Page:The Shield (Knopf, 1917).djvu/111

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М. BERNATZKY
85

Jews are the poorest. A Scotch emigrant coming to the United States brings on the average $41.50, an Englishman $38.70, a Frenchman $37.80, a German $28.50, while a Jew brings the sum of $8.70, the smallest of all, far below the general average, which is $15.00. Consequently, if any real danger at all threatens the aboriginal Russian population, it is precisely the cheap labour of the congested Jewish masses, and the more the Jews will be oppressed the worse it will be for the Russian workman! For the employer will always give preference to cheaper labour. It is evident, therefore, that the present treatment of the Jews is really not dictated by the native Russian population, and that the democratic argument is but a false pretext. The Russian labour market, while congested in the Pale, is scarce in other sections. That the economic life of Russia, as a whole, suffers from it is obvious.

In this connection, another point is worthy of our attention. Contrary, to the popular idea of the Jewish greed, the Jews are usually satisfied with a lower rate of interest on the capital invested, since what they are after is