The very virtues just
enumerated are the chief faults we have to find with the foreign Jew.
Just because he is willing and able to work so hard for so little pay,
willing to undertake any kind of work out of which he can make a living,
because he can surpass in skill, industry, and adaptability the native
Londoner, the foreign Jew is such a terrible competitor. He is the
nearest approach to the ideal "economic" man, the "fittest" person to
survive in trade competition. Admirable in domestic morality, and an
orderly citizen, he is almost void of social morality. No compunction or
consideration for his fellow-worker will keep him from underselling and
overreaching them; he acquires a thorough mastery of all the
dishonourable tricks of trade which are difficult to restrain by law;
the superior calculating intellect, which is a national heritage, is
used unsparingly to enable him to take advantage of every weakness,
folly, and vice of the society in which he lives.
Sec. 9. Effect of Foreign Competition.--One other quality he has in common
with the mass of poor foreigners who compete in the London labour
market--he can live on less than the Englishman. What Mrs Webb says of
the Polish Jew, is in large measure true of all cheap foreign
labour--"As industrial competitor, the Polish Jew is fettered by no
definite standard of life; it rises and falls with his opportunities; he
is not depressed by penury, and he is not demoralized by gain.
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