tries, did not mean that British Jews in
Russia should be treated as British subjects, but that they should only
have equal treatment with their oppressed co-religionists. He
accordingly declined to seek any relief for the petitioners.[81] The
case gave rise to no controversy, not only because the British and
Russian Governments were at one in their interpretation of the Treaty,
but because the facts were not made public at the time. It proved,
however, a fatal and humiliating precedent. In 1880 a terrible era of
persecution was inaugurated for the Jews of Russia, and it soon reacted
on their foreign brethren visiting the country. Towards the end of the
year a naturalised British Jew named Lewisohn was expelled from St.
Petersburg because he was a Jew, and he invoked the protection of his
Government. Lord Granville, who was then Foreign Secretary, was at first
disposed to regard the expulsion as a violation of the Treaty,[82] but
later on he became acquainted with the precedent of 1862, and he
declined to depart from it.[83] In 1890, at the instance of the Jewish
Conjoint Committee, Lord Salisbury submitted the question to the Law
Officers of the Crown, with the result that the precedent set by Lord
John Russell was confirmed on its merits and not--as in the case of Lord
Granville--_qua_ precedent only.[84] The last occasion on which an
effort was made to obtain a reversal of this decision was in 1912. The
Conjoint Committee addressed to the Secretary of State, Sir Edward Grey,
an elaborate Memorandum reviewing the history and legal aspects of the
question.[85] The reply was in effect a reaffirmation of the previous
decisions, but the grounds on which it was rested were different. Sir
Edward Grey did not discuss the reasonableness of the established
interpretation, but he pleaded that any departure from it would only
lead to the termination of the Treaty, and that this would serve neither
British nor Jewish interests.[86]

The dispute with the United States pursued a very different course. In
its earliest stages it was dealt with by minor diplomatic and consular
officials very much in the spirit of Lord John Russell,[87] but when in
1880 the Russian Government began to expel American Jews from St.
Petersburg, the question was taken in hand by the Secretary of State as
one of gravity. It was at once recognised that a religious
discrimination between American citizens could not be tolerated in any
American Treaty. This wa