of Russia. Several days before the audience at Gatchina, [1] the English
Parliament discussed the question of Jewish persecutions in Russia. In
the House of Commons the Jewish members, Baron Henry de Worms and Sir
H.D. Wolff, calling attention to the case of an English Jew who had been
expelled from St. Petersburg, interpellated the Under-Secretary of State
for Foreign Affairs, Sir Charles Dilke, "whether Her Majesty's
Government have made any representations to the Government at St.
Petersburg, with regard to the atrocious outrages committed on the
Jewish population in Southern Russia," Dilke replied that the English
Government was not sure whether such a protest "would be likely to be
efficacious." [2]

[Footnote 1: On May 16 and 19=May 4 and 7, according to the Russian
Calendar.]

[Footnote 2: The Russian original has been amended in a few places in
accordance with the report of the parliamentary proceedings published in
the _Jewish Chronicle_ of May 20, 1881.]

A similar reply was given by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs,
Lord Granville, to a joint deputation of the Anglo-Jewish Association
and the Board of Deputies, two leading Anglo-Jewish bodies, which waited
upon him on May 13, [1] two days after the Gatchina audience. After
expressing his warm sympathy with the objects of the deputation, the
Secretary pointed out the inexpediency of any interference on the part
of England at a moment when the Russian Government itself was adopting
measures against the pogroms, referring to "the cordial reception lately
given by the emperor to a deputation of Jews"

[Footnote 1: May 25, according to the European Calendar. From the issue
of the _Jewish Chronicle_ of May 27, 1881, p. 12b, it would appear that
the deputation was received on Tuesday, May 24.]

Subsequent events soon made it clear that the Government, represented by
Ignatyev, was far from harboring any sympathy for the victims of the
pogroms. The public did not fail to notice the fact that the Russian
Government, which was in the habit of rendering financial help to the
population in the case of elemental catastrophes, such as conflagrations
or inundations, had refrained from granting the slightest monetary
assistance to the Jewish sufferers from the pogroms. Apart from its
material usefulness, such assistance would have had an enormous moral
effect, inasmuch as it would have stood forth in the public eye as an
official condemnation of the violent a