1. Even if it were true that the constitutions of all the five contracting States assure civil and religious liberty to their inhabitants without distinction of religion—Roumania herself is a flagrant exception—it would not afford as permanent a guarantee as an international obligation. The circumstances which render such a guarantee necessary in the present case have already been referred to above.
2. In previous territorial changes in the Near East, the liberal provisions of the constitutions of the annexing States have not been held sufficient for the protection of religious minorities. Thus, in 1864, when the Ionian Islands were transferred to Greece, the Powers specifically extended to the new territories the civil and religious liberty obligations imposed on the Hellenic Kingdom in 1830 (see Article IV of the Treaty of London of March 20th, 1864). Again in 1881, when Thessaly was ceded to Greece, the religious liberty obligations of 1830 were repeated in the Treaty of Cession for the benefit of the Mussulman population (Convention of May 14th, 1881, Article VIII). A similar course was adopted by the Great Powers in 1886, when Eastern Roumelia was virtually annexed to Bulgaria (Article IV of Arrangement of April 5th, 1886; cf. Eastern Roumelia Statute, Article XXIV).
3. Roumania herself is not content to rely on the national constitutions of the other Balkan States where the destinies of her own expatriated brethren in race and religion are concerned. Although she persuaded the Conference of Bucharest to reject the American proposal to insert binding guarantees for the equitable treatment of racial and religious minorities in the annexed territories generally, she insisted on the adoption of an Annexe to the Protocols of the Conference pledging the signatory States to grant equal rights and religious and scholastic freedom to the Koutzo-Vlachs residing within their dominions. It is difficult to understand why these Treaty guarantees should be required for communities which have a Government at Bucharest, attached to them by racial and religious sympathies, to look after their interests, and not for the Jews, who have no such resource in the event of their rights being ignored.
4. The terms of M. Maioresco's declaration in regard to "the inhabitants of any territory newly acquired" are ambiguous, and in the case of the Jews of the northern districts of Bulgaria, now annexed to Roumania, might, and no doubt would be, interpreted as assimilating them to the oppressed Jewish communities of the annexed State. Moreover, in view of what happened to the Jews of the Dobrudja when that province was acquired by Roumania in 1878, any unilateral assurances from the Cabinet of Bucharest on this subject must fail to inspire confidence. The action of the Roumanian Government on that occasion was dealt with by us in the letter we had the honour of addressing to you on July 13th last, and it will consequently suffice to state now that the Jews of the Dobrudja were deprived of their national rights for thirty years after the annexation, and even then they experienced great difficulty in obtaining them. We cannot contemplate without anxiety the possibility of a repetition of this application of the principle formulated by M. Maioresco.
For these reasons the Jewish Conjoint Committee regard with grave apprehension the omission from the Treaty of Bucharest of guarantees of civil and religious equality for the inhabitants of the territories which have changed hands in virtue of that instrument, and they trust they may rely on His Majesty's Government to take such steps as will assure to those inhabitants the full enjoyment of the high protection accorded them by the London Protocol of 1830 and the Treaty of Berlin.
They venture to suggest that the objects they have in view might be attained by a collective note to the States signatory of the Treaties of London, Bucharest and Constantinople, declaring that the Great Powers regard the Civil and Religious Liberty clauses of the Protocol of 1830 and the Treaty of Berlin as binding upon all of them within their new frontiers and throughout all their territories. The Committee hope that His Majesty's Government may see their way to propose such a note to the Great Powers.
We are, Sir,
Your humble and obedient Servants,
D. L. Alexander,
President, London Committee of Deputies of British Jews,
Claude G. Montefiore,
President, Anglo-Jewish Association.
To The Rt. Hon. Sir Edward Grey, Bart., M.P., K.G., etc., His Majesty's
Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, etc., etc., etc.
Foreign Office,
October 29th, 1913.
Gentlemen,—I am directed by Secretary Sir E. Grey to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of October 13th, and to observe in reply that the Articles of the Treaty of Berlin, to which you refer, are in no way abrogated by the territorial changes in the Near East, and remain as binding as they have been hitherto as regards all territories covered by those Articles at the time when the Treaty was signed.