to assert that the usurer was a man.  And the Elizabethan dramatist does make him a man, where the medieval satirist made him a monster.  Shakespeare not only makes him a man but a perfectly sincere and self-respecting man.  But the point is this:  that he is a sincere man who sincerely believes in usury.  He is a self-respecting man who does not despise himself for being a usurer.  In one word, he regards usury as normal.  In that word is the whole problem of the popular impression of the Jews.  What Shakespeare suggested about the Jew in a subtle and sympathetic way, millions of plain men everywhere would suggest about him in a rough and ready way.  Regarding the Jew in relation to his ideas about interest, they think either that he is simply immoral; or that if he is moral, then he has a different morality.  There is a great deal more to be said about how far this is true, and about what are its causes and excuses if it is true.  But it is an old story, surely, that the worst of all cures is to deny the disease.

To recognise the reality of the Jewish problem is very vital for everybody and especially vital for Jews.  To pretend that there is no problem is to precipitate the expression of a rational impatience, which unfortunately can only express itself in the rather irrational form of Anti-Semitism.  In the controversies of Palestine and Syria, for instance, it is very common to hear the answer that the Jew is no worse than the Armenian.  The Armenian also is said to be unpopular as a money-lender and a mercantile upstart; yet the Armenian figures as a martyr for the Christian faith and a victim of the Moslem fury.  But this is one of those arguments which really carry their own answer.  It is like the sceptical saying that man is only an animal, which of itself provokes the retort, “What an animal!” The very similarity only emphasises the contrast.  Is it seriously suggested that we can substitute the Armenian for the Jew in the study of a world-wide problem like that of the Jews?  Could we talk of the competition of Armenians among Welsh shop-keepers, or of the crowd of Armenians on Brighton Parade?  Can Armenian usury be a common topic of talk in a camp in California and in a club in Piccadilly?  Does Shakespeare show us a tragic Armenian towering over the great Venice of the Renascence?  Does Dickens show us a realistic Armenian teaching in the thieves’ kitchens of the slums?  When we meet Mr. Vernon Vavasour, that brilliant financier, do we speculate on the probability of his really having an Armenian name to match his Armenian nose?  Is it true, in short, that all sorts of people, from the peasants of Poland to the peasants of Portugal, can agree more or less upon the special subject of Armenia?  Obviously it is not in the least true; obviously the Armenian question is only a local question of certain Christians, who may be more avaricious than other Christians.  But it is the truth about the Jews.  It is only half the truth, and one which by itself would be very unjust to the Jews.  But it is the truth, and we must realise it as sharply and clearly as we can.  The truth is that it is rather strange that the Jews should be so anxious for international agreements.  For one of the few really international agreements is a suspicion of the Jews.