to be the proprietor of half a county, and therefore very
consistently proposes to confiscate the landed estates of the Jews. But
even the honourable Member for Oldham does not go far enough. He has
not proposed to confiscate the personal property of the Jews. Yet it is
perfectly certain that any Jew who has a million may easily make himself
very important in the State. By such steps we pass from official power
to landed property, and from landed property to personal property, and
from property to liberty, and from liberty to life. In truth, those
persecutors who use the rack and the stake have much to say for
themselves. They are convinced that their end is good; and it must be
admitted that they employ means which are not unlikely to attain the
end. Religious dissent has repeatedly been put down by sanguinary
persecution. In that way the Albigenses were put down. In that way
Protestantism was suppressed in Spain and Italy, so that it has never
since reared its head. But I defy any body to produce an instance in
which disabilities such as we are now considering have produced any
other effect than that of making the sufferers angry and obstinate.
My honourable friend should either persecute to some purpose, or not
persecute at all. He dislikes the word persecution I know. He will not
admit that the Jews are persecuted. And yet I am confident that he would
rather be sent to the King's Bench Prison for three months, or be fined
a hundred pounds, than be subject to the disabilities under which the
Jews lie. How can he then say that to impose such disabilities is not
persecution, and that to fine and imprison is persecution? All his
reasoning consists in drawing arbitrary lines. What he does not wish to
inflict he calls persecution. What he does wish to inflict he will not
call persecution. What he takes from the Jews he calls political power.
What he is too good-natured to take from the Jews he will not call
political power. The Jew must not sit in Parliament: but he may be the
proprietor of all the ten pound houses in a borough. He may have more
fifty pound tenants than any peer in the kingdom. He may give the voters
treats to please their palates, and hire bands of gipsies to break their
heads, as if he were a Christian and a Marquess. All the rest of this
system is of a piece. The Jew may be a juryman, but not a judge. He
may decide issues of fact, but not issues of law. He may give a hundred
thousand pounds damages; but