Mr. Deputy Bertram: I agree wholeheartedly with the views developed at great length by the honorable petitioner about tolerance and delayed equality for a previously merely tolerated class of the people, yet beg to remark that the circumstances of the Jews in the Duchy of Nassau are hardly as bleak as they have been portrayed. On the contrary, the impartial observer must admit that the government of Nassau has always accepted the Jews with the greatest warmth. It has made a sustained effort, which is the best thing possible, for the Jews to train themselves, and the Jews themselves do not deny that the level of culture they have achieved is owed to the humane regulations, and may it remain up to the same to supervise and promote a complete assimilation in customs, habits, and practices. The time may not then be too far off when one may instate them without reservation, into the few remaining rights – more honorable than profitable – still left them, and the Christian population will, as I am firmly convinced, gladly leave the prejudices behind that were formerly not entirely unrecognized, and admit them with joy into their ranks.
Mr. Deputy Dresel: I beg to ask the gentleman deputy who just spoke to imagine himself in my place and then to ask himself whether he, in arguing for a motion in favor of the Jews, would have portrayed the worst of the people. I doubt it very much. I did not even name the names of the best, but rather I made do with citing some data as provided by experience. I must expressly protest against [the charge] that I placed Christians below Jews. There are good and bad Jews, good Christians and bad Christians. I have not placed Christianity in the shadows against the Jews. Christianity remains forever in its glory. This continues to be out of the question. As concerns the privileges of the Jews, or rather the withdrawal of rights to which they have a claim, I have taken the liberty of repeating the truth, and indeed supported by testimony from the government itself. With respect to the procedure that one observes against the Jews, though, it must be generally acknowledged that some things have been done for them and granted them, depending on the persons and cases at hand. But their equality with Christians lies not in the law; instead, it is tied to conditions that depend on the government. Moreover, I must answer the previous speaker – who recognizes that the government has done a lot for the Jews, and who believes one could expect of them that they would make appropriate progress in that respect – that, in that case, what I call for in my motion by way of law it is still left up to the will of the government. [ . . . ]
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