Chapter XVIII: Part II: The Present (5)

How are we to explain this unrequited devotion? Simply by the German policy of enlisting every dynamic force in her service. She has known how to use the Jews just as she has known how to use the Freemasons, the Illuminati, and the Socialists for the purpose of Pan-Germanism. From Frederick the Great, who employed the Jew Ephraim to coin false money, to William II, who kept in touch with Rathenau by means of a private telephone wire, the rulers of Germany have always allowed them to co-operate in their schemes of world-domination. As the allies of Bismarck, who used them freely to fill his war-chests, the Jews directed the power of the secret societies in the interests of Germany; in 1871 the Jew Bloechreider acted as adviser to the new German Empire as to the best method of wresting indemnities from France. And Germany, whilst heaping insults on the Jews, nevertheless fulfils certain conditions essential to Jewish enterprise. Unlike England and France, she has never allowed herself to be seriously weakened by democratic ideas, and therefore to the Jews--as to British believers in autocracy--she represents the principle of stability.

Moreover, Germany as the home of militarism offers a wide field for Jewish speculation. We have only to couple together an aphorism of Mirabeau's with one of Werner Sombart's to perceive the bond of union between the two races, thus: "War is the national industry of Prussia" and "Wars are the Jews' harvests." As long ago as 1793 Anacharsis Clootz, the apostle of universal brotherhood and defender of the Jewish race, declared that if Germany were to be prevented from going to war the Jews must be persuaded to withdraw their support from her military adventures:

War could not begin or last in Germany without the activity, the
intelligence, and the money of the Jews. Magazines and munitions of
all kinds are provided by Hebrew capitalists and all the subaltern
agents of military provisionment are of the same nation. We have
only to come to an understanding with our brothers, the Rabbis, to
produce astonishing, miraculous results.[801]

Mr. Ford, the American motor-car manufacturer, appears to have arrived at much the same conclusion expressed in the words recently attributed to him: "We don't need the League of Nations to end war. Put under control the fifty most wealthy Jewish financiers, who produce wars for their own profit, and wars will cease."[802]

On another occasion Mr. Ford is reported to have said that the Jews who voyaged with him in the Peace ship in 1915 "went out of their way to convince" him of "the direct relations between the International Jew and the war": they "went into details to tell me the means by which the Jews controlled the war--how they had the money, how they had cornered all the basic materials needed to fight the war," etc.[803]

Without in any way absolving Germany from the crime of the war, it is necessary to take this secondary factor into consideration if peace between the nations is to be established. For as long as the lust of war lingers in the hearts of the Germans and the lust of gain at the price of human suffering lingers in the hearts of the Jews, both races will remain necessary to each other and the hideous nightmare of war will continue to brood over the world.

There is then a great deal of truth in the Socialist phrase "Capitalists' Wars," although not in the sense they attribute to it. For it will be noticed that the Capitalists who are most instrumental in making wars are precisely those whom the Socialists are always careful to shield from blame. The following incident will illustrate this point.

At a meeting of the Social Democratic Federation Mr. Adolphe Smith moved a resolution appealing to the organized workers of Great Britain--

Not to permit themselves in the supposed interests of their
fellow-workers in other countries, to be used by sinister financial
and militarist influences merely to weaken the Entente nations in
the present critical situation, and urging them to keep careful
watch against such manoeuvres on the part of pro-German
international financiers, who were able to exercise considerable
reactionary influence among the wealthy and official classes in
this country.[804]

Mr. Hyndman added that "the most serious danger by which we were threatened was from the most powerful group of capitalists in Europe headed by Hugo Stinnes and backed by Hindenburg, Ludendorff, and the militarist party in Germany." This resolution was opposed by a member of the Parliamentary Labour Party and eventually withdrawn.

The connexion between German Imperialism, International Finance, Illuminism, Bolshevism, and certain sections of British Socialism is thus apparent. Is Germany then the secret power behind the thing we call Bolshevism? Are Illuminism and Pan-Germanism one and the same thing? To this hypothesis two objections present themselves: firstly, that the spirit of Illuminism and Bolshevism existed, as we have seen in earlier chapters of this book, long before modern Germany came into existence; and secondly, that Germany herself is not entirely free from the contagion. For although the danger of Bolshevism in Germany has been doubtless greatly exaggerated in order to prevent the Allies from pressing their demands for disarmament and reparations, nevertheless Bolshevism under its illuminated name of Spartacism cannot be regarded as a movement entirely staged for the deception of Europe. Moreover, just as in the countries of the Allies it has shown itself, under the guise of Pacifism, savagely anti-national and pro-German, so in Germany, as also in Hungary, it turned Pacifism to the opposite purpose by professing sympathy at moments with the Allies.

It is clear, then, that besides Pan-Germanism there is another power at work, a power far older, that seeks to destroy all national spirit, all ordered government in every country, Germany included. What is this power? A large body of opinion replies: the Jewish power.

15

THE REAL JEWISH PERIL

In considering the immense problem of the Jewish Power, perhaps the most important problem with which the modern world is confronted, it is necessary to divest oneself of all prejudices and to enquire in a spirit of scientific detachment whether any definite proof exists that a concerted attempt is being made by Jewry to achieve world-domination and to obliterate the Christian faith.

That such a purpose has existed amongst the Jews in the past has been shown throughout the earlier chapters of this book. The conception of the Jews as the Chosen People who must eventually rule the world forms indeed the basis of Rabbinical Judaism.

It is customary in this country to say that we should respect the Jewish religion, and this would certainly be our duty were the Jewish religion founded, as is popularly supposed, solely on the Old Testament. For although we do not consider ourselves bound to observe the ritual of the Pentateuch, we find no fault with the Jews for carrying out what they conceive to be their religious duties. Moreover, although the Old Testament depicts the Jews as a favoured race--a conception which we believe to have been superseded by the Christian dispensation, whereby all men are declared equal in the sight of God--nevertheless it does contain a very lofty law of righteousness applicable to all mankind. It is because of their universality that the books of Job and Ecclesiastes, as also many passages in the Psalms, in Isaiah, and the minor prophets, have made an undying appeal to the human race. But the Jewish religion now takes its stand on the Talmud rather than on the Bible. "The modern Jew," one of its latest Jewish translators observes, "is the product of the Talmud."[805] The Talmud itself accords to the Bible only a secondary place. Thus the Talmudic treatise Soferim says: "The Bible is like water, the Mischna is like wine, and the Gemara is like spiced wine."

Now, the Talmud is not a law of righteousness for all mankind, but a meticulous code applying to the Jew alone. No human being outside the Jewish race could possibly go to the Talmud for help or comfort. One might look through its pages in vain for any such splendid rule of life as that given by the prophet Micah: "He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" In the Talmud, on the contrary, as Drach points out, "the precepts of justice, of equity, of charity towards one's neighbour, are not only not applicable with regard to the Christian, but constitute a crime in anyone who would act differently.... The Talmud expressly forbids one to save a non-Jew from death, ... to restore lost goods, etc., to him, to have pity on him."[806]

How far the Talmud has contributed to the anti-social tendencies of modern Judaism is shown by the fact that the Karaites living in the south of Russia, the only body of Jews which takes its stand on the Bible, and not on the Talmud,--of which it only accepts such portions as are in accordance with Bible teaching--have always shown themselves good subjects of the Russian Empire, and have therefore enjoyed equal rights with the Russian people around them. Catherine the Great particularly favoured the Karaites.

Thus even the Jews are not unanimous in supporting the Talmud; indeed, as we have already seen, many Jews have protested against it as a barrier between themselves and the rest of the human race.

But it is in the Cabala, still more than in the Talmud, that the Judaic dream of world-domination recurs with the greatest persistence. The Zohar indeed refers to this as a _fait accompli_, explaining that "the Feast of Tabernacles is the period when Israel triumphs over the other people of the world; that is why during this feast we seize the Loulab [branches of trees tied together] and carry it as a trophy to show that we have conquered all the other peoples known as 'populace' and that we dominate them."[807] God is, however, asked to accord these other peoples a certain share of blessings, "so that occupied with this share they shall not participate nor mingle with the joy of Israel when he calls down blessings from on high." The situation may thus be compared with that of a king who, wishing to give a feast to his special friends, finds his house invaded by importunate governors demanding admittance. "What then does the king do? He orders the governors to be served with beef and vegetables, which are common food, and then sits down to table with his friends and has the most delicious dishes served."[808]

But this is nothing to the feasting that is to take place when the Messianic era arrives. After the return of the Jews from all nations and parts of the world to Palestine, the Messiah, we are told in the Talmud, will entertain them at a gorgeous banquet, where they will be seated at golden tables and regaled with wine from Adam's wine-cellar. The first course is to consist of a roasted ox named Behemoth, so immense that every day it eats up the grass upon a thousand hills; the second of a monstrous fish Leviathan; the third of a female Leviathan boiled and pickled; the fourth of a gigantic roast fowl known as Barjuchne, of which the egg alone was so enormous that when it fell out of the nest it crushed three hundred tall cedars and the white overflowed threescore villages. This course is to be followed up by "the most splendid and pompous Dessert" that can be procured, including fruit from the Tree of Life and "the Pomegranates of Eden which are preserved for the Just."

At the end of the banquet "God will entertain the company at a ball"; He Himself will sit in the midst of them, and everyone will point Him out with his finger, saying: "Behold, this is our God: we have waited for Him, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation."[809]

The eighteenth-century commentator, whose summary of these passages we quote, goes on to observe:

But let us see a little after what manner the Jews are to live in
their ancient Country under the Administration of the Messiah. In
the First Place, the strange Nations, which they shall suffer to
live, shall build them Houses and Cities, till them Ground, and
plant them Vineyards; and all this, without so much as looking for
any Reward of their Labour. These surviving Nations will likewise
voluntarily offer them all their Wealth and Furniture: And Princes
and Nobles shall attend them; and be ready at their Nod to pay them
all Manner of Obedience; while they themselves shall be surrounded
with Grandeur and Pleasure, appearing abroad in Apparel glittering
with Jewels like Priests of the Unction, consecrated to God....

In a word, the felicity of this Holy Nation, in the Times of the
Messiah, will be such, that the exalted Condition of it cannot
enter into the Conception of Man; much less can it be couched in
human Expression. This is what the Rabbis say of it. But the
intelligent reader will doubtless pronounce it the Paradise of
Fools.[810]

It is interesting to notice that this conception of the manner in which the return to Palestine is to be carried out has descended to certain of the modern colonists. Sir George Adam Smith, after watching Zionism at work in 1918, wrote:

On visiting a recently established Jewish colony in the north-east
of the land, round which a high wall had been built by the
munificent patron, I found the colonists sitting in its shade
gambling away the morning, while groups of _fellahin_ at a poor
wage did the cultivation for them. I said that this was surely not
the intention of their patron in helping them to settle on land of
their own. A Jew replied to me in German: "Is it not written: The
sons of the alien shall be your ploughmen and vinedressers?" I know
that such delinquencies have become the exception in Jewish
colonization of Palestine, but they are symptomatic of dangers
which will have to be guarded against.[811]

The fellahin may, however, consider themselves lucky to be allowed to live at all, for, according to several passages in the Cabala, all the _goyim_ are to be swept off the face of the earth when Israel comes into its own. Thus the Zohar relates that the Messiah will declare war on the whole world and all the kings of the world will end by declaring war on the Messiah. But "the Holy One, blessed be He, will display His force and exterminate them from the world."[812] Then:

Happy will be the lot of Israel, whom the Holy One, blessed be He,
has chosen from amongst the _goyim_ of whom the Scriptures say:
"Their work is but vanity, it is an illusion at which we must
laugh; they will all perish when God visits them in His wrath." At
the moment when the Holy One, blessed be He, will exterminate all
the _goyim_ of the world, Israel alone will subsist, even as it is
written: "The Lord alone will appear great on that day."[813]

The hope of world-domination is therefore not an idea attributed to the Jews by "anti-Semites," but a very real and essential part of their traditions. What then of their attitude to Christianity in the past? We have already seen that hatred of the person and teaching of Christ did not end at Golgotha, but was kept alive by the Rabbis and perpetuated in the Talmud and the Toledot Yeshu. The Cabala also contains passages referring both to Christ and to Mohammed so unspeakably foul that it would be impossible to quote them here.

But it will be urged: the Jews of Western Europe to-day know nothing of the Cabala. This may be so, yet imperceptibly the Cabala has moulded the mind of the Jew. As a modern Jewish writer has declared:

[Kabbalism] has contributed to the formation of modern Judaism,
for, without the influence of the Kabbala, Judaism to-day might
have been one-sided, lacking in warmth and imagination. Indeed, so
deeply has it penetrated into the body of the faith that many ideas
and prayers are now immovably rooted in the general body of
orthodox doctrine and practice. This element has not only become
incorporated, but it has fixed its hold on the affections of the
Jews and cannot be eradicated.[814]

It is thus not in the law of Moses thundered from Sinai, not in the dry ritual of the Talmud, but in the stupendous imaginings of the Cabala, that the real dreams and aspirations of Jewry have been transmitted through the ages. Belief in the coming Messiah may burn low, but faith in the final triumph of Israel over the other nations of the world still glows in the hearts of a race nurtured on this hope from time immemorial. Even the free-thinking Jew must unconsciously react to the promptings of this vast and ancient ambition. As a modern French writer has expressed it:

Assuredly sectarian Freethinkers swarm, who flatter themselves on
having borrowed nothing from the synagogue and on hating equally
Jehovah and Jesus. But the modern Jewish world is itself also
detached from any supernatural belief, and the Messianic tradition,
of which it preserves the cult, reduces itself to considering the
Jewish race as the veritable Messiah[815].

Some colour is lent to this statement by an article which recently appeared in the Jewish press, in which it is explained that, according to the teaching of the "Liberal Jewish Synagogue," the beautiful passages in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah concerning "the Man of Sorrows acquainted with grief," usually supposed by Christians to relate to the promised Messiah, are interpreted to modern Jewish youth as relating to Israel and signifying that Israel's "sufferings were caused by the sins of other nations," who thus "escaped the suffering they deserved." Consequently "Israel has suffered for the sake of the whole world[816]." How this amazing pretension can be maintained in view of the perpetual denunciations of the Israelites throughout the whole of the Old Testament is difficult to imagine. On their entry into Canaan they were distinctly told by Moses that the Lord their God had not given them "this good land" on account of their righteousness or the uprightness of their hearts[817]; long afterwards Daniel declared that all Israel had transgressed the law of God[818]; Nehemiah showed that on account of their rebellion and disobedience they had been delivered into the hands of their enemies[819]. Isaiah spoke of the iniquities of Judah in burning words:

Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of
evildoers, children that are corruptors!... Wash your, make you
clean; put away the evil of your doings from before Mine eyes;
cease to do evil; learn to do well, etc.[820]

Thus even the Word of God itself is powerless to mitigate the immense megalomania of the Jewish race. It is doubtful indeed whether by the majority of Jews the Bible is now regarded as divinely inspired. "The ten commandments which _we_ gave to mankind[821]" is a phrase typical of the manner in which Israel now arrogates to itself the sole authorship of the Scriptures. The deification of humanity by the Freemasons of the Grand Orient finds its counterpart in the deification of Israel by the modern Jew.

It is here that we must surely see the cause of much of the suffering the Jews have endured in the past. No one of course would justify the cruelty with which they have frequently been treated; nevertheless to maintain there was no provocation on the part of the Jews would be absurd. A race that has always considered itself entitled to occupy a privileged position amongst the nations of the world must inevitably meet with resentment, and in a primitive age or population resentment is apt to find a vent in violence shocking to the civilized mind. Moreover, to represent the Jews as a gentle long-suffering people, always the victims but never the perpetrators of violence, is absolutely contrary to historic fact. In the dark ages of the past the Jews showed themselves perfectly capable of cruelties not only towards other races but towards each other. One of the first pogroms recorded in the Christian era was carried out by the Jews themselves. The Jewish historian Josephus describes the reign of "lawlessness and barbarity" that was inaugurated about the middle of the first century A.D. by the band of assassins known as the Sicarii, who infested the country round Jerusalem and, by means of little daggers that they wore concealed beneath their garments, "slew men in the daytime and in the midst of the city, especially at the festivals when they mixed with the multitude." During one night raid on the small town of Engaddi they massacred more than seven hundred women and children.[822] And Josephus goes on to say:

Somehow, indeed, that was a time most fertile in all manner of
wicked practices among the Jews, insomuch that no kind of villainy
was then left undone; nor could anyone so much as devise any bad
thing that was new if he wished. So deeply were they all infected,
both privately and publicly, and vied with one another who should
run the greatest lengths in impiety towards God, and in unjust
actions towards their neighbours, men in power oppressing the
multitude, and the multitude earnestly endeavouring to destroy men
in power.[823]

It is futile then to maintain as do the Jews and their friends--for the pro-Jew is frequently _plus royaliste que le roi_--that all the faults of the modern Jew are to be attributed to bitterness engendered by persecution. Judaism has always contained an element of cruelty[824] which finds expression in the Talmud. It is from the Talmud, not from the Mosaic law, that the inhuman methods of Jewish slaughtering are derived.[825] The Talmud likewise gives the most horrible directions for carrying out capital punishment, particularly with regard to women, by the methods of stoning, burning, choking, or slaying with the sword. The victim condemned to be burnt is to have a scarf wound round his neck, the two ends pulled tightly by the executioners whilst his mouth is forced open with pincers and a lighted string thrust into it "so that it flows down through his inwards and shrinks his entrails."[826]

It will be said that all this belongs to the past. True, the practice here described may be considered obsolete, but the spirit of cruelty and intolerance that dictated it is still alive. One has only to study the modern Jewish press to realize the persecution to which Jews are subjected from members of their own race should they infringe one fraction of the Jewish code.

If, then, "the modern Jew is the product of the Talmud," it is here that we must see the principal obstacle to Jewish progress. It is said that Isaac Disraeli, the father of Lord Beaconsfield, gave as his reason for withdrawing from the Synagogue that Rabbinical Judaism with its unyielding laws and fettering customs "cuts off the Jews from the great family of mankind."[827] Such a system is indeed absolutely incompatible not only with Christian teaching but with the secular ideas of Western civilization. The attitude it adopts towards women would be in itself sufficient to justify this assertion. The Jewish daily prayer, "Blessed be Thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, that Thou has not made me a woman!"[828] is a ludicrous anachronism in the present age. According to the Talmud a service can take place in the Synagogue only if ten persons are present, which number ensures the presence of God in the assembly. Drach explains however that these persons must all be men. "If then there were nine men and a million women there could be no assembly, for the reason that women are nothing. But there arrives [on the scene] only one small boy of thirteen years and a day, at once there can be a holy assembly and, according to our Doctors, it is permitted to God to be present[829]."

When therefore we say that we must respect the Jewish religion we cannot, if we know anything about it, mean that we respect that portion of it which is founded on the Rabbinical traditions of the Talmud and the Cabala, but only that ethical law set forth in the Old Testament, to which right-living Jews have faithfully adhered and which is largely in accord with Christian teaching.

Let us not forget that Rabbinical Judaism is the declared and implacable enemy of Christianity. Hatred of Christianity and of the person of Christ is not a matter of remote history, nor can it be regarded as the result of persecution; it forms an integral part of Rabbinical tradition which originated before any persecution of the Jews by Christians had taken place, and has continued in our country long after all such persecution has ended.

It is here that we cannot fail to detect the origin of much of that virulent anti-Christian teaching that is being disseminated in our midst to-day. This teaching will be observed to follow three lines, of which the course has been traced throughout this book. These consist in desecrating the Christian tradition by declaring that Christ was either (_a_) a myth, (_b_) a purely human teacher endowed with superior virtue and knowledge of natural laws, (_c_) a crazy fanatic[830] or a malefactor. The first two theories are, as we have seen, those held by secret societies; the last is essentially Jewish. It is true that there is now a movement amongst the more enlightened Jews to recognize Jesus as a great teacher; so far, unfortunately, this is met by bitter hostility from the rest, and in the current Jewish press contemptuous and even blasphemous references to Christ and the Christian faith frequently occur. The fact that here in England, for nearly three hundred years, the Jews have been allowed to dwell in peace and carry out their religious rites unmolested, that they have been admitted to society, to masonic lodges, and to all offices of State and have met with increasing tolerance and favour, has done nothing to moderate that hatred of Christianity inculcated throughout nineteen centuries of Rabbinical teaching. Thus, for example, under the heading of "What Christianity has Meant," we read in a modern Jewish periodical:

We are thinking of what Christianity as an institution has meant to
us Jews. The twenty centuries of its existence have been coeval
with the long-drawn tragedy of the Jew's dispersal among the
nations.... What kindliness and consideration we have received at
the hands of Christianity has for the most part been tendered with
the lure of the baptismal font. To the extent to which
Christianity's embodiment, the Church, has been puissant has the
Jewish tragedy deepened. Only when and where the Church has been
weak has life been tolerable for the Jew.... Hatred of the Jew,
anti-Jewish outbursts and anti-Semitic campaigns, are traceable to
nothing so surely as to antipathy to the Jew which has been inbred
by Christianity.... There is thus precious little about which the
Jew has for rejoicing and gladness in the institution of
Christianity, etc.[831]

The most cursory study of history would reveal the falseness of this contention. Antipathy to the Jew began long before the Christian era; in Egypt, Persia, and Rome he became, whether just or not, the object of suspicion to rulers. The reason given by Pharaoh for oppressing the Israelites was that if they were allowed to grow too powerful they might join themselves to the enemy in time of war[832]; the Emperors of Rome regarded them as a turbulent element; Mohammed declared: "Their aim will be to abet disorder on the earth, but God loveth not the abettors of disorder."[833] Meanwhile, the antipathy shown by the "people" in every country was mainly based on economic grounds. It was not simply the possession of wealth--which according to the Socialist creed should justify any amount of hatred--but the manner in which it was acquired and the arrogance with which it was displayed that roused popular feeling against the Jews. An Arab Fakih, Abu Ishak of Elvira, thus warned his master of the growing power of the Jews in Spain in the middle of the eleventh century A.D.:

The Jews, contemptible outcasts, have become great lords, and their
pride and arrogance know no bounds.... Take not such men for thy
ministers, but abandon them to curses, for the whole earth crieth
out against them--ere long it will quake and we shall all perish.
Turn thine eyes to other lands and behold how the Jews are treated
as dogs, and kept apart....

I came to Granada, and there I beheld the Jews reigning. They had
parcelled out the provinces and the capital between them:
everywhere one of these accursed ruled. They collected the taxes,
they made good cheer, they were sumptuously clad, while your
garments, O Moslems, were old and worn-out. All the secrets of
state were known to them; yet is it folly to put trust in traitors!
While believers ate the bread of poverty, they dined delicately in
the palace.... How can we thrive if we live in the shade and the
Jews dazzle us with the glory of their pride?[834]

In mediæval France the chief cause for complaint against the Jews is that of not working with their hands but of enriching themselves by "excessive usury." In the fifteenth century the Strasbourg preacher Geyler asks: "Are the Jews above the Christians? Why will they not work with their hands?... practising usury is not working. It is exploiting others whilst remaining idle."[835] Such quotations as these might be multiplied _ad infinitum_.

To attribute the persecution of the Jews to Christianity is therefore ludicrous. That in a less enlightened age the Church should have adopted rigorous measures--although no more rigorous than their own laws demanded--against those Jews who practised magic and witchcraft must appear deplorable to the modern mind, but so must many other phases of mediæval life. Why then hark back perpetually to the past? If the Jews were persecuted in a less enlightened age, so were many other sections of the community. Catholics were persecuted, Protestants were persecuted, men were placed in the stocks for minor offences, scolding women were ducked in the village pond. But if all these cruelties of the dark ages are to be remembered and perpetuated on the plan of a tribal blood-feud, what peace can there be for the world? The disastrous results of this tendency were seen in the Irish Intellectuals, nourished from infancy on the story of Ireland's wrongs, who, instead of sanely facing present problems, unhinged their minds by brooding on historic grievances, thereby sealing their own doom and plunging their country into ruin. So, too, the enraged Feminists, harking back to injustices that had long ceased to exist, embittered their lives by proclaiming themselves the eternal enemies of Man. Emerson, the prophet of sanity, declared: "The only ballast I know is a respect to the present hour." It is for lack of this ballast that the Jews have become victims of a fanaticism in which Christians from a mistaken idea of kindness have frequently encouraged them. In reality nothing is more cruel than to encourage in the minds of a nervous race the idea of persecution; true kindness to the Jews would consist in urging them to throw off memories of past martyrdom and to enter healthfully into the enjoyment of their present blessings, which are the direct outcome of Christian civilization.

Let us consider what Christianity has in reality done for the Jews. If so much is to be said about the persecutions they have endured, what of the extraordinary indulgence shown them as the result of Christian respect for the Bible? For hundreds of years Christian school children have been brought up on Old Testament history and Christian congregations have listened sympathetically to the story of Israel's sufferings and hopes of final restoration. All the support lent to Zionism arose from this tradition. Christianity, then, so reviled by the Jews, has been their greatest protection. If Christianity goes, the whole theory that the Jews were once the Chosen People goes with it as far as Gentiles are concerned, and the Jewish race, divested of its halo of divine favour, will have to be judged on its own merits.

In our own country, the Chosen People theory has in fact been carried to the point of superstition--a superstition immensely advantageous to the Jews--which consists in interpreting the passage of Scripture containing the promise made to Abraham, "I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curseth thee," as meaning that favour shown to the Jews--who form merely a fraction of the seed of Abraham--brings with it peculiar blessings. In reality it would be easier to show by history that countries and rulers who have protected the Jews have frequently met with disaster. France banished the Jews in 1394 and again in 1615, and did not readmit them in large numbers till 1715-19, so that they were absent throughout the most glorious period in French history--the _Grand Siècle_ of Louis XIV--whilst their return coincided with the Regency, from which moment the monarchy of France may be said to have declined. England likewise banished the Jews in 1290, and it was during the three and a half centuries they remained in exile that she was known as "Merrie England." The fact that their return in force in 1664 was followed the next year by the Great Plague and the year after by the Great Fire of London would not appear to indicate that the Jews necessarily bring good fortune to the land that protects them. The truth is, of course, that kindness to any portion of the human race brings its own reward in the form of moral improvement in the individual or nation that performs it, but no more benefit attaches to philanthropy when exercised towards the Jew than towards the Chinaman.

I would urge, then, that the Jewish problem should be approached neither in the spirit of superstitious pro-Semitism nor in the bitter spirit of "anti-Semitism," but with a sanity worthy of an enlightened age. To quote again the words of Bernard Lazare, let us enquire what part "the Jew, considering his spirit, his character, the nature of his philosophy and his religion," may now be taking "in revolutionary processes and movements." Is there, then, any evidence that there exists amongst Jewry to-day an organized conspiracy having for its objects world-domination and the destruction of Christianity such as the famous _Protocols of the Elders of Zion_ suggest?[836]

The theory of a Jewish world-conspiracy does not, of course, rest on the evidence of Protocols. To judge by the pæans of joy that rang through the press after the publication of the _Times_ articles, one would imagine that with the so-called "refutation" of this one document the whole case against the Jews had collapsed and that the "anti-Semites" must be for ever silenced. But the arguments of the Jews and their friends go further than this; not only do they claim that there is no Jewish conspiracy, but no world-plot of any kind. This contention they had indeed maintained from the beginning, and Mr. Lucien Wolf, in his earliest "refutation" of the Protocols, derided the exponents of the secret-society danger as vehemently as he derided the perfidious author of the Jewish Peril. It will in fact always be noticed that references to the Illuminati meet with almost as much resentment from the Jewish press as allusions of a directly "anti-Semitic" character. Barruel, who refused to incriminate the Jews, and de Malet, who never referred to them at all, are denounced by Mr. Lucien Wolf no less as scaremongers than Gougenot des Mousseaux or Chabauty. To suggest that any Hidden Hand has ever been at work in the world is to raise immediately a storm of Jewish protest.

Yet intelligent Jews must be well aware that, whether secret societies have contributed as much to past revolutions as these writers believed, their existence and their very real influence is not a matter of surmise but of historical fact. No one ever warned the British public more distinctly of the danger they presented or of the role the Jews were playing in them than Disraeli, whose famous words have been quoted so frequently in this connexion: "The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes." What is this but a clear recognition of the Hidden Hand? Why, then, is Disraeli not included with Barruel, Robison, de Malet, and Des Mousseaux in Mr. Wolf's list of scaremongers? Is it because Disraeli pointed the moral that, Jews being so dangerous, they should be employed?

* * * * *

If, then, leading Jews persist in villifying everyone who reiterates the warnings uttered by so eminent a member of their race, it is inevitable that they should come to be suspected of having some interest in suppressing further revelations.

Setting all such evidence as the Protocols completely aside, let us examine the reasons for believing in the exisence of a Jewish world-conspiracy. Now, we know for certain that the five powers before referred to--Grand Orient Masonry, Theosophy, Pan-Germanism, International Finance, and Social Revolution--have a very real existence and exercise a very definite influence on the affairs of the world. Here we are not dealing with hypothesis but with facts based on documentary evidence. We know in each case the names of many of the leaders, their methods of organization, their centres of direction, and the aims they are pursuing. But with regard to the Jewish power we cannot proceed with the same certainty. We cannot cite the names of the leaders or the centres of direction, we cannot produce documentary evidence as to their methods of organization or their final aims. The very existence of such a power, in the sense of a united and organized body of Jews working for the destruction of Christianity and the existing social system, is still a matter of speculation and not of known fact. Investigations into the activities of such groups as the B'nai B'rith, Poale Zion, the Jewish Bund, and the Weltverband (or Jewish International Union of Socialists), might however throw much light on this question. The custom of printing their pidgin German, known as Yiddish, in Hebrew characters provides the Jews with a more or less secret code by means of which their ideas and aspirations are concealed from the great mass of the Gentiles.

Whether then the Jewish power is unified or not, Jews are to be found co-operating with, if not directing, all the five powers of which the existence is known. Thus Jews have long played a leading part in Grand Orient Masonry[837] and predominate in the upper degrees. As we have already seen, Freemasonry is always said to be subversive in Roman Catholic countries. It will also be noticed that in countries where Freemasonry is subversive, Jews are usually less conspicuous in the revolutionary movement than in countries where Freemasonry is either non-existent or constitutional. Thus in France the masonic peril is much more generally recognized than the Jewish peril; in Italy the Freemasons have been banned by Mussolini, but the Jews are not regarded by him as a particular danger; in Portugal it was the Freemasons rather than the Jews who made the recent revolutions. In Hungary, however, the revolutionaries were principally both Jews and Freemasons. On the other hand, in England, Germany, and America, where Freemasonry is not subversive, the Jewish question is more apparent. All this would suggest that either Freemasonry is the cover under which the Jews, like the Illuminati, prefer to work, so that where the cover is not available they are obliged to come out more into the open, or that Grand Orient Masonry is the directing power which employs Jews as agents in those countries where it cannot work on its own account.

The preponderance of Jews in the ranks of "Aurora" has already been indicated, as also the influence of the Jewish Cabala in the teaching of Theosophy and Rosicrucianism. But it is important that the latter point should be further emphasized in connexion with the craze for occultism that is spreading through society. Ragon has said: "The Cabala is the key of all occult sciences"; therefore in this field of experiment the Gentile must always be at a disadvantage with the Jew. Indeed Mr. Waite, who certainly cannot be suspected of "anti-Semitism," goes so far as to suggest that the gift of ceremonial magic was "the answer of Jewry to Christendom as a counter-blast" to "centuries of persecution."[838] It would be well if every Gentile who has been tempted to dabble in occultism were to realize this source of inspiration.

The rôle of Jews in social revolution and particularly in Bolshevism hardly needs comment. Yet since the Jewish press has chosen to deny this last and very obvious fact and still persists in setting down to prejudice or "anti-Semitism" a mere statement of facts, it may be well to quote here a few official statements on the subject which admit of no denial.

First of all, it must be remembered that the founder and patron saint of Bolshevism was the Jew Karl Marx, and that it was the Anarchist Bakunin, not the Duke of Northumberland, who described him and his following in the Internationale as "the German-Jew Company" and the "red bureaucracy." It was therefore not surprising that when the "red bureaucracy," avowedly founded on the doctrines of Marx, came to be set up in Russia, it should have been largely led by Jews. This is what the official British White Paper has to say on the matter:

_Extract from Report from the Netherlands Minister at Petrograd on the 6th of September_, 1918, _forwarded by Sir M. Findlay, at Christiania, to Mr. Balfour_:

I consider that the immediate suppression of Bolshevism is the
greatest issue now before the world, not even excluding the war
which is still raging, and unless, as above stated, Bolshevism is
nipped in the bud immediately, it is bound to spread in one form or
another over Europe and the whole world, as it is organized and
worked by Jews who have no nationality, and whose one object is to
destroy for their own ends the existing order of things.*[839]

Mr. Alston to Lord Curzon, quoting statement from British Consul at Ekaterinburg, January 23, 1919:

The Bolsheviks can no longer be described as a political party
holding extreme communistic views. They form a relatively small
privileged class which is able to terrorize the rest of the
population because it has a monopoly both of arms and of food
supplies. This class consists chiefly of workmen and soldiers, and
includes a large non-Russian element, such as Letts and Esthonians
and Jews; the latter are specially numerous in higher posts.

Lord Kilmarnock to Lord Curzon, quoting information given by Frenchman from Petrograd, February 3, 1919:

The Bolsheviks comprised chiefly Jews and Germans, who were
exceedingly active and enterprising. The Russians were largely
anti-Bolshevik, but were for the most part dreamers, incapable of
any sustained action, who now, more than ever before, were unable
to throw off the yoke of their oppressors.*[839]

Mr. Alston to Lord Curzon, forwarding Report from Consul at Ekaterinburg of February 6, 1919:

From examination of several labourer and peasant witnesses, I have
evidence to the effect that very smallest percentage of this
district were pro-Bolshevik, majority of labourers sympathizing
with summoning of Constituent Assembly. Witnesses further stated
that Bolshevik leaders did not represent Russian working classes,
most of them being Jews.

The Rev. B.S. Lombard to Lord Curzon, March 23, 1919:

I have been for ten years in Russia, and have been in Petrograd
through the whole of the revolution.... [I] had ample opportunity
of studying Bolshevik methods. It originated in German propaganda,
and was, and is being, carried out by international Jews. The
Germans initiated disturbances in order to reduce Russia to chaos.
They printed masses of paper money to finance their schemes, the
notes, of which I possess specimens, can be easily recognized by a
special mark.

As one of the results, the writer adds:

All business became paralysed, shops were closed, Jews became
possessors of most of the business houses, and horrible scenes of
starvation became common in the country districts.

In Hungary (where, as has been said, Socialism had been propagated by Jews in the masonic lodges[840]) the outbreak of Bolshevism was conducted under the auspices of the same race. To quote again an official document on this question, the Report on Revolutionary Activities issued by a Committee of the New York Legislature, headed by Senator Lusk[841]:

There was no organized opposition to Bela Kun. Like Lenin, he
surrounded himself with commissars, having absolute authority. Of
the thirty-two principal commissars, twenty-five were Jews, which
was about the same proportion as in Russia. The most prominent of
these formed a directorate of five: Bela Kun, Bela Varga, Joseph
Pogany, Sigmund Kunfi, and one other. Other leaders were Alpari
and Samuely, who had charge of the Red Terror, and carried out the
torturing and executing of the bourgeoisie, especially the groups
held as hostages, the so-called counter-revolutionists and
peasants.[842]

The same Report publishes a list of seventy-six men prosecuted by the Committee on the charge of criminal anarchy in America at the beginning of 1920, of which the overwhelming majority are seen by their names to be Jewish.[843]

These names speak for themselves and are published without comment on the obvious nationality of the majority of the persons concerned. So far indeed does the Lusk Committee appear to have been removed from "anti-Semitism," that nowhere in its vast Report, running to 2008 pages, is attention drawn to the preponderance of Jews concerned in the revolutionary movement, except in the one passage on Hungary quoted above. The Lusk Report must therefore be regarded as an absolutely impartial statement of facts.

In view of these official data, how is it possible for the Jewish press to pretend that a connexion between Jews and Bolshevism is a malicious invention of the "anti-Semites"? That all Jews are not Bolsheviks and that all Bolsheviks are not Jews is of course obvious; but that Jews are playing a preponderating part in Bolshevism it is absurd to deny.

An attempt has been made to show that Jews have suffered as much as the rest of the population in Russia under Bolshevism and that the Jewish religion has met with the same hostility as the Christian faith. Doubtless many Jews have suffered in Russia, since human violence, once allowed to go unchecked, is liable to express itself in various unexpected ways, and the resentment of the Russian "proletariat" towards the Jews was bound to break out under Lenin as under the Tzar. Again, a campaign against Christianity inevitably led in Russia, as in France, to a campaign against all forms of religion, and the Jewish Bolsheviks, being atheists themselves, were doubtless as ready as Lambert of the French Revolution to turn against the believers in the faith they had abandoned.

Yet that the Jewish religion suffered to the same extent as Christianity, or that any organized campaign was conducted against it by the Government, is effectually disproved by the lamentations of professing Jews on the death of Lenin.[844] Indeed, as is generally recognized, the fall of the Soviet Government must mean the downfall of the Jews from the position of privilege they now occupy.

That in our own country Jews are playing a part in the background of Bolshevism is again evident. The _Patriot_ recently published a series of articles giving inside information on the organization of the revolutionary movement in Great Britain, where it was stated the whole plot was directed by a group of twelve men. This group in turn was controlled by three of its members. These three men, as the key revealed, were all Jews, so also was "the fiend in human form whose psychological perversion produced this plot,"[845] and who was one of a group in America consisting of four Jews and a Jewess which controlled an outer revolutionary group of eighteen.[846] The Irish Republican Brotherhood also maintained close relations with a ring of revolutionary Jews in America. Incidentally, it is curious to notice that the language employed in some of the correspondence that has passed between members of an inner group bears a strong resemblance to that of Weishaupt and his fellow-Illuminati.

Jewish influence in the less extreme forms of Socialism in this country is no less apparent. If the Labour Party is solidly pro-German, it is also solidly pro-Jewish. Whilst loudly proclaiming pacifism and pressing for the reduction of armaments, it has never uttered a word of protest against the employment of British troops to defend Jewish interests against the Arabs in Palestine. The blessed word Mesopotamia may be freely mentioned in connexion with the withdrawal of troops from military adventures, but never the word Palestine. Again, the free admission of aliens and particularly of Jews into this country has always been one of the principal planks in the Labour platform. Even the Jewish capitalist meets with indulgence at the hands of our Socialist Intellectuals, who whilst inveighing against British owners of property, never include Jewish millionaires in their diatribes.

This may perhaps throw some light on the question frequently propounded: How can one believe that Jews advocate Socialism since they stand to lose everything by it? The fact remains that many Jews do advocate it. After the recent accession of the Labour Party to office the _Jewish World_ observed:

The result of the General Election in England is regarded as very
gratifying by the Hebrew and Yiddish press. The Hebrew journals in
Palestine, as well as the Hebrew and Yiddish organs in Europe and
America, express satisfaction at the return to Parliament of men
who have repeatedly assured the public of their intention to adhere
to the Balfour declaration.[847]

A further reason is advanced by the _Jewish Courier_ for rejoicing at the downfall of the Conservative Government, namely, that "the election results have wiped out anti-Semitic remnants in England," for "the Conservative Government does include several members who are far from favourably disposed towards Jews."[848] The indulgence shown to the Jews and the honours piled on them by Conservative statesmen therefore availed nothing to the Conservative cause, and the welfare of the whole country was subordinated to the interests of the Jews alone.

It is difficult at first to understand how the programme of the "Labour" Party, even when combined with ardent pro-Semitism, could however be in accord with the interests of the Jews, who have never displayed any hostility towards the Capitalist system which Socialism sets out to destroy. Indeed, we find the same Jewish paper which rejoiced at the advent of the present Government to office offering birthday congratulations to the richest Jew in this country, whose wealth, it goes on to observe with some complacency, "amounts to no less than £12,000,000 sterling, and is constantly increasing, apart from the interest that it brings, by the huge profits of the concerns in which he is interested."[849]

It would seem, then, that in the eyes of Jewry all capitalists are not to be regarded as monsters who should be mercilessly expropriated.

But in considering the war on Capitalism it is essential to bear in mind that capitalists are of two kinds: national industrial capitalists--largely Gentiles and usually men of brains and energy who have built up flourishing businesses--and international loan-mongering capitalists, principally, though not exclusively, Jews, who live by speculation. Whilst to the former, social unrest may prove fatal, to the latter any disturbances may provide opportunities for profit. As M. Georges Batault has well expressed it:

From the strictly financial point of view, the most disastrous
events of history, wars or revolutions, never represent
catastrophes; the manipulators of money and the wary business men
can make profit out of everything, provided they know beforehand
and are well-informed.... It is certain that the Jews dispersed
over all the surface of the earth ... are particularly favourably
situated in this respect.[850]

It is significant to notice that the capitalists most attacked by the Socialists and Pacifists are not those who make profit out of wars and revolutions, but those who contribute to the prosperity of the country and provide work for millions of people. Here, then, the Jews and the Socialists seem to find a point of agreement. It is evident, at any rate, that many rich Jews consider that they have nothing to fear from the threatened Capital Levy and other features of expropriation. Are we not irresistibly reminded of the passage in the Protocols--where incidentally the Capital Levy is specifically mentioned--"Ours they will not touch, because the moment of attack will be known to us and we shall take measures to protect our own"?