Die Welt

Appears every Friday.

Editorial Office and Administration: Vienna IX., Türkenstraße 9. Telephone No. 8805. — Communications are to be addressed not to individual persons, but to the Editorial Office or the Administration: Vienna, IX., Türkenstraße 9. Unstamped letters are not accepted, and manuscripts are not returned. — Rates for advertisements: the four-column petit line, 10 kr. Single numbers, 15 kr.

Subscription rates: Austria-Hungary: half-yearly 3 fl. = 6 Kr., yearly 6 fl. = 12 Kr.; for abroad: Germany yearly 13 Mk. 70 Pf., half-yearly 6 Mk. 85 Pf., England yearly 14 Shg., half-yearly 7 Shg., Russia yearly 7 R., half-yearly 3 R. 50 Kop., Switzerland, France, Italy, Turkey, Roumania, Bulgaria, Servia, Greece, Egypt yearly 17 Frcs., half-yearly 8 Frcs. 50 Cts., America yearly 3 Doll. 40.

No. 39. Vienna, 30 September 1898. Second Year.

As a larger number of subscriptions expire at the end of this month, those concerned are reminded to effect their renewal in good time, so that no interruption may occur in the delivery of the paper.

The Administration.

The Right of Protection.

By O. Erter.

The debates and controversies with which the European press preludes the German Emperor's journey to Palestine are of inexhaustible interest to us Zionists. We cannot listen closely enough, for what is there asserted and disputed, claimed and rejected concerns us the more nearly upon a twofold ground: first, because it is the German Emperor's visit to Jerusalem that is in question, and then because France's anxiety for the continuance of her so-called protectorate over the Christians of the Orient springs essentially from the fear that her prestige, in Asia Minor especially, might suffer a sensible blow. Jerusalem stands at the centre of all these controversies, and because we Zionists are mindful of the word: "Let my hand wither if I forget thee, O Jerusalem," it is plain why we listen with strained attention to the din of the protectorate quarrel.

To be sure, it is seemingly no more than a great theoretical question, for in the practical course of things it will hardly come to pass that German Christians in the Orient should desire French, and French Christians German, protection. Yet when one hears the sharp expectorations from both sides, one might almost believe that the German Emperor, with his three ships and his two hundred sailors, was setting forth upon an Alexandrine expedition to the Orient. There is in fact something else behind the din than the question of the right of protection, and if one would perceive it, one must not lose the psychological moment out of sight. France is jealous of Germany in all things, but not least is she jealous of this Emperor, of whom she believes the boldest plans and the greatest moral conquests. Moral conquests! That is what is feared in Paris, and on whose account the sheer dread for the Levantine prestige, cannot be concealed.

The right of protection is only the dummy. It was already riddled a hundred years ago, when Russia, in the peace treaty of Kütschük-Kainardschi, had stipulated from Turkey the protection of the Slavic Christians. Thereafter it grew ever more decrepit: through the Treaty of Paris of the year 1856; through the express reservations which Germany, Austria-Hungary and England set in the year 1875 against the Franco-Egyptian treaty upon jurisdiction; through the Peace of Berlin of 1878; and finally through this, that on the occasion of the dispute of 1892 over the right of protection of the German Palestine Society both the Holy See and Turkey, as the territorial power in Palestine, declared upon Germany's reclamation that Germany possessed the right to the protection of the German Catholic establishments in the Orient. To-day the protectorate claimed by France is hardly more than an empty conception, a dusty piece of historical inventory set away in a corner, which will never again come into living use. For its sake France would presumably not grow heated in the least; but she is concerned lest the Palestine journey of William II. impair her standing in the Orient and augment that of Germany — which, however, she in any case has not the power to prevent, since she cannot prevent the German Emperor's journey.

For us Zionists, however, the protectorate quarrel forms only the point of departure, not the centre of our consideration. We know that some forty and more years ago Russia's design of dislodging the Latins from the guardianship of the Holy Places brought on the Crimean War; but we are convinced that the intention in which William II. undertakes the journey to Jerusalem is not remotely directed toward an alteration in the keeping of the Holy Places, and that of the present protectorate din there will therefore very soon be nothing left but the remembrance. No more war will be waged over the Holy Places. Yet it appears to us most significant that there is once again a Jerusalem question. And indeed this time in a far more intense sense than for centuries past. It is not the possession of Jerusalem that is at issue, for William II. comes as the guest of the