Arizona republican., 1904-09-24
PHoENrx. ARIZONA. SEPT 24. 1904
The Czar and the Jews.

HC NLnA 1A6 IAC SGWo@
 IR an article on the czar's recent ukase puFporting 10 relieve the Jews in the Russian empire from much of the oppression from which they are suffer ing, the Jewish Chronicle claims that while the ukase apparently makes i'm poxtant concessions as to residence and trading, these concessions must not be regarded as of any value to the perse- cuted race or as affording any relax atim Of the Ignatieff May laws. Ac- e9ydIRg to the Chronicle, the ukase is, EA fact. only a ruse to secure the sup port of the Jewish hnanciers on the continent to the Notation of the Rus san war loan about to be issued. Un- deE the provisions of the new decree the only Jews who will be allowed to settle or to rent premises outside the towns, that Is to say in the agricul- tural districts of the pale, will be mer- chants of the first guild and post guild working artisans, and discharged sol- diers and Jews who have passed a course of higher education. All these categories would constitute an insig- nifcant roportion of the whole Jewish population, and would comprise just those who, from their position as mer- chants, artisans, graduates and retired soldiers. would not desire to engage in rustic pursuits or to reside in the coun- try districts. The millions of Jews who were driven by the May laws from the villages and hamlets of the pale into its crowded towns and cities, and de- prived of the land which they had cuI- tivated all their lives. remain untouch- ed by this delusive ukase.
 AS to the extension of the rights of trading conferred by the new law, the Chronicle points out, it is difficult to see who will derive benefit from the supposed extension, or, indeed, whether any extension is intended. Jews, "who possess a liberal higher education (presumably graduates) are not very numerous, seeing that for about fif- teen years no university or high school has been allowed to have more than per cent of Jewish students, and see ing that lately many of these centers of learning have been closed as sus- pected of revolutionary tendencies. Moreover, graduates are not likely to be anxious to carry on business" As far as one can understand the compli- cated new regulation, a few exception al first guild merchants of long stand ing may set up a business in any part of the empire outside the pale, and the same privilege is to be extended to Jews now serving in the army of the east. There is a grim irony in this last concession, for if the Jewish soldiers survive this terrible war, they must serve till the close of the campaign, and if they perish the ukase will not be of great service to them.
 Jewish merchants of the first and second guild are to have the right of visiting all towns for business as long as they do not stay more than three months in any one place. This right members of the first guild always had, subject to police regulations, and those of the second guild could always ob- tain the right by administering the usual bribes. But whatever may be the practical effect of the ukase, it must be observed that applying as it does, solely to very limited classes of Jews, merchants of the first and sec ond guilds, graduates, counsellors of commerce, and manufacturers, and soldiers still serving in the far east, that effect, if any. will never touch the great mass of the Russian Jews the four or five millions who have for the past twenty-three years been unable to do business outside the pale of settlement and even there been sub Jected to all the prosecutions resulting from the May laws.
 The last paragraph of the ukase is thorough specimen of law-giving says the Jewish Chronicle, for it ren- ders nugatory all that precedes it. It seems to have been added by some of hcial who thought the concessions in the body of the ukase dangerously lib- eral, for 1t legalizes and maintains in force all orders heretofore made by the central courts which prevented the free movement of the Jews 'even should they have been issued illegally In other words, the new ukase is to be without prejudice to old and illegal de- cisions of the tribunals. Moreover, as the new regulations do not apply to districts in which special regula tions exist for the circumscription of Jews, |" that is. for the prevention of their free movement, this last paragraph means