The shield

by Unknown

In this connection, another point is worthy of our attention. Contrary, to the popular idea of the Jewish greed, the Jews are usually satisfied with a lower rate of interest on the capital invested, since what they are after is the bare means of livelihood. In this fashion they lower, to a considerable extent, the capitalist's profits, a circumstance which cannot fail to irritate the Gentile capitalists. Consequently, all this comes to competition of capital, and it is significant that the fiercest anti-Semitic outcries come from the capitalistic classes. Let us not forget that the early pogroms at Odessa were caused by the agitation of the Greek merchants who feared for their commercial ascendency.

What has been said so far demonstrates with sufficient clearness that the anti-Semitic economic policy is detrimental to the economic organism of Russia as a whole. The true interests of our country demand that Jewish labour and Jewish means should be given complete freedom of application. Russia will only gain from such a change of policy toward the Jews. Anti-Semitism, from the economic standpoint, is nothing but a tremendous waste of the country's productive powers.

Here is another aspect of the question. Whether the Jews as a race are to one's liking or not, is a question of individual taste, the solution of which cannot be allowed to influence the sane economic policy of a state. This must be guided by objective data. As a matter of fact, the Jews constitute more than one third, thirty-five per cent., of the commercial class in Russia. If we believe our country's prosperity to be bound up with the process of its progressive industrialisation, we must admit that the part the Jews play in Russia's commercial life is tremendous, that to a considerable degree they handle her entire commerce. All that hinders the untrammelled manifestation of the Jewish economic energies is harmful to Russia's economic organism.

"If there were no Jews now in Russia, it would be necessary to invite them, in the interests of both the commercial and industrial development of the country, just as they were more than once invited for the same purposes in the past." This conclusion, reached by a student of the Jewish question in Russia, is eminently and profoundly true. The opinion of an individual student may not appear authoritative, but it has been many a time endorsed by social groups and organisations. We need not go far back into history to find facts of this sort. In 1912 at the time when the customary fair was in full swing, the Governor of Nizhni-Novgorod showed an unusual zeal in persecuting the Jews. This was in all probability connected with the Duma pre-election campaign. The "Society of the Manufacturers and Mill Owners of the Moscow Industrial Section," an organisation which is rather far from being liberal in its opinions, saw fit to interfere in its own interests. A memoir dealing with the prohibitive measures directed against the Jews was composed and presented, through the president of the Society, Mr. Goujon, to the chairman of the Council of the Ministers. Here is a quotation from this memoir: "In the economic life of the country the Jews play the part of middlemen, placed between the producer and the consumer of goods. In the Northwestern, Southern, and Southwestern provinces this function is almost exclusively that of the Jews. To isolate under such conditions, the commercial and industrial population of a considerable section of the country from the centre of its manufacturing districts is equivalent to inflicting a tremendous loss not only on the Jewish merchant class but also on the many millions of the non-Jewish population.... To isolate the village from the town, the towns of the West and South from the towns and villages of the Centre and the East, is to disturb intentionally the economic life of the country, to undermine credit and depreciate the people's labour."

That is the opinion of the Moscow manufacturers. Well aware of the real needs of the country, and unwilling to sacrifice their commercial interests to anti-humanitarian mottoes, they expressed their fear that the actions of the administration would hinder the realisation of the harvest and that the "stocks of goods would find neither consumers nor buyers nor energetic middlemen to the extent to which they otherwise would have."

The Jewish people has grown to be a living part of Russia's economic organism, and the blows which are directed against the Jews affect in an equal, if not a greater, degree the mass of the aboriginal Russian population. We do not intend to discuss here the Zionistic dreams and aspirations of the Jews. One thing is clear to us, namely, that a complete exodus of the Jews from Russia would be greatly detrimental to her economic development. The Western world understands this truth very well. Werner Sombart in his work Die Zukunft der Juden (The Future of the Jews) reaches the following conclusion: "If by a miracle all the Jews would decide to-morrow to emigrate to Palestine we (the Germans) would never allow them to. For it would mean a catastrophe in the field of economic relation, not to speak of other fields, such as we have never as yet experienced and which would probably cripple our economic organism forever."

But we, Russians, give little thought to such questions. As late as the year 1914 we did not hesitate to inaugurate new restrictive measures, which it took the great trial of this War to stop.

Whoever has our economic welfare at heart, whoever dreams about the mighty development of our country and of its real emancipation from foreign influence,—inasmuch as this is generally possible,—must understand that anti-Semitism is the worst foe of our economic prosperity, that, in short, the Jewish question is a Russian question. Full rights for the Jews, equal with those that the rest of the population of the Empire enjoy, are an indispensable condition for our peaceful cultural development. Only on that basis can we achieve the broad ideals which have come into prominence in this tragic struggle with German imperialism.