old red-tape activities, by discussions about the Jewish question—­endless no less than fruitless—­in the recesses of bureaucratic committees and sub-committees, by oracular animadversions of governors and governors-general upon the conduct of the Jews, and so on.  Theory-mongering of the reactionary variety was again at a premium.  Once more the authorities debated the question whether the Jews were to be regarded as useful or harmful to the State, instead of putting the diametrically opposite question of simple justice:  whether the State which is called upon to serve the Jews as part of the civic organism of Russia is useful to them to an extent which may be lawfully claimed by them.

Under Nicholas I. the Government chancelleries had been busy inventing new remedies against the “separatism” of the Jews and their “harmful pursuits.”  During the first liberal years of Alexander’s reign commerce ceased to be branded as “a harmful pursuit.”  Yet as soon as the Jewish merchants, stimulated by the partial extension of their right of residence and occupation, displayed a wider economic activity and became successful competitors of the “original” Russian business men, they were met with shouts of protest demanding that this Jewish “exploitation” be effectively “curbed.”

In this connection it must be pointed out that the economic advancement of the Jews was not altogether due to the privileges accorded to them by the Russian legislation, but was rather the effect of general economic conditions.  The great progress in industrial life during “the era of reforms,” more particularly the expansion of railroad enterprises during the sixties and seventies, opened up a wide field for the energies of Jewish capitalists.  Moreover, the abolition, in 1861, of the old system of farming out the sale of liquor transferred a part of the big Jewish capital from the liquor traffic into railroad building.  The Jewish “excise farmers” [1] were converted into railroad men, as shareholders, supply merchants, or contractors.  A new Jewish plutocracy came into being, and its growth excited jealousy and fear among the Russian mercantile class.  The Government, filled with enthusiasm for the cultivation of large industries, was not as yet prepared to discriminate against the Jews whenever big capital was concerned.  But it lent an attentive ear to the “original” Russian merchants whenever they complained about Jewish competition in petty trade, on which the lower Jewish classes depended for their livelihood.  The Government, which had not yet emancipated itself from the habit of “assorting” its citizens and dividing them into a protected and a tolerated class, set out to elaborate measures for “curbing” the Jews belonging to the latter category.

[Footnote 1:  i.e., those that leased from the Government the collection of excise on liquor.  They were designated as aktzizniks, from aktziz, the Russian word for “excise.”]