Part 44 (1/2)

Now Temple and Synagogue were crowded: rabbi and p.a.w.nbroker and _maggid,_ clothes-man and _takif,_ were infected; and there spread the cry (for the most part meaningless): ”To Zion!”

It may be that the Jewish electorate were now too agitated with the near probability of s.h.i.+loh to interest themselves in any mundane question: at all events, it was during that rage that the Government-whips announced the certainty that the Jewish members would vote against the Land Bill.

Hogarth first heard it pretty late at night from the Prime Minister; and ”Ha!-the Jews”, he went: ”so they have dared, these men? I never thought that they would! May G.o.d deliver me from His ill-chosen people--!”

”And ill-choosing, it seems, my Lord King”.

”Quite so! But, Sir Robert Wortley, is it supportable this thing?”--a brand now on his brow--”an alien race in Britain opposing thus daringly not _my_ will only, but the plain will of the people? And have I the air of one who will support it? Rather, I a.s.sure you, would I govern without a Parliament! But stop--perhaps I shall be found capable of dealing with these mischievous children of Israel. Give me a night: and to-morrow at noon come, and hear. Of course, this second-reading business must be postponed ”.

And deep and wide, in lonely vigil, wrought the Regent's thought that night, till morning: of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, of tendencies, histories, soils, ports, railways, possibilities, race-genius, a.n.a.logies, destinies; of Rothschild and I Solomon; of Hirsch and Y'hudah Hana.s.si; of the Jewish Board of Guardians, Rab Asa, and the Targum on the Babylonish Talmud; of the Barbary Jews, the Samaritans, and Y'hudah Halevi; of the Colonial Bank, and the Karaite Jews....

When at dawn he threw himself dressed into bed, he had resolved upon a very great thing: their expulsion from England, Pole and Hungarian, Baron and coster, and the little child at the breast, ten millions.

His eyes had closed toward sleep when, with a start, he remembered a prophecy uttered one evening in the _Boodah_ Throne-room, and these words: ”Richard, deal gently with my people....”

Two nights later, with a retinue, he hurriedly left England-for Constantinople.

XLVI

THE ORDER IN COUNCIL

Three days before that setting-out, O'Hara's appeal for pardon had come under the Regent's notice: and as he had read, his eyes--once more--had softened, as he had thought: ”It would be a great crime to forgive him the long list; but never mind--we will see”....

And he had meant to reply, but suddenly the Jews had swept O'Hara quite out of his mind.

He was away hardly two weeks: and when he returned, Palestine and western Armenia were his, all his acts of this period bearing resemblance in largeness and rage to the incredible forced-marches of Napoleon.

If one spreads apart the first two fingers, he sees exactly the country ordained by Hogarth for modern Israel: the first finger Palestine, looking upon the Mediterranean; between the fingers, the Syrian Desert; the second (longer) finger that Mesopotamia, ”the cradle of our race”

between the Euphrates and the Tigris, this opening upon the Persian Gulf, and the trade of the East.

The then population of this area was only 300,000 (Arabs, Turks, Jews, Greeks) in the Palestine finger, omitting Russian pilgrims to Jerusalem; while in the Mesopotamia finger--all that Hinterland of Palestine called ”Turkish Armenia”--not 320,000 Armenians had been left by Khurdish rapine and Turkish atrocity: we may therefore say that the whole was an uninhabited land waiting for inhabitants.

The only things needed (according to modern notions) to make it immediately colonizable were roads and railways, and the Regent had not returned to Dover when both were making in Palestine, the Sultan, left thunderstruck with a chronic eye of scare by that visit, ”lending his co-operation”, consoled meanwhile by a Conversion Loan of thirteen millions out of Sea-revenue; to which add a grant-in-aid of fifteen millions to the emigrants, and the remark of Hogarth's Chancellor about this time becomes intelligible: ”Your Lords.h.i.+p's Majesty's expenditure is exceeding revenue by 50 per cent”; so that Beech's was soon realizing considerably in bonds over Europe, and Hogarth temporarily poor--had stubbornly refused any Parliament-grant for the Regent's personal establishment.

And suddenly from the blue fell his bolt: at that same table of the Regent's oath-of-office a.s.sembled eighty-seven Jewish lords and gentlemen at noon of the 24th March, the first day of the month Nisan in the Jewish year 5699, ordered, each by himself, to the Royal presence; and the Regent, with the gravest eyes, both palms pressed on the table, in an embarra.s.sment of compunction, rose and spoke with them--Rothschild and merchant-prince, Chief Rabbi, Manchester Chief Minister, Heads of the Alliance Israelite, Anglo-Jewish a.s.sociation, Jewish Board, Jewish philanthropists, writers; and they could not believe themselves awake.

He began by speaking of himself, the fact of his power, with such graciousness, that all were affected, not by the power, but by the gentleness which wielded it: Providence had given him the disposal of the earth, and it was for him to do his poor best--a lonesome, sorrowful post; so that talking could never alter in anything the main point; but it could modify details: and he had called them to invoke their great administrative gift and expert counsel; he told of the exodus which he designed, the home which he had prepared them; recommended a Sanhedrim of Chief Jews to form the Provisional Government of the new State, with the Chief Rabbi as its head under the t.i.tle of Shophet (Judge); would offer a contribution of 15,000,000 from his Exchequer toward an emigration and colonizing fund, and doubtless emigration bureaus would be at once established at princ.i.p.al centres; he would also hand over a Deed of Gift of this larger Judaea as between the Sea and the Jewish people to the Central Authority as soon as established; also, duplicates of the text of the Treaty as between the Sea and the Ottoman Empire.

What he gave he gave, he a.s.sured them, with a free heart, without condition; except, of course, one: that no inch of the new land should ever ”belong” to any particular Jew: for he gave, as Nature gave the earth, not to a hundred, but to all, living and to be born, occupiers to pay rent, not to any adventurer calling himself landlord, but to the Central Authority, representing all. This done, he would invoke with confidence upon their able race the blessing of Almighty G.o.d.

In tones so mellow did he utter himself, that for many minutes stillness reigned, every face pale.

Until a baron stood up with ashen under-lip, to say that such a scheme, it seemed to him, must remain for ever abortive, unless enforced by Act of Parliament--

But Hogarth checked him quick.

”No, my lord, not by Act of Parliament: the how your lords.h.i.+p may leave to me. I dare say you will see it in this evening's papers”.