History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II - From the death of Alexander I. until the death of Alexander - III. (1825-1894) by S. M. (Simon Markovich) Dubnow
page 297 of 446 (66%)
page 297 of 446 (66%)
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[Footnote 1: On February 1, 1882.]
The first speaker, the Earl of Shaftesbury, pointed out that the English people did not wish to meddle in the inner affairs of Russia, but desired to influence it by "moral weapons," in the name of the principle of the "solidarity of nations." The official denials of the atrocities he brushed aside with the remark that, if but a tenth part of the reports were true, "it is sufficient to draw down the indignation of the world." It was necessary, in the opinion of Shaftesbury, to appeal directly to the Tzar and ask him "to be a Cyrus to the Jews, and not an Antiochus Epiphanes." The Bishop of London, speaking in the absence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Primate of the Anglican Church, reminded his audience that only several years previously England had been horrified by the outrages perpetrated by the Turkish Bashi-buzuks[1] upon the Bulgars, who were then defended by Russia, and it had now a right to protest against Christian Russia as it had formerly done against Mohammedan Turkey. [Footnote 1: See above, p. 253, n. 2.] The most powerful speech was delivered by Cardinal Manning, the great Catholic divine. He pointed to the fact that the Russian Jews were not only the object of temporary pogroms but that they constantly groaned under the yoke of a degrading legislation which says to the Jew: "You may not pass beyond that boundary; you must not go within eighteen miles of that frontier; you must not dwell in that town; you must live only in that province." He caused laughter in the audience by quoting from Ignatyev's famous circular concerning the appointment of the |
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