Page:The International Jew - Volume 2.djvu/233

 virulent boycott. This boycott dates from shortly after the by-election for the Duma, which took place in Warsaw in 1912 * * * Business relations between Poland and Russia were very considerable in the past, and were generally in the hands of the Jews, not only in the handling of the goods exported, but also in their manufacture * * * Initiative in business matters is almost entirely the prerogative of the Jewish population * * * Nearly the whole of the estate agents who act for the Polish nobility are of the Jewish race * * * Attention must be paid to the fact that Jews form the middle class almost in its entirety. Above are the aristocracy and below are the peasants. Their relations with the peasants are not unsatisfactory. The young peasants cannot read the newspapers and are therefore but slightly contaminated by anti-Semitism until they enter the army. I was informed that it is not at all unusual for Polish peasants to avail themselves of the arbitrament of the Jewish rabbi’s courts.”

That shows the Jews to have occupied a very favorable position in Poland and is to be remembered in connection with the previous quotation from Sir Stuart in which he says that if the incitements of the press were repressed by a strong official hand, “the Jews would be able to live, as they have done for the past 800 years, on good terms with their fellow citizens in Poland.”

Let us take the points made by Sir Stuart, and observe what the other witnesses say about them:

(a) Beginning with the point as to the Jews’ monopoly of business in Poland:

SIR H. RUMBOLD—“Sir Stuart Samuel would appear to be mistaken in his appreciation of the part played by the Jews in the pre-war business relations between Poland and Russia and in the industry of the former country. Whereas it is true that goods exported from Poland were to a large extent handled by the Jews, only a small percentage of those goods were actually manufactured by them.”

CAPTAIN P. WRIGHT—“In Poland until the last generation all business men were Jews: The Poles were peasants or landowners, and left commerce to the Jews; even now certainly much more than half, and