Part 9 (1/2)
Your most obedient, humble servant,
EYRE A. CROWE.
THE CONJOINT JEWISH COMMITTEE.
CONJOINT JEWISH COMMITTEE,
19 FINSBURY CIRCUS, E.C.
_17th November, 1913_.
SIR,--We have had the honour of receiving the letter of the 29th ult.
addressed to us on your behalf by Sir Eyre A. Crowe, and we have duly submitted it to our colleagues of the Conjoint Jewish Committee.
We are desired by the Committee to thank you for this communication and to express their lively satisfaction with the a.s.surances you are good enough to give them and which appear to them to meet the necessities of the case they had the honour of placing before you.
The Committee propose, with your permission, to submit to you at a later stage, for the consideration of His Majesty's Government, an amended formula of civil and religious liberty in the Balkans, which they think will more clearly express the intentions of the Conference of London and the Congress of Berlin than the provisions on the same subject contained in the Protocol No. 3 of 1830 and the Treaty of 1878. They trust that His Majesty's Government may find it possible to make this or some similar amendment the basis for the proposed consultation with the other Great Powers, as they venture to think that in this way a means may be found of obviating a repet.i.tion of the misunderstandings by which the Jews of Roumania have hitherto been deprived of the rights sought to be conferred upon them by the Treaty of Berlin, besides securing the rights of other religious and racial minorities in the Balkans on a footing of perfect equality.
We, are, Sir,
Your most obedient humble servants,
DAVID L. ALEXANDER,
_President, London Committee of the Deputies of British Jews_,
CLAUDE G. MONTEFIORE,
_President, Anglo-Jewish a.s.sociation_.
TO THE RIGHT HON. SIR EDWARD GREY, BART., M.P., K.G., ETC., ETC., ETC.
CONJOINT JEWISH COMMITTEE,
19 FINSBURY CIRCUS, E.C.
_12th March, 1914_.
SIR,--Referring to the letter we had the honour of addressing to you on the 17th November last, we now beg to submit to you, for the consideration of His Majesty's Government, a revised formula of civil and religious liberty in the Balkans in the hope that His Majesty's Government may be able to recommend it to the other Great Powers signatory of the Treaty of Berlin for application to the territories which have recently changed hands in the Near East under the provisions of the Treaties of London and Bucharest, and their subsidiary diplomatic Acts.
As you are aware, Civil and Religious Liberty in Bulgaria, Montenegro, Servia and Roumania is at present guaranteed in identic terms by Articles V, XXVII, x.x.xIV-V, XLIV of the Treaty of Berlin, and in Greece by the concluding _alinea_ of Protocol No. 3 of the Conference of London of the 3rd February 1830. We beg to suggest that in the extension of these stipulations to the new territories they shall be elucidated by the addition to each of the following paragraph:--
All persons of whatever religious belief born or residing in the territories annexed to the Kingdom of---- in virtue of the Treaties of London and Bucharest, and who do not claim a foreign nationality and cannot be shown to be claimed as nationals of a foreign state shall be ent.i.tled to full civil and political rights as nationals of the Kingdom of---- in accordance with the foregoing stipulations.