further supported by the
constitutional changes effected in like circumstances in Moldo-Wallachia
and Servia three-quarters of a century ago to the prejudice of the Jews,
and also by the continued encouragement to religious intolerance
afforded by the legalised oppression of a quarter of a million Jews in
the Kingdom of Roumania.

The question was not ignored at the Peace Conference at Bucharest, but
it failed to receive any contractual solution. At the sitting of August
8th a scheme of religious, scholastic and cultural liberty was
discussed, but no agreement was reached, owing to irreconcilable
differences between the Patriarchists and the Exarchists. Moreover, the
scheme as drawn up was confined to Christian communities (Protocol No.
10). At the sitting of August 5th, the question was raised in its wider
aspects by a communication from the United States Government expressing
the hope that a provision would be introduced into the Treaty "according
full civil and religious liberty to the inhabitants of any territory
subject to the sovereignty of any of the five Powers, or which might be
transferred from the jurisdiction of any one of them to that of
another." This also met with no adequate response. M. Maioresco, the
Chief Roumanian plenipotentiary, expressed the opinion that such a
provision was unnecessary, "as the principle inspiring it had long been
recognised, in fact and in law, by the public law of the Constitutional
States represented at the Conference," but he added that he was willing
to declare on behalf of the plenipotentiaries that "the inhabitants of
any territory newly acquired will have, without distinction of religion,
the same full civil and religious liberty, as all the other inhabitants
of the State." In this view the other plenipotentiaries concurred.
(Protocol No. 6.)

The Jewish Conjoint Committee regret that they are unable to accept
either the reasoning or the assurances of M. Maioresco for the following
reasons:--

1. Even if it were true that the constitutions of all the five
contracting States assure civil and religious liberty to their
inhabitants without distinction of religion--Roumania herself is a
flagrant exception--it would not afford as permanent a guarantee as an
international obligation. The circumstances which render such a
guarantee necessary in the present case have already been referred to
above.

2. In previous territorial changes in the Near East, the liberal
provisions