The Russian correspondents of the Times affirm positively that M.
de Plehve threatened a deputation of Jewish citizens from Odessa with the total expulsion of their community from Russia. The younger Jews, said the Minister of the Interior, were becoming hostile to the Government ; and if the movement did not cease, "we shall be obliged to get rid of you. For that purpose we shall facilitate your emigration, but exclude the Jews from all our schools, and render their lives in Russia impossible." That menace, we fear, is not rhetorical. It indicates the settled policy of the Russian Government, and in the present state of opinion in the Empire it can be carried out, though at a cost of human misery which it is appalling to contemplate. Imagine a Government threatening to expel a population equal to that of Ireland, which it has allowed to dwell within its dominions for centuries, and which has never rebelled. Well, as 'Lord Beaconsfield put it, "the Jews saw, and survived, the Pharaohs."
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