but also by all of the religious minorities in the dominions which have recently changed hands. The reasonableness of their view is further supported by the constitutional changes effected in like circumstances in Moldo-Wallachia and Servia three-quarters of a century ago to the prejudice of the Jews, and also by the continued encouragement to religious intolerance afforded by the legalised oppression of a quarter of a million Jews in the Kingdom of Roumania.
The question was not ignored at the Peace Conference at Bucharest, but it failed to receive any contractual solution. At the sitting of August 8th a scheme of religious, scholastic and cultural liberty was discussed, but no agreement was reached, owing to irreconcilable differences between the Patriarchists and the Exarchists. Moreover, the scheme as drawn up was confined to Christian communities (Protocol No. 10). At the sitting of August 5th, the question was raised in its wider aspects by a communication from the United States Government expressing the hope that a provision would be introduced into the Treaty "according full civil and religious liberty to the inhabitants of any territory subject to the sovereignty of any of the five Powers, or which might be transferred from the jurisdiction of any one of them to that of another." This also met with no adequate response. M. Maioresco, the Chief Roumanian plenipotentiary, expressed the opinion that such a provision was unnecessary, "as the principle inspiring it had long been recognised, in fact and in law, by the public law of the Constitutional States represented at the Conference," but he added that he was willing to declare on behalf of the plenipotentiaries that "the inhabitants of any territory newly acquired will have, without distinction of religion, the same full civil and religious liberty, as all the other inhabitants of the State." In this view the other plenipotentiaries concurred. (Protocol No. 6.)
The Jewish Conjoint Committee regret that they are unable to accept either the reasoning or the assurances of M. Maioresco for the following reasons:—