“4. Would they go back entirely at their own expense, requiring nothing farther than the assurance of safety to person and estate?
“5. Would they be content to live under the Government of the country as they should find it, their rights and privileges being secured to them under the protection of the European Powers?
“Let the answers you procure be as distinct and decided and detailed as possible: in respect as to the inquiries as to property, it will of course be sufficient that you should obtain fair proof of the fact from general report.
“The noble Lord who is instituting these inquiries has given deep attention to the matter, and is well known as the writer of an able article in the Quarterly on the subject, in December, 1838.”
The adherents of the idea of Jewish assimilation in Germany started a kind of opposition.
The Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums dealt with this matter on the 19th September, 1840, and admitted with regard to the articles in the Globe, which it described as “a London Ministerial newspaper,” that “the plans may all be classed among the things devoutly to be desired.” On the other hand, this paper quotes from the Courier Français of August 26th, 1840, a comparison between M. A. M. L. de P. de Lamartine (1790–1869) (the poet, and at that time Deputy) and Lord Palmerston in the following words:—
“M. de Lamartine intends to form a Christian kingdom at the sources of the Jordan, and at the foot of Mount Lebanon; if only Jerusalem, the Holy City, came into the power of France, he would gladly leave the rest of the world to England and Russia. But what is odd in the whole affair is that Lord Palmerston has chosen the same spot. Where the celebrated Deputy dreams of a Christian state, Lord Palmerston projects a Jewish Republic.”
This jest caused the Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums to “protest against the project in question,” and “to warn the young people.” All we learn from this pronouncement is that the Jewish youth was at the time inclined to listen to the Zionist idea.