tion, therefore, in America, the condition of that country will be radically changed; and there cannot be a doubt that when it occurs, a genuine impulse must be given not only to the wellbeing of the people, but to the wellbeing of all peoples. The reason of the success so far of democracy, lies in the fact that it promotes the greatest good of the greatest number; but this cardinal principle is being forgotten in America, and outside of the British Isles or in portions of the empire has only a semiexistence. The foolishness of stimulating production in the United States and excluding the competition of the world, is seen in the inability to lighten taxation by reducing the annual surplus, which curtails the operations of business by causing a constant flow of currency to the Treasury. The surplus is thus "a rock of offence" to every one engaged in agriculture and commerce, and cannot be maintained to benefit the manufacturer. Already the farmers' alliances are multiplying in every direction, all breathing bitter sectarianism and full of economical fads for the begetting of a money millennium. There are, accordingly, some hard times before democracy in the United States; but the strangest thing connected with it is the deliberate manner Americans have worked up trouble for themselves in the very spirit of

that Navigation Act they once so fiercely denounced. If, in the land of its early development, democracy can make no advance on the victory of the rights of man, its day is done there, great and splendid as its service has been. The people of the United Kingdom have improved upon it by the addition to its triumph, so far as they are concerned, of free exchange, and the hopes of the working men of all nations must henceforth rest exclusively on the unfolding of British genius. It may be that owing to forgetfulness of her duty towards humanity, America is at the length of her tether for the present, that the impetus derived from the founders can carry her no further. She has walked on the path marked out by her early history, gathering wealth at every step, trusting to a rapidly developing continent, and glorying in the selfishness of the moment, but without the guidance of the wise men when the way was uncertain; and as a consequence, if no halt is made, if the route is not retraced, all the magnificent possibilities before the New World may be closed indefinitely by the reaction of that very self-confidence which opened them up. This would be a great disappointment for the Americans themselves, and a sad ending to their own expectations.

WARNEFORD MOFFATT.

THE progress of the East is so slow as compared with that of the West, and the survival of ancient things is so marked, when the European leaves the railways of Europe for the baggage-mules of the Levant, that the new-comer is tempted to suppose that the condition of the countries east of the Mediterranean is immutable, and will so remain while the Turkish empire endures. Yet within the last twenty years great changes have come over Syria and Palestine, and the course of events in Cyprus and Egypt has not been without its effect on the neighbouring shores. Yet greater changes are actually now commencing to be made, and may perhaps result in the realisation of what seemed mere dreams only a dozen years ago. When, after the bombardment of Acre in 1840, the power of the Sultan was re-established in Syria, with the aid of the British fleet, the Turkish Government was called upon to rule a region which had long been accustomed to semi-independence, under various native families dwelling at the different "seats" throughout the country. The real power of the Pashas was at first small, but gradually increased; and the turbulent hill population of the Samaritan region was finally reduced to submission, through the cruel severity of the Kurdish governors. Great numbers of the peasantry were hanged. The old faction-fights of the Keis and Yemini, and of the small local factions which existed in the cities and even in the villages, were repressed, and the taxes were farmed out, and collected by the aid of a mounted force. But twenty years ago the power of the Sultan, in the

regions beyond the Jordan, was still nominal; and yet more recently the provincial governor, setting forth to levy tribute from the Beni Sakhr, has been glad to return even with the loss of all his clothing.

The use of repeating-rifles, with which the Turkish mounted police were armed, soon, however, changed this condition of lawlessness to one of law, as the Turks understand the word. The nomads, first driven from the western plains, were afterwards controlled with increasing success, by the governor whose seat is at the town of Es Salt in Gilead. The power of the true Arabs has year by year decreased on the eastern borders of Syria, and has become extinct west of the Jordan; the power of the Turks has constantly waxed stronger, so that at the present time independence has almost ceased to exist within the borders of the Syrian provinces. The massacres of 1860 at Damascus also led to very important changes in the Lebanon region. The Maronites, under an equitable government, have multiplied and prospered; and their enemies the Druzes, gradually deserting the Lebanon, are now mainly settled on Mount Hermon, and in the broad plains of Bashan. They are among the most independent and turbulent of the Sultan's subjects in this region; but are held in check by means of military forts, established by the Damascus Government for that object.

The exploration of the country, and the numerous publications to which it gave rise, have also had their effect in the great increase of the annual visitors, who now descend on Palestine in armies at Easter-time, and whose travels

are now rather more widely extended than of old, though few comparatively have followed the example of our royal Princes, who, in 1882, visited the greater part of the central region beyond the Jordan. This familiarity with Western customs and wants has wrought considerable change in the manners of the peasantry in many regions; and although the change is in some respects not for the better, it seems that the old fanaticism of the Moslems in the mountain regions has been in great degree extinguished, at least as far as outward manner is concerned. The changes are, however, not merely in floating population, or in peasant manners, for the actual residents in Palestine are becoming more numerous, and are increased chiefly from foreign sources. The German colonies, which have now been established for twenty-two years at Jaffa, Haifa, and Jerusalem, have spread, and introduced a European element into the country. The increased power and wealth of individual Jews has led to the purchase of land, in which Jewish capital has been sunk, and has encouraged other Jews to enter the country.

This influx of Jewish population, which has now been going on with increasing rapidity for about a dozen years, has, during that time, been mainly due to the oppression of the race in Russia. The recent severe edicts which have excluded the Jews from Moscow, forcing them to sell even their synagogues and to fly for their lives, have quite recently given a new and very urgent impulse to the question as to Jewish colonisation in Palestine—an impulse from within, not from without, which is for that reason more likely to lead to practical results. Should this movement continue to

grow in favour, and to attract the influence and capital of Jewish leaders of weight, we may perhaps be destined to witness a very remarkable historic event the return of the Jews to their native land-and a change in the condition of Palestine without precedent in modern times. It is proposed here briefly to consider the feasibility and the desirability of such a movement, its chances of success, and the difficulties to be overcome; and to consider also the recent events within the country

such as the construction of railways, and changes of laws which created disabilities for foreigners anxious to settle in the Turkish dominions—which tend to remove difficulties, and to render the result in question more probable.

The recent outcry against the Jews on the Continent was one of the main reasons why the project of a return to Palestine began to be entertained by their leaders. This has been intensified by the recent action of the Governor of Moscow. The Jews are perhaps the best organised of civilised people, and recognise, more completely than any other race, the duty of providing for those among them who are poor and unfortunate; but the strain on their resources has suddenly become very heavy. It is said that 15,000 poor or destitute Jews have arrived in England within six months, and an equally large influx is impending. The laws now being enforced in Russia may lead to the displacement of something like a million of Russian subjects-Jews by race and by religion; and the question therefore becomes imperious, Where are they to go? and what are they to do if the conditions of existence in Russia itself are rendered insupportable? To answer this we must first know what class of

Jews we have to deal with, and what they are able to do; and may also ask what are the reasons why such severity is now being shown towards them, not only in Russia, but also to some extent in Germany, France, and Austria? Nay, even in Britain it has been proposed to introduce some regulations which may stay the influx of such foreign destitute immigrants from the East.

It is usually said that the hatred and persecution of the Jews have always been due to religious antipathies, to the exclusiveness of the Jews themselves, and to their oppression of those from whom they have exacted usury. They have been called a parasitic nation; but, if we may judge from their distribution, such parasitic life is due-like all other parasitic life -to the indolence and unhealthiness of those on whom they live. Mankind is apt to lay its sins on the shoulders of others, and to reproach others with the natural results of its own actions. A very slight acquaintance with the history of the Jews, and with their present distribution, suffices to show the justice of this view. The prejudice against Jews dates much earlier than the times when Christians of the middle ages reproached them with the death of the Christ. Tacitus writes with a bitterness against them which is only equalled by the contempt and dislike expressed by the Roman poets, who describe the Jewish hucksters, and money-lenders, and impostors who infested the capital of the world. Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome some twenty years before they were persecuted by Nero, in times when Jews and Christians were little distinguished in the eyes of the Roman Government; but such measures had little effect, and Jews and Jewesses rose to the

highest positions of power in the empire before the destruction of Jerusalem, and after its fall. The Roman antipathy to the Jews had little or no religious reason, and other causes must therefore be sought in this case, causes which no doubt were in operation later as well.

In the early times of Norman persecution religious reasons were often brought forward as the excuse. The well-known story of the Jews of York, who were believed to have entrapped a Christian boy to slay him in connection with the Passover rite, represents a cry which has now for some eighteen centuries been raised, from time to time, in every country where the Jews abode. It is still raised almost every year, not only in Asia but even in Europe. Yet the Jews are not the only people against whom this horrid accusation has been made. The Romans accused the Christians of devouring babes. Fathers of the Church like Cyril accused the Gnostic heretics of "chopping up wretched little children" in their mysteries. The Church of Rome brought the same accusation against the Templars, and there is no more reason why we should credit this ancient calumny in one case than in another. It is to the credit of the Turks that, by special decree, such statements against Jewish subjects of the Porte have been declared to be calumnious.

But while these and other accusations served to stir up the evil feelings of the superstitious and ignorant, there were other more real causes at work. The Norman nobles were not deterred by religious objections from borrowing money of the Hebrew. Costly suits of and armour, kind of oriental produce, were bought, and had to be paid for: lands were

every

mortgaged; and in the time when the Normans set out to conquer Southern Italy and Sicily, when their success led men to think of other conquests east of the Mediterranean, it can hardly be doubted that the feudal nobles were in considerable monetary difficulties, and found the persecution of the Jews preferable to the payment of their debts, or of the interest on their loans.

When Palestine became a Norman kingdom, they were careful to exclude from it a class which they dreaded; and although money still was borrowed at usurious interest, to support the ruinous expenses of war and feudal service, it was borrowed from the Armenians, Greeks, and Templars. The Jews were in a very flourishing condition in non-Christian regions of the Levant in the twelfth century; but Benjamin of Tudela, who found them independent at Palmyra, and highly esteemed by the Sultans of Damascus and Baghdad-nay, even ruling kingdoms near the Caucasus met with only a few poor families of Jewish dyers and glass-makers in Palestine.

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In our own times the Jew is most hated in those countries where, by superior energy, enterprise, and organisation, he has monopolised to a great extent the trade and financial business of the land.

In Russia, the people, as a whole, can hardly be regarded as progressive, or eager to work; the Mujik's heaven is a state of peaceful and not too sober idleness; his simplicity and his laziness lead him to turn a willing ear to the Jew, who proposes to lend him money, to save him trouble, and to bring to his door things which he will not go to fetch for himself, and sometimes cannot so obtain. The day of reckoning is

forgotten, and when it comes the wrath of the Mujik is easily roused. Contrast with this condition of affairs, which prevails not only in Russia, but wherever an inert and unprogressive people come in contact with a large Jewish population, the case of Scotland, where the people are thrifty, hard-working, of good understanding, and 'canny," and where it is said the Jew finds it hard to prosper. No man is obliged to borrow at high interest if he does not live beyond his means; but when he is called to pay his bond, it is no answer to accuse his creditor of slaying babes at the Passover.

The Jew in Russia is also accused of being a dangerous Nihilist with revolutionary opinions. We may, however, be allowed largely to discount such a description, when, on the one hand, we remember what are considered revolutionary opinions in Russia, and how often they are in other lands looked upon as very moderately progressive; and when, on the other,

we remember that one of the chief

accusations against Jews has been that of obstinate conservatism in retaining their laws, their creed, their customs, their isolated organisation, and their peculiar dialects. The Jewish character is conservative rather than revolutionary, and the authority of their own leaders is usually respected and obeyed.

The Jew, in fact, holds to the more backward nations of Europe somewhat the position that the boy who is unpopular, and who will work, in spite of all that is done to distract him, holds at a school. It is clear that this unpopular boy will gain the prizes; that he will raise the standard of work; and that, if extreme measures be not taken, it will become impossible both to neglect work and also to maintain an average position.