question, since not so long since Catholics had to suffer much in England. His Catholicism did not make him fanatical; it made him rather cosmopolitan, that is to say, catholic in the pure sense of the word. He received an exceptionally careful education and studied hard in Catholic schools before he took his course at Cambridge. The fact that in his early youth he had Jesuit priests among his teachers was often exploited by those who envied him, in a sense which suggested a leaning in him towards Jesuitism. If the term Jesuitism be taken to mean a zeal for Catholicism, then there can be no doubt that this assertion is correct, since Sir Mark was certainly very religious. But if this expression be taken in the customary sense, namely, as equivalent to clerical intrigue, hypocrisy and spiteful hate of other religions, nothing was more remote from the character, the mental outlook and all other attributes of Sir Mark than such a form of Jesuitism. He was incapable equally of dissembling or of servile conduct; he was proud without being arrogant, and was severe and inflexible when truth was at stake. His soul was an open book; he troubled himself neither of career nor of popularity. He possessed an ideal, and this ideal was the sole test of all his thought and actions. At heart he was pious, a good Christian and a good Catholic: he never prided himself upon his faith, which was a sacred thing to him religious boast and propaganda were alike foreign to him his relations with God were an intimate personal matter which concerned no stranger; but his faith was the moving force of his life. which afforded him courage to go forward and strength to endure and to deny himself.

When I was with Sir Mark in Hull, where we came to speak at a great Zionist meeting last summer, the member for Hull disappeared from my sight for several hours on one occasion. I presumed that he had gone to the old Catholic cathedral to attend a service as he frequently did. On returning he told me that he had visited his old teachers, the Jesuit fathers, and that he had convinced them that it was the duty of Christians to atone for the crime that humanity has not ceased for many centuries to commit against the Jewish people in withholding their old native country from them. "This was not so difficult," he added, " as one of these fathers is an avowed friend of the Jewish people. When, some years ago, a protest meeting was held in Hull against the Beilis trial (the trumped-up

story of ritual murder that had emanated in Kiev from the Russian anti-Semites), this priest had appeared on the platform to declare in the name of his religion that the persecutions of the Jews that took place in Russia under the old régime were a blot upon civilisation." The meeting which was to be held that same day was to be attended by Jews and Christians equally. He said with a humorous smile that his success with the fathers made him hope for equal success with the whole Christian audience at that meeting. "Perhaps people find fault with me," he continued, "that I have neglected their local affairs. A member for Hull who gives all his time to Zionism may be rather a puzzle to the good people of Hull, but I think I shall manage them— will you be responsible for the Jews?" I replied, "Very well, I shall be responsible for the Jews, but only with your help; the Jews are more impressed by an English baronet who is a Christian than by a fellow Jew like me." 'It is to be regretted," he said somewhat sadly, "that the Jews rather than follow leaders of their own race bow and scrape to Gentiles. How do you explain that?" I answered: "That is the spirit of the Exile, that can be combated only by means of Zionism."

The meeting was most successful. There never had been such a Zionist triumph in Hull. The enthusiasm was shared by both the Christian representatives and the Jewish population, the latter but recently arrived for the most part from Eastern Europe. There was only one discordant note in the speeches, and that probably escaped the notice of most of those present, and did not detract in the least from the success of the meeting; this was an utterance that offended Sir Mark's religious sentiment. "It is natural," someone said, " for Sir Mark to be a friend of the Jews as he is such a good Christian, and must be conscious of the fact that the founder of Christianity belonged to the Jewish race; moreover, Sir Mark as a Catholic venerates the Holy Mother who was as we know a daughter of the Jewish people." This utterance pained Sir Mark and hurt me very much. I afterwards had long talks with Sir Mark about this tactlessness, which could only have been committed by a quasi-assimilated Jew. The speaker may have meant it well, but a Zionist could never have made such a mistake, for to be a Zionist, means not only to desire immediate emigration to Palestine, but also to maintain the proper practical attitude to the non-Jewish world. This attitude

is one neither of servility nor of arrogance, it is one of dignified yet modest and noble self-consciousness, self-respect and respect for others.

In order to understand the attitude of such as Sir Mark and others like him in his own and other nations, towards the Jewish problem, it is necessary to study the problem more closely than is common among the unthinking crowd who bandy about the words anti-Semitism and philoSemitism, and, upon their superficial observations, condemn one man as an anti-Semite and laud another as a philoSemite, according as whether they hate or love certain individual Jews. The crowd does not understand that one can be a great friend of the Jewish people and a great admirer of the Jewish genius and yet find such things ridiculous and repulsive as the apeing, the servility, the obtrusiveness, the hollowness and the empty display, the desire to intrude everywhere, the excessive zeal of the neophytes and all the unpleasant traits of some assimilated Jews. On the other hand, one may approve of all these qualities and rejoice that certain Jews have become rich, obtained titles or gained high office in so far as one desires the assimilation of the Jewish people and the extinction of the Jewish spirit.

It

Anti-Semitism is fractricidal in that it implies hatred and contempt for, and the desire to persecute a whole race. is organised outrage, because it employs the brutal power of a majority to insult a defenceless minority and to deprive it of human rights. It is consciously calumnious because it instigates malice against the Jewish people or religion and exploits for this purpose actual weaknesses or failings belonging in reality to neither the race nor the religion. It is biassed and sophistical because it generalises from the faults of individuals and because it fixes itself upon the mote in another's eye without perceiving the beam in its own.

Philo-Semitism in the true sense of the word resembles philhellenism. The latter does not mean simply friendly intercourse with parvenu Greeks, but sympathy for the Hellenic people as such, and with the spirit of Hellenism and an endeavour to aid these and to establish them. Of such a kind was the philo-Semitism of Sir Mark Sykes. I will speak plainly, and do not hesitate to state that he had no liking for the hybrid type of the assimilating Jew. He had no wish to interfere with such people; he emphatically condemned any attempt at suppression of rights or chi

canery, but he did not like this type just because he was fond of the Jewish people. What was of the Jewish essence, of the Jewish tradition, was sacred to his religious sense and stimulating to his artistic sense. In this lay the secret, not exactly of our personal success with Sykes (for our cause is of too great an importance in the world's history to be connected with personalities) but of the wonderful concord of minds which was the natural outcome of his outlook The opposite poles attracted each other with irresistible force. Truly anglicised Jews could not have had the hundredth part of the same success with him, not because of their not being excellent patriots and capable men (for such many of them incontestably are and Sykes was fond of society and of making acquaintances and was amiable to all), but for him there were real Englishmen enough. Concerning English affairs, national questions and parliamentary matters he would discourse with anglicised Jews on the same footing as English non-Jews, but concerning the spirit of Jewish history, the ethos of Hebraism, the national sufferings and aspirations, that emerge only in national Hebrew literature, in the large centres of Jewish population in Eastern Europe and in the new settlements in Palestine -concerning all these matters he would and could seek information only from the fountain source. These are the things that have succeeded with Sykes and others and that will succeed further, not high diplomacy. There is no lack of this latter at the Foreign Office, which swarms with great diplomats, and it would be carrying coals to Newcastle to seek to add more trained specialists to the crowd of busy politicians in Downing Street. There could be no success. with Sykes that way. He was, as it were, born to work with us Hebrews for Zionism.

The spirit of the East breathed in this Yorkshire gentleman. In his earliest youth he showed a keen interest for Arabia, for Islam and the Turkish Empire. At Cambridge he studied Arabic under Professor E. G. Browne, and there also he met the lady who was afterwards to be his wife and true helpmeet, a daughter of Sir John Gorst, who was at the time one of the members of parliament for the University. In the year 1898 Sykes, then a young student, undertook a second journey to the East, and stayed much of his time in the Hauran. He devoted himself with the entire freshness and sincerity of his youth (he was then but twenty years old) to his observations as a traveller. In the

year 1900 appeared his first book, which recounts his impressions in an elegant style and light form.1 In this book he ascribes to his guide, a Christian Arab named Isa, the following words apropos of the Jews there, that they were "dirty like Rooshan and robber like Armenian."2 Sykes himself had at that time no clear idea of Jews or of Armenians of the two peoples for whom he strove and died nineteen years later. He cites an expression of opinion and repeats it in the bad English of an Arab guide. After his return from the East, he devoted his attention to military studies, in which he distinguished himself. He served in the South African War in 1900-2. He gave a proof of his technical knowledge in his work on strategy and military training which he had compiled in collaboration with Major George d'Ordel. In the year 1904 he was travelling again, and the literary product of his later and earlier journeys was his second considerable book on Islam and the Orient.4 This book is dedicated to his fellow-soldiers in the South African War. In this work already speaks to us a young but mature man who had travelled much in four continents and had been through the South African Campaign. Here we already perceive the fundamentals of his later Zionism. As regards the future of the Orient he looks not to modern civilisation and capitalism, but to the latent force of national life. He was not deceived by the specious platitudes so dear to that deplorable product of modern European democracy the man in the street' as to extending the blessing of Western civilisation'; he regarded rather with unconcealed apprehension the contingency of the Western Asiatics becoming a prey to capitalists of Europe and America,' "in which case a designing Imperial Boss might, untrammelled by the Government, reduce them to serfdom for the purpose of filling his pockets and gaining the name of Empire-maker." (Prof. Browne's Preface, Dar-ul-Islam, p. iv). He had a great predilection for all national individualities, and detested the desire to imitate and assimilate. "He hated the hybrid Levantine . . . and faithfully 1 Through Five Turkish Provinces, by Mark Sykes. London, Bickers and Son. 1900.

2 Ibid., p. 127.

Tactics and Military Training. By Major George d'Ordel and Captain Mark Sykes. London. 1902.

Dar-Ul-Islam. A record of a journey through Ten of the Asiatic Provinces of Turkey. By Mark Sykes. London. 1904.

"The F Company, 3rd Batt. Princess of Wales' Own Yorkshire Regiment, who served in South Africa, 1900-2."