pp. 141 et seq.), but their
Orthodox authors were as little conscious of this irony of history as
they were of the Teutonic origins of the whole Slavophil movement. These
laws are an experimental application of the political principles
extracted by Marr and his German disciples from the metaphysics of
Hegel, and as such they afford a valuable means of testing the practical
operation of modern anti-Semitism. Their result was a widespread
commercial depression which was felt all over the empire. Even before
the May Laws were definitely promulgated the passport registers showed
that the anti-Semitic movement had driven 67,900 Jews across the
frontier, and it was estimated that they had taken with them 13,000,000
roubles, representing a minimum loss of 60,000,000 roubles to the annual
turnover of the country's trade. Towards the end of 1882 it was
calculated that the agitation had cost Russia as much as the whole
Turkish war of 1877. Trade was everywhere paralysed. The enormous
increase of bankruptcies, the transfer of investments to foreign funds,
the consequent fall in the value of the rouble and the prices of Russian
stocks, the suspension of farming operations owing to advances on
growing crops being no longer available, the rise in the prices of the
necessaries of life, and lastly, the appearance of famine, filled half
the empire with gloom. Banks closed their doors, and the great
provincial fairs proved failures. When it was proposed to expel the Jews
from Moscow there was a loud outcry all over the sacred city, and even
the Orthodox merchants, realizing that the measure would ruin their
flourishing trade with the south and west, petitioned against it. The
Moscow Exhibition proved a failure. Nevertheless the government
persisted with its harsh policy, and Jewish refugees streamed by tens of
thousands across the western frontier to seek an asylum in other lands.
In 1891 the alarm caused by this emigration led to further protests from
abroad. The citizens of London again assembled at Guildhall, and
addressed a petition to the tsar on behalf of his Hebrew subjects. It
was handed back to the lord mayor by the Russian ambassador, with a curt
intimation that the emperor declined to receive it. At the same time
orders were defiantly given that the May Laws should be strictly
enforced. Meanwhile the Russian minister of finance was at his wits'
ends for money. Negotiations for a large loan had been entered upon with
the house