THE JEWS OF ENGLAND.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10033, 2 May 1910, Page 4

THE JEWS OF ENGLAND.

Fifty years ago when the Jews of England, after a bitter and prolonged struggle, had only just won the privilege of sitting in the House of Commons, the prospect of a member of the ancient faith becoming one of His Majesty'BJ|Ministers must have seemed sufficiently remote.' What," one wonders, would Baron Lionel de Rothschild and his contemporaries have said could they have foreseen that, half a century after the coping- ! stone had been placed upon their labours, no fewer than three of their co-religionists would be sitting mFarliament as members of the Government, and one as a Cabinet Minister" It has become the usual thing to say, when an English Jew has attained to high political honour, that such success is but the logical result of the emancipation victory. But it requires somathirg more than logic to explain in this instance why the Jewish population, who proportionately to the rest of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom figuie but as one in 200, should be taking so large and important a share in the government of the country. It is an illogical rather than a logical phenomenon. Bat then Jewish history always has been full of surprises and paradoxes, and perhaps the greatest paradox ot all is that, while in Russia and Roumania Jews are groaning helplessly under well-nigh unexampled restriction and oppression, in England they should he enjoying a position of unprecedented influence and honour. Mr Rufus Isaacs is the second Jew to become Solicitor-Gen-eral. In 1871 Sir George Jessel was appointed by Mr Gladstone to that office, which he held until 1873, when he became Master of the Rolls. During the past 50 years or so the community has supplied the legal profession in England with some of its most distinguished members; in this connection, the name of Judah Benjamin will readily be recalled as, perhaps, the must gifted advocate of his day. In the colonies, too, men of the stamp of Judge Isaacs have shone with especial brilliance among their fellow luminaries of the law. In the hands of the present SolicitorGeneral these lofty traditions are safe enough.