d by the
English House of Commons in this respect. Where its powers fail, it is
said, is in regard to administration; for though it deliberates on and
passes legislation, it is left by the Constitution to the Emperor and
his Ministers to issue instructions as to how legislation is to be
carried into effect. The result is to throw excessive power over
public comfort and convenience into the hands of the official class of
all degrees, which naturally employs it to maintain its own dignity
and privileged position.

Towards one class of the population, and that a highly important and
exceptional one, the Emperor's attitude of unprejudiced goodwill has
never varied. Israelites form only a small proportion--about 1 per
cent.--of the whole people, and are to be found in very large numbers
only in Berlin and Frankfurt; but to their financial and commercial
ability Germany owes a debt one may almost describe as incalculable.
There is a strong national prejudice against them in all parts of the
Empire, as there probably is in all countries, and it must be admitted
that the manners and customs of the lower-class Jew, his unpleasant
and insistent curiosity, his intrusiveness where he is not desired,
his want of cleanliness, his sharpness at a bargain, his oily bearing
to those he wishes to propitiate and his ruthless sweating of the
worker in all fields when in his power, are all disagreeable personal
qualities. There is also, as a concomitant of the nation's growth in
wealth of every sort, and mostly perhaps to be found in the capital a
class of Jewish parvenu, remarkable for snobbishness, ostentation, and
affectation.

But one must distinguish; and of a large percentage of the educated
class of Jew in Germany it would be difficult to speak too highly.
Germans may be the "salt of the earth," as the Emperor once told them
they were, but Jewish talent can with quite as much, perhaps more,
justice be called the salt of German prosperity. And not alone in the
region of finance and commerce. Some of the best intellect, most of
the leading enterprise in Germany, in all important directions, is
Jewish. Many of her ablest newspaper proprietors and editors are Jews.
Many of her finest actors and actresses are Jews and Jewesses. Many of
her cleverest lawyers, doctors, and artists are Jews. The career of
Herr Albert Ballin, the Jewish director of the Hamburg-Amerika line,
the Emperor's friend, to whom Germany owes a great deal of her
merc