aused 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