ittee seized the opportunity of
endeavouring to reopen the Rumano-Jewish Question. The annexation was a
technical infraction of the Berlin Treaty and required the sanction of
the Great Powers, for which probably a Conference would be held. The
Conjoint Committee addressed to Sir Edward Grey a request that the scope
of the proposed Conference should be extended to other infractions of
the Treaty, and accompanied it with a review of the Rumano-Jewish
Question, which constitutes one of the most important State Papers
produced in the Jewish community.[46] Unfortunately the projected
Conference was abandoned, but Sir Edward Grey was so impressed by the
statements of the Conjoint Committee that he ordered an investigation to
be made, and he afterwards formally avowed, in a letter to the Conjoint
Committee, that the charges made in the Memorandum were accurate and
that Rumania had not fulfilled her Treaty pledges. This perhaps may not
seem to be a great gain, but those who know anything of international
politics will be aware that an official statement of this kind has
considerable practical importance, and, indeed, it was not lost upon the
Cabinet of Bucharest.

The last occasions on which attempts were made to put an end to the
Rumanian scandal were in connection with the Conferences of London, St.
Petersburg, and Bucharest, which liquidated the various questions
arising out of the Balkan wars in 1912-13. Here two questions confronted
the Conjoint Committee. While the international questions at issue were
confined to the trans-Danubian States, all that was necessary was to
secure for the populations of the transferred territories in that region
a reaffirmation of the clauses of the Treaties of 1830 and 1878, by
which the liberties of racial and religious minorities were guaranteed.
When, however, Rumania joined in the war, this question became of much
greater importance, and it involved the reopening of the whole question
of Rumania's violation of the Treaty of Berlin. In spite of the efforts
of the Conjoint Committee, neither the three Conferences of London, nor
the Conference of St. Petersburg dealt with these questions. At the
Conference of Bucharest the United States Government, at the instance of
the American Jewish Committee, made a suggestion that the civil and
religious liberties of the populations of the territories transferred
under the proposed Treaty should be specially guaranteed. On the
proposal of the Rumanian