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 4-3 Making Associations With Meaning as a Key
Way to Learn 70
4-4 Associative Networks and Consumer
Knowledge 73
4-5 Product and Brand Schemas 74

5 Motivation and Emotion:

Driving Consumer
Behaviour 80
5-1 What Drives Human Behaviour? 80
5-2 A General Hierarchy of Motivation 82
5-3 Consumer Emotions and Value 85
5-4 Measuring Emotion 88
5-5 Differences in Emotional Behaviour 90

5-6 Emotion, Meaning, and Schema-Based Affect 93

8 Consumer Culture 142
6 Personality, Lifestyles, and
the Self-Concept 98
8-1 Culture and Meaning are Inseparable
8-2 Using Core Societal Values 145
142

8-3 How Is Culture Learned? 152

6-1 Personality and Consumer Behaviour 98 8-4 Fundamental Elements of Communication 156
6-2 Specific Traits Examined in Consumer
8-5 Emerging Cultures 161
Research 102
6-3 Consumer Lifestyles and Psychographies
6-4 The Role of Self-Concept in Consumer
108
9 Microcultures 164
Behaviour 112 9-1 Microculture and Consumer Behaviour 164
6-5 Self-Congruency Theory and Consumer 9-2 Major Canadian Microcultures 166
Behaviour 114
9-3 Microculture is Not Uniquely Canadian 179

7 Attitudes
Change 118
and Attitude
9-4 Demographic Analysis 180
9-5 Major Cultural and Demographic Trends 180

7-1 Attitudes and Attitude Components

7-2 Functions of Attitudes 119
118
10Group and Interpersonal
Influence 186
7-3 Hierarchy of Effects 121
10-1 Reference Groups 186
7-4 Consumer Attitude Models 123
10-2 Social Power 189
7-5 Attitude Change Theories and
10-3 Reference Group Influence 191
Persuasion 128
10-4 Word-of-Mouth 196
7-6 Message and Source Effects and
Persuasion 133 10-5 Household Decision Making 200

NEL CON TEN TS V

 Consumers in Situations 208 14Consumption
to Satisfaction 266
11-1 Value in Situations? 208
11-2 Time and Consumer Behaviour 209 14-1 Consumption, Value, and Satisfaction 266

11-3 Place Shapes Shopping Activities 212 14-2 Value and Satisfaction 270

11-4 Impulsive Shopping and Consumption 216 14-3 Other Postconsumption Reactions 272

11-5 Places have Atmospheres 220 14-4 Theories of Postconsumption Reactions 273

11-6 Antecedent Conditions 226 14-5 Consumer Satisfaction/ Dissatisfaction

Measurement Issues 278

12 Need
Decision Making I:
Recognition and
14-6 Disposing of Refuse 280

Search 230 15 consumer

12-1 Consumer Decision Making 230
Relationships 284
12-2 Decision-Making Perspectives 233 15-1 Outcomes of Consumption 284

12-3 Decision-Making Approaches 235 15-2 Complaining and Spreading WOM 286

12-4 Need Recognition, Internal Search, and 15-3 Switching Behaviour 290
the Consideration Set 238 15-4 Consumer Loyalty 293
12-5 External Search 240 15-5 Value, Relationships, and Consumers 297

13 Alternative
Decision Making II:
Evafuation
16 Marketing Ethics
and Consumer
and Choice 248 Misbehaviour 302
13-1 Evaluation of Alternatives: Criteria 248 16-1 Consumer Misbehaviour and Exchange 303
13-2 Value and Alternative Evaluation 250 16-2 Distinguish Consumer Misbehaviour and
13-3 Product Categorization and Criteria Problem Behaviour 306
Selection 251 16-3 Ethics, Consumers, and the Marketing
13-4 Consumer Choice: Decision Rules 257 Concept 311

vi CON TEN TS NEL

16-4 Corporate Social Responsibility 314 Integrative Case Study 322
16-5 Regulation of Marketing Activities: Consumer Endnotes 325
Protection and Privacy 315
Glossary 341
16-6 Public Criticism of Marketing 317 Index 350

NEL CONTENTS Vii

 For my family and my mentors, especially Bill and Joe.
-Barry Babin

To my family, Tara, Christian, and Sydney.

-Eric Harris

To my family.
-Kyle B. Mu rray

NEL
 1 What Is CB, and Why
Should I Care?
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After studying this chapter, the student should be able to:
• Understand the meaning of consumption and consumer behaviour .
• Describe how consumers get treated differently in various types of exchange
environments .
• Explain the role of consumer behaviour in business and society.
• Be familiar with basic approaches to studying consumer behaviour.
• Describe why consumer behaviour is so dynamic and how recent trends affect consumers.
INTRODUCTION
How many times a day does the typical university stu-
dent act like a consumer? If we stop to think about
it, we find that the entire day is filled with consump-
tion and consumption decisions. What should I wear?
What will I eat for breakfast? What music should I
listen to ? Will I go to class today? What am I going
to do this weekend? Many questions like these are rou-
tin ely answered within the first few moments of evety
day, with the answers ultimately turning the wheels
of the economy and shaping the quality of life for the
individual consumer.
How can simple decisions be so important to soci-
ety? The answer to this question is one of the key points
of this chapter and of this text. Indeed, the consumer
answers these questions by choosing the options that
offer the most value. Thus, consumer behaviour is really
all about value.
When consum ers buy things, a chain reaction is
set in motion that has the potential to enhance value
for many people, both directly and indirectly. When a
consumer purchases an electronic device such as an
Apple iPad, the store will have to replace the ite m in
2 PART ONE: Introduction
inventory. The manufacturer will have to replenish the
stock. This means that the manufacturer purchases
raw materials from suppliers. The raw materials and
finish ed products all need to be shipped by compa-
nies such as United Parcel Setvice (UPS ), F edEx, or
Canada Post. But that isn 't all. The consumer will need
a new setvice plan to take advantage of the device, and
companies such as Rogers , Telus, and Bell will kindly
oblige with a variety of pricing options. The chain
doesn't stop here , as the consumer has yet to acces-
sorize the iPad or add apps to keep the product useful
and entertaining. Just think of how something like an
iPad can be so meaningful for so many people. Most
importantly, assuming all goes well, the consumer
improves his or her quality of life!
Although some may call a course like this one "buyer
behaviour," the iPad example illustrates that there is
much more to consuming than simply buying. This does
not diminish the importance of the buying process. But
consumption goes on long after purchase, and the story
of consumption ultimately determines how much value
is created.
Our behaviour as consumers is critically important
not just to ourselves, but also to many other people.
This is why so many people are interested in learning
NEL
about consumer behaviour. The marketer who under-
stands consumers \viii be able to design products that
provide more value and, through this process, enhance
the well-being of both the company and its customers.
Policy makers who understand consumer behaviour can
make more effective public policy decisions. Last but not
least, consumers who understand consumer behaviour
can make better decisions concerning how they allocate
scarce resources. Thus, an understanding of consumer
behaviour can mean better business for companies, bet-
ter public policy for governments, and a better life for
individuals and households.
• CONSUMPTION AND
CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
Consumer behaviour (CB ) can be defined from two
different perspectives. This is because the term refers
to both
1. human thought and action, and
2. a field of study (human inquiry) that is developing
an accumulated body of knowledge.
NEL
If we think of a consumer considering the purchase
of a new phone, consumer behaviour can be thought of
as the actions, reactions, and consequences that take
place as the consumer goes through a decision-making
process, reaches a decision, and then puts the product
to use . Alternatively, if we consider the body of knowl-
edge that researchers accumulate as they attempt to
explain these actions , reactions, and consequences, we
are approaching consumer behaviour as a fi eld of study.
Thus, rather than choosing between the two alternative
approaches, we will consider both approaches to gain an
understanding of the way the term consumer behaviour
is used .
1-1aConsumer Behaviour as Human
Behaviour
First, consumer behaviour is the set of value-seeking
activities that take place as people go about addressing
needs. In other words, when a
consumer comes to realize that
something is needed, a chain
set of value-seeking activities
reaction begins as the con- that take place as people go
sumer sets out to find desir- about addressing needs
able ways to fill this need. The
CHAPTER 1: What Is CB, and Why Should I Care' 3
 Exhibit 1.1 which he or she gives up economic resources in
return for receiving the product. An exchange
The Basic Consumption Process is the acting out of a decision to give something
up in return for something of greater value. Here,
the consumer decides the phone will be wo1ih at
Need least the price of the product and the service plan
needed to make the device functio nal.
Want
The consum er th en uses the product and
experiences all the associated benefits and costs.
Exchange
Costs are th e negative res ults of consumption.
Costs and Benems Th e costs involve more than just the price of th e
produ ct. Consume rs spend time both shopping for
Reaction and lea rning how to use a phone. Physical effort
also is needed if co nsu mers visit retail stores dur-
Value ing the process. The time, money, and eff01i spent
acquiring a phon e can not be allocated toward
other activities or processes, res ulting in high
opportun ity costs for th e consumer. Benefits are
chain reaction involves multiple psychologi cal processes, positive res ults of consumption. The benefits are
includin g thoughts, feelings , and behaviour, and the multifaceted, ranging from better job perform ance to
entire process culminates in value. more entertainm ent from the MP3 feature.
Over tim e, the cons umer evaluates the costs and
THE BASIC CB PROCESS benefits and reacts to the purchase in some way. These
Exhibit 1.1 illustrates the basic consu mption process. reactions involve thoughts and feelings. The thoughts
may involve reactions to features such as the ease of
Each step is discussed in detail in later chapters. How-
ever, the process is briefly illustrated here in the contell.i use. The feelings may sometimes include frustration if
the features do not work correctly or conveniently. Ulti-
of a new phone purchase. At some point, the consumer
realizes a need for better com- mately, the process results in a perception of value. We
\viii discuss val ue in more detail in Chapter 2.
munication with other people
way a consumer
goes about addressing a
and access to outside media,
CONSUMPTION
recognized need including the Internet. This
realization may be motivated Another way to look at the basic consumer behavi our
"""'I.U.I'-'"~·.;;~· acting out process is to consider the steps that occur when con-
of the decision to give by a desire to do better on the
something up in return for job or to have better access to sumption takes place. Obviously, a consumer consum es!
something of greater val ue friends and family. A want is Interestingly, ve •y few consumer behaviour books defin e
simply a specific desire that consumption itself. Consumption represents the pro-
negative results of
consumption spells out a way a consume r can cess by which goods, se1vices, or ideas are used and
go about addressing a recog- transformed into value. Thus, the actions involved in
llrnimtl positive results of acquiring and using a mobile communications device
consumption nized need. A consume r feels
a need to belong and socialize, like an iPhone create value for a consumer. If th e prod-
alliimlUJ]Ift:Jil process and this creates a desire for uct performs well , a great deal of value may res ult. If the
by which goods, services,
communication devices. consumer is unhappy wi th the product, ve•y little value
or ideas are used and
transformed into value After weighing some or even a negative amount of value may result. Eventu-
options, the consume r decides ally, this outcome affects consumer well-being by affect-
to visit a Telus store whe re ing quality of life .
study of consumers communications devices are
as they go about the sold. After looki ng at sev- Hb Consumer Behaviour as a Field
consumption process; the
eral alternative devices, the
science of studying how
consumer chooses the latest
of Study
consumers seek value in an
effort to address needs iPhone. ext, the consu mer Consumer behaviour as a field of study rep-
pmiicipates in an exchange in resents the study of consumers as they go about the

4 PART ONE: Introduction NEL

consumption process. In this sense, consumer behaviour
is the science of studying how consumers seek value in
an eff01t to address real needs. This book represents a
collection of knowledge res ulting as consumer behaviour
researchers go about studying consumers.
Consumer behaviour, as a field of study, is a ve1y
young field. The first books that discuss consumer behav-
iour or buyer behaviour date fi·01n the 1960s.' Thus, com-
pared \vith older disciplines, researchers have had less
time to develop the body of knowl edge, and each decade,
the accumulated body of knowledge grows signi fi cantly.
Much unce1tainty remains, howeve r, and the body of
the01y that is generally accepted by researchers and prac-
titioners is relatively small. One reason why consumer
behaviour is so exciting to study is that consumer behav-
iour research is quickly expanding the knowledge base.
Consu mer behaviour has ti es to oth er disciplines,
some of which are listed in Exhibit 1.2, as research
on various subjects produced knowledge relevant to
markete rs seeking to understand cons um ers. The
genesis of the CB fi eld lies in business and th e grow-
ing body of academic research produced by business
school s in th e late 20th and early 21st centuries. 2
Exhibit 1.2 displays th e overlapping nature of CB and
marketin g, as well as other fi elds. CB shares particu-
larly strong interdisciplina1y co nnection s with eco-
nomics, psychology, marketin g, and anthropology, as
we discuss below. 3
Exhibit 1.2
Relationships of CB With Other
Disciplines
Law
History
Source: Based on 0. J Macinnis and V. S. Folkes. -rhe Disciplinary Status of Consumer
Behavior: A Sociology of Science Perspective on Key Controversies; Journal of Consumer
Research 36 (April2010): 899-914
NEL
ECONOMICS AND CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
Economics is often defin ed as the study of produc-
tion and consumption' Accordingly, it is easy to see
that marketing has its origins in economics , parti cularly
\vith respect to the production and distribution of goods.
As th e definition implies, economics also involves con-
sumption. Therefore, consumer behaviour and econom-
ics also have much in common. In general, economists
study consum er behaviour from a broad, or macro, per-
spective. For example, economics studies often involve
things like commodity consumption of nations ove r time.
This may even involve tracking changes in consumption,
with different price levels enabling price elasticity to be
determined. The economist finds data for a study like
tl1is in historical sales records.
To illustrate a macro perspective, we note that
researchers and marketing managers are ve1y inter-
ested in eme rging markets such as China and Indi a.
Although these places may seem like ve1y distant lands
\vith little relevance to most business students, of
course nothing co uld be furth er from the truth. Esti-
mates suggest that, within a decade, China will surpass
the United States as th e leading country in term s of
total co nsu mer purchasing power. To a large exte nt this
explains Prime Minister Stephen Harper's e mphasis on
the Chinese market, including trips to China aimed at
enhan cing th e opportunities for Canadian compani es.
Thus, economists might be ve1y interested in esti-
mating th e demand for consumer products such as
Canadian win e in an e merging market like China's . One
study shows th at Chinese consumers display greater
price elasti city for win e coolers and wine than th ey do
for beer-"' In oth er words , changes in price do not affect
overall beer consumption as much as they do consump-
tion of wine or wine coolers. This pattern suggests that
Neuroscience beer is more of a staple good to Chinese consumers;
thus, bee r consumption should remain relatively stable
co mpared to othe r beverages.
CB researchers tend to focus on a more micro level
of behaviou r. As such, consumer research often e mploys
experim ents or inte1views \vith responses from individual
consumers. For example, consumer researchers exam-
ined the extent to which exposure to adverti se ments
promoting alcoholic drink specials influences university
student drinking. The study was based on responses to
such ads from individual consumers. Res ults suggest
that students had a more positive attitude toward the
Management
bar running the specials and
intended to buy more because study of
of the specials when exposed to production and consumption
tl1e ad 6
CHAPTER 1: What Is CB, and Why Should I Care? 5
 Behavioural economics uses traditional econo- potential for understanding CB by charting a con-
metric models and techniques in combination with sumer's physiological brain functions during the
psychological theory and methods to better understand consumption process. Neuroscience researchers use
the choices of consumers, managers, citizens, and other sophisticated brain imaging equipment to monitor
individuals. Behavioural economists study what happens brain activity. One finding suggests that when con-
in markets when the decision makers are influenced sumers think about enjoying some of their favourite
by psychological biases and cognitive limitations that foods , their brains become more active than when they
are not easily accounted for in the standard economic actually eat the food. 10 The number of neuroscience
modeJ.7 As a result, this field of economics is a close applications in CB is growing at a rapid rate .
cousin of consumer research and there is a great deal
the two can learn from each other. In fact, rise of interest MARKETING
in behavioural economic research is a good example of One doesn't have to look very hard to find different
the integration of knowledge from multiple disciplines to definitions of marketing.11 Many of the older definitions
improve our overall understanding of human behaviour. focused heavily on physical products and profitability.
Even though products and profits are very important
PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY aspects of marketing, these definitions are relatively
Psychology is the study of human reactions to their narrow. Marketing involves the multitude of value-
environment, including behaviour and mental processes.• producing seller activities that facilitate exchanges
Psychologists seek to explain the thoughts , feelings, and between buyers and sellers. These activities include the
behaviours that represent human reaction. Psychology production, promotion, pricing, distribution, and retail-
itself can be divided into sev- ing of goods, services, ideas, and experiences that pro-
eral subdisciplines, of which vide value for consumers and other stakeholders .
Consumer behaviour and marketing are very closely
~~~~rsstudy
social psychology, cognitive
of psychology, and neuroscience related. Exchange is intimately involved in marketing
what happens in markets and, as can be seen from Exhibit 1.2, exchange is cen-
in particular are highly rel-
with decision makers who tral to consumer behaviour too. In fact, in some ways,
display human limitations and evant to consumer behaviour.•
complications Social psychology focuses consumer behaviour involves "inverse" marketing as
on the thoughts, feelings, and consumers operate at the other end of the exchange.
Li.t-l!Jo.'JL.L:.!.I-1:..1';1 study Marketing actions are targeted at and affect consumers,
of human reactions to behaviours that people have as
environments, including they interact with other people while consumer actions affect marketers. A marketer
behaviour and mental (group behaviour). Consumer without customers won't be a marketer very long! In
processes fact, without consumers, marketing is unnecessary.
behaviour most often takes
place in some type of social
study that focuses on the CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR AND OTHER DISCIPLINES
setting; thus, social psychol-
thoughts, feelings, and
ogy and consumer behaviour Marketing, as a recognized discipline, grew out of eco-
behaviours that people have
as they interact with other overlap significantly. Cog- nomics and psychology. Commerce increased tremen-
people nitive psychology deals dously with the Industrial Revolution and the coinciding
with the intricacies of mental political changes that fostered economic freedom in
study of the intricacies of reactions involved in informa- many countries. Businesses looked to the new field of
mental reactions involved in tion processing. Every time a marketing for practical advice-initially about distri-
information processing consumer evaluates a prod- bution, and later about pricing, packaging, advertising,
l:i!I!DI::D~I:ii:[] study of uct, sees an advertisement, or and communication. Eventually, what some have called
the central nervous system reacts to product consump- the "subdiscipline" of consumer behaviour emerged as
including brain mechanisms tion, information is processed. competition focused marketers on how consumers made
associated with thoughts,
Thus, cognitive psychology is decisions 1 2 Thus, although marketing may have origi-
emotion, and behaviour
also very relevant to consumer nally shared more in common with economics, the turn
ll.l.lj,;.j,l,olool.l.I.I,I;J' multitude behaviour. toward consumer research brought numerous psycholo-
of value-prooucing seller
Neuroscience, the study gists into the field. Many of these psychologists became
activities that facilitate
exchanges between buyers of the central nervous system the first consumer researchers.
and sellers including brain mechanisms Today, consumer behaviour and marketing remain
associated with emotion, offers closely tied. Consumer behaviour research and marketing

6 PART ON E: Introduction NEL

research overlap with each other more than they do with If you don't see the point of these questions yet, contrast
any other discipline. Thus, the arrow connecting the two the waiting area at a passport office with the elaborate
disciplines in Exhibit 1.2 represents the fact that market- lounge where customers wait while sipping a cocktail or
ing and consumer research contribute strongly to each aperitif before dining in a fine dining establishment in
other. After marketing, consumer behaviour research Toronto.
is most closely interhvined with psychology research. 13 Some organizations can survive while treating cus-
Consumer research is based largely on psychology, and tomers very poorly, while others need to pamper custom-
to some extent, psychology draws from consumer behav- ers just to have a chance of surviving. Consider these two
iour research. questions in order to understand how important serving
Other disciplines share things in common with con- customers well should be to any given organization:
sumer behaviour. Sociology focus es on the study of 1. How competitive is the marketing environment?
groups of people within a society. This has relevance for
consumer behaviour because consumption often takes 2. How dependent is the marketer on repeat
business?
place \vithin group settings or is in one way or another
affected by group behaviour.
Anthropology has contributed to consumer
behaviour research by allowing researchers to interpret
1-2a Competition and Consumer
the relationships between consumers and the things Orientation
they purchase, the products they own, and the activities
Where do consumers go if they don't like the setvice at
in which they participate . Other disciplines such as
the local passport office? If the choice comes down to
geography and the medical sciences overlap with con-
visiting that office or not travelling, nearly all consumers
sumer behaviour in that they draw from some of the
will put up with the less-than-immaculate surroundings,
same theories and/or research approaches. Consumer
long waits , and poor setvice that all too typically go along
behaviour shares the strongest interdisciplinary connec-
with getting a passport. Put yourself into the shoes of the
tions \vith economics, psychology, sociology, marketing,
setvice providers at a typical passport office . Is there a
and anthropology. 14
deep concern about doing something that would make
a customer want to return to do business again ? Is there
any real incentive to provide a pleasant and valuable
• THE WAYS IN WHICH experience?
In essence, the passport office typifies a service
CONSUMERS ARE TREATED organization that operates in a market with little or no
competition and a captive audience. No matter how
The customer isn't always "king." Look at this list of poor the service is , they know consumers will return
familiar service environments: to do more business the next time they need a pass-
~ A typical passport office
port. The incentive for better customer treatment
remains small.
~ A university registrar's office
Contrast this \vith the res-
~ The line for cashing a cheque at a bank taurant. A dining consumer in mm~~~ the study of
Toronto has more than 8,000 groups of people within a
~ A university health clinic
restaurants from which to society, with relevance for
~ Cable television service consumer behaviour because
choose. Customers do not have
a great deal of consumption
~ A hair salon to tolerate poor treatment; takes place within group
they can simply go next door. settings or is affected by
~ A fine dining establishment in Toronto
With few exceptions, a highly group behaviour
Think about the follO\ving questions: Does a con-
sumer receive the same amount of service at each of these
competitive marketplace in
which consumers have many
-----t:U study in
which researchers interpret
places? What is the waiting environment like at each of alternatives ensures good cus- relationships between
these places? Is there a clean, comfortable waiting area tomer service. consumers and the things
they purchase, the products
with pleasant music? How dedicated are the employees Unf01tunately, government they own, and the activities in
to delivering a high-quality service experience? How institutions can often be noto- which they participate
likely are employees to view the customer as a nuisance? rious for poor public service 15

NEL CHAPTER 1: What Is CB, and Why Should I Care' 7


Why are you treated better in some
environments than in others? Perhaps
competition is a clue.
way of
doing business in which
the actions and decision
making of the institution
prioritize consumer value
and satisfaction above all
other concerns
organizational culture that
embodies the importance
of creating value for
customers among all
employees
I.I.LIOOII.oloi.:LI.Ij~' activities
based on the belief that
the firm 's performance is
enhanced through repeat
business
8 PART ONE: Introduction
Unlike a restaurant, Setvice
Canada management may
not be compelled to adjust
workloads to de mand. Setvice
Canada passport customers
can face long lines (sometimes
more than 100 people in some
areas) and wait times counted
in hours , not minutes. How-
ever, we can compare the fed-
eral Setvice Canada passport
application process to motor
vehicle licensing in Alberta,
where the registry offices have
been privatized. In Alberta,
consumers are free to choose
the firm that they visit to
renew their licence. These
companies tend to provide
better customer setvice because they are competing
with similar firms for the consumer's business. If the
service at any one registry is poor or the wait times are
too long, consumers can simply take their business clown
the street.
Governments have recognized that competition is
important to protecting consumers. Industry Canada
and the Competition Bureau regulate practices such as
price fixing, secret rebates, and customer coercion in
accordance with federal laws. For example , when Bell
Aliant purchased Ontera, the Competition Bureau was
concerned about the level of competition in telecom-
munication services for 16 Northern Ontario commu-
nities. The Bureau worked \vith Bell Aliant to address
these concerns and , ultimately, a significant portion of
the network was leased to a third-party telecommuni-
cations provider. 16
Competition eventually drives companies toward
a high degree of consumer orientation. Consumer
(customer) orientation is a way of doing business
in which the actions and decision making of the institu-
tion prioritize consumer value and satisfaction above all
other concerns. A consumer orientation is a key compo-
nent of a firm with a market-oriented culture. Market
orientation is an organizational culture that embodies
the importance of creating value for customers among
all employees. In addition to understanding customers,
a market orientation stresses the need to monitor and
understand competitor actions in the marketplace and
the need to communicate information about customers
and competitors throughout the organization. 17 Profit-
able firms are usually market oriented, with a few excep-
tions that will be discussed later. 16
t-2bRelationship Marketing and
Consumer Behaviour
Let's go back to the list of service environments.
Certainly, apparel retailers and restaurants are generally
in very intense competition with rival businesses. Busi-
nesses are challenged to get consumers to repeatedly
purchase the goods or setvices offered. Even in a city
with a population as great as that of Toronto, without
repeat business, each restaurant would have fewer than
five customers per night. In aclclition, repeat customers
are considered less costly to setve. 19 For instance, while a
lot of advertising may be needed for every new customer
to learn about a restaurant, old customers already know
the place.
Thus, relationship marketing is based on the
belief that firm performance is enhanced through repeat
NEL
business. Relationship marketing is the recognition that
custome r desires are recurring and that a single pur-
chase act may be only one touchpoint in an ongoing
series of interactions with a custome r. Touchpoints
are direct contacts between the firm and a customer.
Increasingly, multiple channels (or ways of making this
contact) are available, including phone, e mai l, tell.i mes-
saging, and face-to-face contact. 20 Eve1y touchpoint, no
matte r the channel, should be conside red as an oppor-
tunity to create value for the custome r. As with any type
of relationship, a custome r- markete r relationship will
continue only as long as both parties see the pmtnership
as valuable.
Markete rs are increasingly realizing the value of
relationship marke ting. Wait staff sometimes provide
business cards to customers, so that they can ask for this
se1ver again on the next visit or recommend the restau-
rant and se1ver to a fliend. Notice that with relationship
marketing, the firm and its e mployees are ve1y motivated
to provide an outstanding overall experience. In sum,
both a competitive marketplace and a relationship mar-
keting orientation create exchange environme nts where
firms truly treat custom ers as "king."
Every touch point is a way to build a
relationship with a customer in a competitive
environment
NEL
• CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR'S
ROLE IN BUSINESS AND
SOCIETY
Why study consum e r behaviour? Many stude nts find
studying consume r behaviour interesting relative to
other uni ve rsity courses. Why might consum er behav-
iour be more interesting than, say, calculus? Th e answer
lies in the student's ability to relate to the content. Afte r
all, eve1yone reading this book has years and years of
experience as a consumer. Thus, stude nts should come
into the course with a be tter sense of familiarity and an
ability to relate to the subject matte r. Not only is the
subj ect inte res ting, but consumer behaviour is also an
impo1iant topic to unde rstand from multipl e pe rspec-
tives. Consume r behaviour (CB) is impo1iant in at least
three ways:
1. CB provides an input to business/marketing
strategy.
2. CB provides a force that shapes society.
3. CB provides an input to making responsible
decisions as a consumer.
1-3aConsumer Behaviour and
Marketing Strategy
The ultimate hallm ark of success for a busin ess is long-
term su1vival. One hundred years is not a long tim e
in the cou rse of hi story, but very few co mpani es have
smvived fo r 100 years. Exhibit 1.3 lists some famous
international co mpanies, the products they are known
for, and their age.
The Hudson 's Bay Co mpany (HBC) is extre mely
rare in that it has su1vived multiple centuries. The vast
majority of the wo rl d's leacling corporation s are much
less th an 100 years old . All of the compan ies li sted in
Exhibit 1.3 have beaten th e odds, and even though we
may think about the m as lasting forever, chances are
some of th ese "giants" will not be around 100 years
from now. So, surviving is not a trivial goal, and the
co mpan ies that do survive in the long te rm do so by
obtaining resou rces from consum ers in re turn fo r th e
value th ey c reate.
In contras t to the co m-
panies li sted in Exhibit 1.3,
'WI.:.I.:~;,o:.I.W.:tll direct
conside r Zelle rs Inc., which contacts between t he firm
was a discount re taile r of and a customer
gene ral me rchandi se, founded
CHAPTER 1: What Is CB, and Why Should I Care? 9
 Exhibit 1.3
How Old Are These Companies?
Year of"Birth" Place
Hudson's Bay Company Mass Merchandising 1670 Ontario
Tesco Food Retailing 1919 London, UK
Toyota Motor Cars 1937 Japan
McDonald's Fast Food 1956 Illinois
Walmart Mass Merchandising 1962 Arkansas
Samsung Electronics 1969 Seoul, South Korea
Microsoft Computer Software 1975 New Mexico
Apple Computers, Communication Devices 1976 California
Home Depot Building Supply and Retailing 1979 Georgia
lululemon Specialty Apparel 1998 British Columbia

All dates ta ken from company websites. Samsung was origina lly fo unded in 1938 but as a Korean food export er. In 1969, Samsung Elec tron ics was created

in 1931, with more than 250 stores across Canada. The However, those parts make up the key attributes- the
company was a dominant player in the lower price boot and blade-that enable this product to function as
point for apparel and other mass merchandise until a hockey skate. Once again, we can ask, is this really
Walmart arrived in Canada and Loblaws expanded what the consumer wants? The fact is that this function
aggressively into clothing sales. As customers' tastes enables the consumer to enjoy the benefits of playing
changed and competitio n intensified, Zellers found Canada's most popular sport. Outcomes like these
it more and more difficult to remain profitable and are valuable-this is what the customer is ultim ately
deliver the value that consumers were de manding. In buying.
response, Zellers' parent company, HBC, sold many of Marketing firm s often imple ment poor strate-
the retail chain's store leases to the U.S.-based retailer gies when they don't understand what a product
Target in 2011. Target opened its first stores in Canada truly is becaus e they don't understand exactly what
in March 2013 and, after losing more than $2 billion in they are selling. A product is a pote ntially valuable
Canada, announced it was closing all 133 of its Cana- bundle of benefits. Theodore Levitt, one of the most
dian stores in January 2015. 21 Target Canada lasted less famous marketing researchers, understood this. He
than two years (for more detail , see the case at the end emphasized the imp ortance of the valu e a customer
of Chapter 3). receives fro m a product, rather than the product
itself.
WHAT DO PEOPLE BUY? One consu mer researcher studied why people
When a consumer buys something, he or she gives up bought milk shakes. In contrast to expectation , the
resources in the form of time, money, and energy in largest share of milk shakes purchased in the study
return for whatever is being sold. Consider a customer was bought before noon, many before 10 A.M. , and
who purchases a pair of Bauer Vapor 1X skates. What many were co nsumed in a car. After studying many
does he or she really get? Well, the tangibles include milk shake drinkers , one the me emerged: A milk shake
mostly cloth, plastic, and metal; is a good solution for consu mers with long co mmutes,
these are the parts that make as they satisfy one's hunger, they are neat, they can be
up the product. No reasonable co nsu med while using one hand, and they take about
consumer benefit consumer would trade $900 20 minutes to fini sh- the better portion of the com-
111"'--- potentially
valuable bundle of benefits
for cloth, plastic, and steel. A
consumer isn't really buying
mute . The valu e provided by the milk shake is partly
dealing with hunger but also partly dealing with bore-
the physical parts of a product. dom. Thus , the researcher suggested making shakes

10 PART ONE: Introduction NEL

Makeup or Hope?
Theodore Levitt was a leader in the cause of getting managers not to allow
I their companies to become myopic. A myopic business view defines the
business in terms of products that are sold and not in terms of the value that
consumers receive.
Here are some examples of better ways to look at products.
Consumers Do Not Want: Consumers Do Want:
V. inch B&D drill bits V. inch holes so they can hang things
Kodak film Recorded memories
Lawn mowers Pride that comes w ith a great looking lawn
Roach spray Dead roaches
Dry-cleaning service Clothes that do not stink

What about a customer buying makeup or cosmetics? What is really being purchased? Charles Revson, founder
of Revlon, said, "In the factory Revlon manufactures cosmetics, but in the store we sell hope:' Revlon considers itself
in the hope business! Thus, in Revlon's eyes, the "hope" helps provide the value as much as the cosmetics. Revlon's
understanding of the way value is actually provided eliminates myopia and allows the company to see 20/20.

Sources: Christenson, C.M., S. Cook and l Hall (2005}, "Marketing Ma lpractice: The Cause and the Cure; Harvard Business Review, 83, 74 - 83; Branding Ad Vice (2004), "Needfu l Things; October 13,
2004. httpJ/brandingadvice.typepad.com/my_weblog/2004/10/index_html, accessed Janua ry 14, 2007; Ke llogg, D. (2006}, "Hope and Ag ility: The Rev lon Test; Mark LogicCEOB/og, http://
marklog ic.blogspot.com/2006/07/hope-and-agility- revlon-test.htm l, accessed December 7, 2007

eve n thicker so they took eve n longer to fin ish as a 3. Observability-things that are observable tend to
way of improving the "product." 23 get adopted faster
4. Trialability-things that can be tried with little or
INNOVATION no risk get adopted faster
Ultimately, companies need to understand why people 5. Consistency-consumers are more likely to adopt
buy their products in order to understand what business things that are congruent with existing values and
they are in. This is also how they identify their competi- knowledge
tors. Let's look at the co mpanies that produced buggies
(horse-drawn carriages from 100 years ago) and slide Consider a consumer with a new smartwatch.
rules (rulers used to do calculations). They did not go His liking of the device will depend on these charac-
out of business because their products were flawed. teristics , but more importantly for those involved in
The companies that did well producing those products marketing these devices, these characteristics will ulti-
went out of business because they failed to innovate and mately determine if the category as a whole represents
because they didn't understand that they were actually a successful innovation.
competing with Ford automobiles and Texas Instru- WAYS OF DOING BUSINESS
ments calculators, respectively.
Much of the discussion thus far presum es that a
Newness alone does not make an innovation. An
co mpany is market oriented. That is , the presump-
innovation has to produce value for consumers to be suc-
tion is that a company has prioritized understanding
cessful. Over time, successful innovations exhibit all or
consumers , as would be the case in a consumer-
som e of these characteristics:
orie nted corporate culture . This isn't always the
1. Relative advantage-makes things better than case. Each company adopts a way of doing business
before that is epitomized in its corporate culture . Corpo-
2. Simplicity-all things equal, a simpler innovation rate cultures fall roughly into one of several catego-
is better than a complex innovation ries representing differe nt ways of doing business.

NEL CHAPTER 1: What Is CB, and Why Should I Care' 11

 Exhibit 1.4
Different Ways of Doing Business
Differentiated
Marketing
plan
wherein the same basic
product is offered to all
customers
~I!MMI~ approach
where innovation is geared
primarily toward making
the production process as
efficient and economic as
possible
~~~~~fi~rm~ s that
serve multiple market
segments, each with a unique
product offering
plan wherein a different
product is offered for each
individual customer so that
each customer is treated as a
segment of one
li!J~r1J:iiEd]rll~·lJ pian
wherein a firm specializes in
serving one market segment
with particularly unique
demand characteristics
12 PART ONE: Introduction
Product 1_ __
Product 2;..--- - Segment 2
Product 3
Exhibit 1.4 summ ari zes dif-
ferent busin ess ori e ntati ons.
These orientations ofte n
guide a firm 's market seg-
mentation practices.
In undifferentiated
marketing, the same basic
product is offe red to all cus-
tomers. Mass merchandisers
typify undiffe rentiated mar-
keters in th at they rely on
selling high volum e to be suc-
cessful. As such, they focus on
serving vety large segments
in which consumers do not
have specific desires (are
not picky). Undiffe rentiated
marketers generally adopt a
production orientation,
wherein innovation is geared
primarily toward making the
production process as effi-
cient and economic as pos-
sible. In other words, th e
emphasis is on setvi ng cus-
tomers while in cuning mini-
mum costs. Walm art typifies
this approach wi th its Supercentres and
its state-of-the-att disttibution netwo rk,
which ships massive quantities of products
to stores around th e world at the lowest
possibl e cost.
Differentiated marketers setve
multiple market segments, each wi th a
uni que product offering. A market ori enta-
ti on usually serves a differentiated marketer
Segment 1 well. The emphasis here is on matching a
prod uct with a segment.
Toyota, for example, has three business
units targeted toward different automo-
tive segments. Scion appeals to consumers
Segment 3 interested in economy cars with a unique
sense of style. Toyota operates under the
Toyota name itself, of course, offering a
more consetvative line of autos for con-
sumers seeking a blend of perform ance
and reli abi lity. Finally, Lexus provides
luxUJy cars to those who want the most in
performance, style, comfort, and reli abil-
ity. Taking di fferentiated marketing even
furth er, each Toyota line offers coupes, sedans, and
SUVs. Thus, a Toyota p roduct exists for practically any
automobile consum er's taste. Without an unde rstand-
ing of consumers, Toyota would have a difficult time
matching products to segments.
Marketers can take diffe rentiated marketing to
the extreme wi th a practi ce known as one-to-one
marketing . He re, th e co mpany offers a unique prod-
uct to each individual customer and thereby treats
each customer as a segment of one. Companies like
Build-A-Bear Workshop allow individual co nsum ers to
create and purchase a unique product that is custom-
made on a mass scale- th at is, a mass customi zed
scale. Co mpute r-aided information processing, design,
and producti on have helped make this a reality on a
large scale. Many cas inos, for example, develop pro-
motional packages for individual customers based on
inform ation coll ected and stored about that custome r's
preferences.
Niche marketing is practised by firm s that spe-
cialize in se1ving one market segment with patticul arly
unique demand characteri stics. Finns that practi se
niche marketing may be consumer oriented. Howeve r,
some niche markete rs are product oriented and prod uce
a product that has unique appeal within a segment. For
example, many companies setv e the golf market in one
way or another, and some of them are huge differenti ated
NEL
marketers like TaylorMade Golf or Callaway, offering
many products aimed at multiple markets. However,
the Bobby Grace Putter Company specializes in one
product: the putter. It only makes putters and has a very
small product offering of accessories beyond that. Bobby
Grace markets its putters as highly advanced technologi-
cally because all of the company's attention is dedicated
to just one club, the putter.
1-3b Consumer Behaviour and Society
The things that people buy and consume end up deter-
mining the type of society in which we live. Things like
customs, manners , and rituals all involve consumption-
value-producing activities. Certainly, not evety society
around the world is the same. Just think about the ways
we eat and the types of food consumed around the
world. Additionally, when governm ents create laws that
govern the way we buy and consume products, con-
sum er behaviour is involved. Thus, consumer behav-
iour creates the society in which we live and setves as
an important source of input to public policy in a free
society.
For example, how does Canadian society treat
smoking today? Interestingly, popular culture used
to glamourize smoking as a valued behaviour. On the
famous TV classic The Andy Griffith Show, produced
in the 1960s, the likable Sheriff Andy Taylor casually
smoked cigarettes in his living room while talking to
his young son, Opie . Cigarette advertisements made up
a large chunk of all TV advertising before a U.S. fed-
eral ban took effect on Janumy 2, 1971. In the theatre,
As this billboard shows, attitudes toward smoking have certainly
changed over the last few decades.
NEL
Jam es Bond smoked, and his image was certainly not
harm ed by the behaviour. At home, practically evety
room in the house included at least one ashtray. "No
smoking" sections did not exist, and on airlines, flight
attendants (then called stewardesses) walked the
aisles of the plane offering passengers "coffee, tea, or
cigarettes."
My, how things have changed! Smoking has become
nearly taboo in Canada. Smoking inside any public build-
ing is practically impossible due either to laws restricting
smoking or to rules created by building owners prohibit-
ing smoking. "No smoking" sections in restaurants are
now also seen in many parts of Europe and in most cos-
mopolitan cities around the world. Increasingly, consum-
ers look upon smoking as a non- value-producing activity.
Furthermore, politicians realize political advantage in
creating more restrictions as consumer opinion contin-
ues to turn against the behaviour. Policy makers should
make such decisions with a thorough understanding of
the consumer behaviour issues involved.
Another current public policy issue concerns the
use of mobile devices. Consider how much consum-
ers' widespread adoption of mobile phones and tablets
has changed , and continues to change, society. More
Canadian households now have a mobile phone (83%)
than have a landline (75%)-" Globally, more than
6 billion people have access to a mobile phone, but
only 4.5 billion have access to a flush toilet! 25 That's
not bad for a product th at as we know it did not exist
30 years ago. Certainly, the smartphone has bee n a
discontinuous innovation and has altered our behav-
iours and communications in many significant ways.
1-3cConsumer
Behaviour and
Personal Growth
We face many important deci-
sions as consumers , including
choices that will affect our
professional careers, our qual-
ity of life, and the very fibre
of our families. By this point
in your life, you have already
experienced many of these
decisions. Some decisions are
good; some are not. One hot
topic recently has been the
rise in Canadian consumers'
CHAPTER 1: What Is CB, and Why Should I Care' 13
 Consumers and Their Phones
oday's mobile phones are amazing products that allow us to access vast
T amounts of information and communicate on-the-go with other people
around the world. Mobile devices are also widely adopted in Canada . One recent
survey indicated that the majority of Canadian children in grades 4 through 11
have their own mobile phone. In grade 4, about 25% of children have their own
phone, which rises to 40% by grade 6 and close to 90% by high school."
But mobile phones can also be a source of aggravation and even a danger
to others. Many provinces have enacted distracted driving laws that penal-
ize drivers, with fines and/ or demerits, for using a mobile device in their cars.
Some restaurants now frown on or even prohibit phone usage. Yet, many air-
lines are beginning to relax their in-flight restrictions. How much is too much?
Consider the following list. In your opinion, do any of these behaviours violate
acceptable mobile phone etiquette in Canada?

1. Having a cell phone conversation at the dinner table

2. Using a cell phone while seated on an airplane

3. Using profanity on the phone

4. Using the phone in a movie theatre

5. Using the phone in a public washroom toilet stall

6. Speaking so loudly that your phone conversation is easily heard by others three metres or more away from you
7. Browsing or texting while involved in a conversation with someone else

8. Using a loud and annoying ring tone

Should public restrictions on mobile usage be created that govern when, where, and how a phone can be used?
Studies of consumer behaviour help provide input into public policy decisions on issues like these.

SouKe~: Krou. JL {2010). "Cell Phone ll quene: Dm <~nd Don'g."http}/l'loWwmicrosoft com/sm<l bus nesslfesources/ArticleReader/webs te/defoultaspx?Print- l&Articleld - Cellphoneetiquened
osanddonts, <lCCessed June 19, 2010. C<l rns, W {2006). "Child Culture, Kid Consumers and Grow ng Pa m; Brand Strategy, IJecember 18, 46, cmch mentms for p,!reng <lnd children, http//www
(_ffiCh.tv/m entors/honopc.Jsp?id - 70, occessed June 19. 2010

debt load (see Exhibit 1.5). In 1999, Canadian families
had $0.78 of debt for every dollar of after-tax income.
By 2012, that number had increased to $1.10 of debt
for evety dollar of after-tax income and more than one-
third of families had $2.00 of debt for evety dollar of
income. However, Canadian household wealth has also
ine~·e ased over that time, and when Statistics Canada
looks at how much debt families have relative to their
assets , the picture has actually gotten slightly better over
time. In 1999, Canadian households had $0.27 of debt
for every dollar of assets, and in 2012, they had $0.25
of debt for evety dollar of assets. These trends paint a
picture of Canadians who are borrowing more, but also
have homes and other assets that are worth more. 27
Possibly more concerning is the rise in credit card
debt among particular segments of Canadian consum-
ers. About 46 % of Canadians cany credit card debt and,
as a result, are paying interest rates of more than 20 %.
One-quarter of Canadians are caught in a cycle of paying
off their credit card debt with available funds and then
incurring additional debt to pay for other expenses. 28 In
the United States, between 1984 and 2009, real average
household debt (including mortgages) more than dou-
bled from $46,000 to $110,000, substantially outpacing
income growth over the same period of time .29 Total
American consumer debt exceeded $2 trillion in 2010;
that's more than $15,000 per family. 30 In the United
Kingdom , the typical young consum er (18- 24 years

14 PART ONE: Introduction NEL

Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 Thus the good seed sown in Western Europe during the
preceding century brought forth its fruit. England could not long
remain a stranger to the march of events. But, slow as usual and
averse from hasty experiments, she pondered while others
performed. Besides, she had been spared the volcanic eruption of
the Continent which, while destroying much that was venerable and
valuable, had cleared the ground for the reception of new things.
There is every reason to believe that the ordinary Englishman’s
view of the Jews during the first half of the nineteenth century
differed in no respect from the view entertained by the ordinary
American of the same period, as described by Oliver Wendell
139
Holmes. The ordinary Englishman, like his transatlantic cousin,
grew up inheriting the traditional Protestant idea that the Jews were
a race lying under a curse for their obstinacy in refusing the Gospel.
The great historical Church of Christendom was presented to him as
Bunyan depicted it. In the nurseries of old-fashioned English
Orthodoxy there was one religion in the world—one religion and a
multitude of detestable, literally damnable impositions, believed in by
countless millions, who were doomed to perdition for so believing.
The Jews were the believers in one of these false religions. It had
been true once, but now was a pernicious and abominable lie. The
principal use of the Jews seemed to be to lend money and to fulfil
the predictions of the old prophets of their race. No doubt, the
individual sons of Abraham whom the ordinary Englishman found in
the ill-flavoured streets of East London were apt to be unpleasing
specimens of the race and to confirm the prevailing view of it.
The first unambiguous indication of a changing attitude towards
the Jew appears in Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe. Scott in that work
gives utterance to the feeling of toleration which had gradually been
growing up in the country. It was in 1819, during the severest season
of the novelist’s illness, that Mr. Skene of Rubislaw, his friend, “sitting
by his bedside, and trying to amuse him as well as he could,” spoke
about the Jews, as he had known them years before in Germany,
“still locked up at night in their own quarter by great gates,” and
suggested that a group of Jews would be an interesting figure in a
 140
novel. The suggestion did not fall on stony ground. Scott’s eye
seized on the artistic possibilities of the subject, and the result was
the group of Jews which we have in Ivanhoe. Although the author in
introducing the characters seems to have been innocent of any
deliberate aim at propagandism, his treatment of them is a sufficient
proof of his own sympathy, and no doubt served the purpose of
kindling sympathy in many thousands of readers.
Not that the work attempts any revolutionary subversion of
preconceived ideas. The difference between Isaac of York and
Nathan the Wise is the same as the difference between Scott and
Lessing and their respective countries. The British writer does not try
to persuade us that the person whom we abhorred a few generations
before as an incarnation of all that is diabolical, and whom we still
regard with considerable suspicion, is really an angel. Whether it be
that there was no need for a revolt against the Elizabethan tradition,
or Scott was not equal to the task, his portrait of the Jew does not
depart too abruptly from the convention sanctioned by his great
predecessors. His Isaac is not a Barabas or Shylock transformed,
but only reformed. Though in many respects an improvement on
both, Scott’s Jew possesses all the typical attributes of his
progenitors: wealth, avarice, cowardice, rapacity, cunning, affection
for his kith and kin, hatred for the Gentile. But, whereas in both
Barabas and Shylock we find love for the ducats taking precedence
of love for the daughter, in Isaac the terms are reversed. It is with
exquisite reluctance that he parts with his shekels in order to save
his life. Ransom is an extreme measure, resorted to only on an
emergency such as forces the master of a ship to cast his
merchandise into the sea. But on hearing that his captor, Front-de-
Bœuf, has given his daughter to be a handmaiden to Sir Brian de
Bois-Guilbert, Isaac throws himself at the knight’s feet, imploring him
to take all he possesses and deliver up the maiden. Whereupon the
Norman, surprised, exclaims: “I thought your race had loved nothing
save their money-bags.”
“Think not so vilely of us,” answers the Jew. “Jews though we be,
the hunted fox, the tortured wildcat, loves its young—the despised
and persecuted race of Abraham love their children.”
 On being told that his daughter’s doom is irrevocable, Isaac
changes his attitude. Outraged affection makes a hero of the Jew,
and for his child’s sake he dares to face tortures, to escape from
which he had just promised to part even with one thousand silver
pounds:
“Do thy worst,” he cries out. “My daughter is my flesh and blood,
dearer to me a thousand times than those limbs which thy cruelty
threatens.”
While emphasising the good qualities of the Jew, the author
takes care to excuse the bad ones. Isaac is despoiled and spurned
as much as Barabas or Shylock. But there is an all-important
difference in Scott’s manner of presenting these facts. He describes
Isaac as a victim rather than as a villain, as an object of compassion
rather than of ridicule. “Dog of a Jew,” “unbelieving Jew,”
“unbelieving dog” are the usual modes of address employed by the
mediaeval Christian towards the Jew; just as they are the usual
modes of address employed by the modern Turk towards the
Christian rayah. The Jews are “a nation of stiff-necked unbelievers,”
the Christian “scorns to hold intercourse with a Jew,” his propinquity,
nay his mere presence, is considered as bringing pollution—
sentiments which far exceed in bitterness those entertained by the
Turk towards the Christian. Under such circumstances Isaac makes
his appearance: a grey-haired and grey-bearded Hebrew “with
features keen and regular, an aquiline nose and piercing black eyes,”
wearing “a high, square, yellow cap of a peculiar fashion, assigned
to his nation to distinguish them from the Christians.” Thus attired,
“he is introduced with little ceremony, and, advancing with fear and
hesitation, and many a bow of deep humility,” he takes his seat at
the lower end of the table, “where, however, no one offers to make
room for him.” “The attendants of the Abbot crossed themselves,
with looks of pious horror,” fearing the contamination from “this son
of a rejected people,” “an outcast in the present society, like his
people among the nations, looking in vain for welcome or resting
place.”
Isaac has scarcely taken his seat, when he is addressed, with
brutal frankness, as a creature whose vocation it is “to gnaw the
bowels of our nobles with usury, and to gull women and boys with
gauds and toys.” So treated, the Jew realises that “there is but one
road to the favour of a Christian”—money. Hence his avarice.
Furthermore, the impression of a craven and cruel miser, that might
perhaps be derived from the above presentation, is softened by the
author, who hastens to declare that any mean and unamiable traits
that there may be in the Jew’s character are due “to the prejudices of
the credulous vulgar and the persecutions by the greedy and
rapacious nobility.”
Scott endeavours to engage the reader’s sympathy for his Jew
by dwelling at great length on these causes of moral degradation:
“except perhaps the flying fish, there was no race existing on the
earth, in the air, or the waters, who were the object of such an
unremitting, general, and relentless persecution as the Jews of this
period.” “The obstinacy and avarice of the Jews being thus in a
measure placed in opposition to the fanaticism and tyranny of those
under whom they lived, seemed to increase in proportion to the
persecution with which they were visited.” “On these terms they
lived; and their character, influenced accordingly, was watchful,
suspicious, and timid—yet obstinate, uncomplying, and skilful in
evading the dangers to which they were exposed.” Thus we are led
to the conclusion that the Jew’s vices have grown, thanks to his
treatment, his virtues in spite of it. For Isaac is not altogether
impervious to gratitude and pity. He handsomely rewards the
Christian who saves his life, and he himself saves a Christian’s life
by receiving him into his house and allowing his daughter to doctor
him.
But, just as he is to the father, Scott is more than just to the
141
daughter. While Isaac is at the best a reformed Barabas or
Shylock, Rebecca is the jewel of the story. The author exhausts his
conventional colours in painting her beauty, and his vocabulary in
singing the praises of her character. “Her form was exquisitely
symmetrical,” “the brilliancy of her eyes, the superb arch of her
eyebrows, her well-formed, aquiline nose, her teeth as white as
pearls, and the profusion of her sable tresses,” made up a figure
which “might have compared with the proudest beauties of England.”
She is indeed “the very Bride of the Canticles,” as Prince John
remarks; “the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley,” as the
Prior’s warmer imagination suggests. Immeasurably superior to
Abigail in beauty and to Jessica in virtue, she equals Portia in
wisdom—a perfect heroine of romance. Withal there is in Rebecca a
power of quiet self-sacrifice that raises her almost to the level of a
saint. Altogether as noble an example of womanhood as there is to
be found in a literature rich in noble women. To sum up, in contrast
to Marlowe’s and Shakespeare’s creations, there is a great deal of
the tragic, and little, if anything, of the comic in Scott’s Jew.
It would, however, be an error to suppose that Scott was the
spokesman of a unanimous public. His Ivanhoe appeared in 1819.
Four years later we find the writer who with Scott shared the
applause of the age, giving an entirely different character to the Jew.
The Age of Bronze, written in 1823, carries on the Merchant of
Venice tradition. To Byron the Jew is simply a symbol of relentless
and unprincipled rapacity. Referring to the Royal Exchange, “the
New Symplegades—the crushing stocks,”

“Where Midas might again his wish behold

In real paper or imagined gold,
Where Fortune plays, while Rumour holds the stake,
And the world trembles to bid brokers break,”

the poet moralises at the expense of the Jew, to whom he traces our
own greed and recklessness in speculation:

“But let us not to own the truth refuse,

Was ever Christian land so rich in Jews?
Those parted with their teeth to good King John,
And now, Ye Kings! they kindly draw your own.”

Alas! times have changed since the day of “good King John.” Now
the Jews, far from being the victims of the royal forceps,
 “All states, all things, all sovereigns they control,
And waft a loan ‘from Indus to the pole.’
And philanthropic Israel deigns to drain
Her mild per-centage from exhausted Spain.
Not without Abraham’s seed can Russia march;
’Tis gold, not steel, that rears the conqueror’s arch.”

Nor is this all. Sad as the state of things must be, since Spain the
persecutrix has been degraded into a suppliant, the worst of the
calamity lies in the circumstance that these new tyrants of poor
Spain and poor Russia are a people apart; a people without a
country; a people of parasites:

“Two Jews, a chosen people, can command

In every realm their Scripture-promised land.
What is the happiness of earth to them?
A congress forms their ‘New Jerusalem.’
On Shylock’s shore behold them stand afresh,
To cut from nations’ hearts their ‘pound of flesh.’”

But our modern Jeremiah’s indignation is not altogether

disinterested. He confesses elsewhere, with a candour worthy of his
prophetic character,

“In my younger days they lent me cash that way,

142
Which I found very troublesome to pay.”

And not only Byron but piety also was still inimical to the Jew.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, whose philosophy, in its second childhood,
sought comfort in the cradle of theology—a not uncommon
development—gives vent to some exceedingly quaint sentiments on
the subject. On April 13, 1830, he declares that the Jews who hold
that the mission of Israel is to be “a light among the nations” are
utterly mistaken. The doctrine of the unity of God “has been
preserved, and gloriously preached by Christianity alone.” No nation,
ancient or modern, has ever learnt this great truth from the Jews.
“But from Christians they did learn it in various degrees, and are still
learning it. The religion of the Jews is, indeed, a light; but it is as the
light of the glow-worm, which gives no heat, and illumines nothing
143
but itself.” Here we find Coleridge, in the nineteenth century,
reviving the complaint of Jewish aloofness—of the provincial and
non-missionary character of Judaism—which was one of the causes
of the Roman hatred towards the race in the first. Nor is this the only
case of revival presented by Coleridge’s attitude.
Luther, three hundred years earlier had said, “I am persuaded if
the Jews heard our preaching, and how we handle the Old
144
Testament, many of them might be won.” Coleridge now says: “If
Rhenferd’s Essays were translated—if the Jews were made
acquainted with the real argument—I believe there would be a
145
Christian synagogue in a year’s time.” He is, however, somewhat
in advance of Luther, inasmuch as he does not insist upon the Jews’
abandoning circumcision and “their distinctive customs and national
type,” but advocates their admission into the Christian fold “as of the
seed of Abraham.” He is also in advance of Luther in forgiving the
Jews their claim to be considered a superior order; for he finds that
this claim was also maintained by the earlier Christians of Jewish
blood, as is attested both by St. Peter’s conduct and by St. Paul’s
protests. He also refers to the practice of the Abyssinians—another
people claiming descent from Abraham and preserving the Mosaic
Law—and asks: “Why do we expect the Jews to abandon their
national customs and distinctions?” Coleridge would be satisfied with
their rejection of the covenant of works and with their acceptance of
“the promised fulfilment in Christ.” But what really distinguishes
Coleridge’s missionary zeal from that of the great Reformer is his
demand that the Jews should be addressed “kindly.” It is hard to
imagine Coleridge in his old age taking a Jew on to London Bridge,
146
tying a stone round his neck and hurling him into the river.
 However, though three centuries of humanism had not been
altogether wasted, the philosopher is in theory as hostile to the poor
Jew as Luther himself: “The Jews of the lower orders,” he tells us,
“are the very lowest of mankind; they have not a principle of honesty
in them; to grasp and be getting money for ever is their single and
exclusive occupation.” Nor was this prejudiced view of the race
softened in Coleridge by his profound admiration for its literature,
any more than it was in Luther. The latter was an enthusiastic
admirer of the Psalms—the book that has played a larger part in
men’s lives than any other—and so was Coleridge: “Mr. Coleridge,
like so many of the elder divines of the Christian Church, had an
affectionate reverence for the moral and evangelical portion of the
Book of Psalms. He told me that, after having studied every page of
the Bible with the deepest attention, he had found no other part of
Scripture come home so closely to his inmost yearnings and
147
necessities.” But Coleridge’s affection for ancient Hebrew
literature deepened, if anything, his contempt for the modern Jew.
He called Isaiah “his ideal of the Hebrew prophet,” and used this
ideal as a means of emphasising his scorn for the actual: “The two
images farthest removed from each other which can be
comprehended under one term are, I think, Isaiah—‘Hear, O
heavens, and give ear, O earth!’—and Levi of Holywell Street—‘Old
clothes!’—both of them Jews, you’ll observe. Immane quantum
148
discrepant!” The philosopher does not deign to reflect on the
possible causes of this lamentable discrepancy.
Again, Coleridge, like Luther, delighted in clandestine
conversion. He was on friendly terms with several learned Jews,
and, finding them men of a metaphysical turn of mind, he liked, as
was his wont, to preach to them “earnestly and also hopelessly” on
Kant’s text regarding the “object” and “subject,” and other things
weighty, though incomprehensible. At one time he was engaged in
undermining the faith of four different victims of his zeal and
friendship, or may be of his sense of humour: a Jew, a
Swedenborgian, a Roman Catholic, and a New Jerusalemite. “He
said he had made most way with the disciple of Swedenborg, who
might be considered as convert, that he had perplexed the Jew, and
had put the Roman Catholic into a bad humour; but that upon the
New Jerusalemite he had made no more impression than if he had
149
been arguing with the man in the moon.”
Even the genial Elia was not above entertaining and elaborating
the hoary platitude that Jews and Gentiles can never mix. Although
he declares that he has, in the abstract, no disrespect for Jews, he
admits that he would not care to be in habits of familiar intercourse
with any of them. Centuries of injury, contempt and hate, on the one
side—of cloaked revenge, dissimulation and hate, on the other,
between our and their fathers, he thinks, must and ought to affect the
blood of the children. He cannot believe that a few fine words, such
as “candour,” “liberality,” “the light of the nineteenth century,” can
close up the breaches of so deadly a disunion. In brief, he frankly
confesses that he does not relish the approximation of Jew and
Christian which was becoming fashionable, affirming that “the spirit
150
of the Synagogue is essentially separative.”
Yet, in defiance of Byronic wrath, of Elian humour, and of
Coleridgean theology, the demand for justice daily gained ground. In
1830 Mr. Robert Grant, member of Parliament for Inverness,
sounded the trumpet-call to battle by proposing that Jews should be
admitted to the House of Commons. The Bill was carried on the first
reading by 18 votes, but was lost on the second by 63. The initial
success of the proposal was evidence of the progress of public
opinion; its final rejection showed that there was room for further
progress. Indeed, the victory of light over darkness was not to be
won without a severe conflict: the prejudices of eighteen centuries
had to be assaulted and taken one after the other, ere triumph could
be secured. How strong these fortifications were can easily be seen
by a glance at the catalogue of any great public library under the
proper heading. There the modern Englishman’s wondering eye
finds a formidable array of pamphlets extending over many years,
and covering the whole field of racial and theological intolerance. But
the opposite phalanx, though as yet inferior in numbers, shows a
brave front too. In January, 1831, Macaulay fulminated from the
pages of the Edinburgh Review in support of the good cause:
 “The English Jews, we are told, are not Englishmen. They are a
separate people, living locally in this island, but living morally and
politically in communion with their brethren who are scattered over
all the world. An English Jew looks on a Dutch or Portuguese Jew as
his countryman, and on an English Christian as a stranger. This want
of patriotic feeling, it is said, renders a Jew unfit to exercise political
functions.”
This premosaic platitude, and other coeval arguments, Macaulay
sets himself to demolish; and, whatever may be thought of the
intrinsic value of his weapons, the principle for which he battled no
longer stands in need of vindication.
The warfare continued with vigour on both sides. The Jews,
encouraged by Mr. Grant’s partial success, went on petitioning the
House of Commons for political equality, and their petitions found a
constant champion in Lord John Russell, who year after year brought
in a Bill on the subject. But the forces of the enemy held out gallantly.
That a Jew should represent a Christian constituency, and, who
knows? even control the destinies of the British Empire, was still a
proposition that shocked a great many good souls; while others
ridiculed it as preposterous. A. W. Kinglake voices the latter class of
opponents in his Eothen. A Greek in the Levant had expressed to
the author his wonder that a man of Rothschild’s position should be
denied political recognition. The English traveller scowls at the idea,
and quotes it simply as an illustration of the Greek’s monstrous
materialism. “Rothschild (the late money-monger) had never been
the Prime Minister of England! I gravely tried to throw some light
upon the mysterious causes that had kept the worthy Israelite out of
the Cabinet.” Had Kinglake been endowed with the gift of foreseeing
coming, as he was with the gift of describing current events, he
would probably never have written the eloquent page on which the
above passage occurs. But in his own day there was nothing absurd
in his attitude. Till 1828 no more than twelve Jewish brokers were
permitted to carry on business in the City of London, and vacancies
were filled at an enormous cost. Even baptized Jews were excluded
from the freedom of the City, and therefore no Jew could keep a
shop, or exercise any retail trade, till 1832.
 The struggle for the enfranchisement of the Jews was only one
operation in a campaign wherein the whole English world was
concerned, and on the result of which depended far larger issues
than the fate of the small community of English Jews. It was a
campaign between the powers of the past and the powers of the
future. Among those engaged in this struggle was a man in whom
the two ages met. He had inherited the traditions of old England, and
he was destined to promote the development of the new. His life
witnessed the death of one world and the birth of another. His career
is an epitome of English history in the nineteenth century.
In 1833 Gladstone, then aged twenty-four years, voted for Irish
Coercion, opposed the admission of Dissenters to the Universities,
and the admission of Jews to Parliament. He was consistent. Irish
Reform, Repeal of the Test Acts, and Relief of the Jews, were three
verses of one song, the burden of which was “Let each to-morrow
find us farther than to-day.” In 1847 Gladstone, then aged thirty-eight
years, “astonished his father as well as a great host of his political
supporters by voting in favour of the removal of Jewish
151
disabilities.” His desertion, as was natural, aroused a vast amount
of indignation in the camp. For had he not, only eight short years
earlier, been described as “the rising hope of the stern and
unbending Tories”? But the indignation, natural though it might be,
was unjustifiable. Gladstone was again consistent. Several important
things had happened since his first vote. Both Dissenters and
Roman Catholics had been rehabilitated. In other words, the Tory
party had surrendered their first line of defence—Anglicanism, and
abandoned their second—Protestantism: was there any reason,
except blind bigotry, for their dogged defence of the third? Gladstone
could see none. The admission of the Jews was henceforth not only
dictated by justice, but demanded by sheer logic. Furthermore, the
Jews in 1833 had been permitted to practise at the bar; in 1835 the
shrievalty had been conceded to them; in 1845 the offices of
alderman and of Lord Mayor had been thrown open to them; in 1846
an Act of Parliament had established the right of Jewish charities to
hold land, and Jewish schools and synagogues were placed on the
same footing as those of Dissenters. The same year witnessed the
repeal of Queen Anne’s statute, which encouraged conversion; of
the exception of the Jews from the Irish Naturalisation Act of 1783;
and of the obsolete statute De Judaismo, which prescribed a special
dress for Jews. After the bestowal of civil privileges, the withdrawal
of political rights was absurd. Gladstone could not conceive why
people should be loth to grant to the Jews nominal, after having
admitted them to practical equality. But though prejudice had died
out, its ghost still haunted the English mind. Men clung to the
shadow, as men will, when the substance is gone. Those orators of
the press and the pulpit whose vocation it is to voice the views of
yesterday still strove to give articulate utterance and a body to a
defunct cause. Sophisms, in default of reasons, were year after year
dealt out for popular consumption, and the position was sufficiently
irrational to find many defenders. But the result henceforth was a
foregone conclusion. Even stupidity is not impregnable. Prejudice,
resting as it did upon unreality, could not long hold out against the
batteries of commonsense.
Yet ghosts die hard. Baron Lionel de Rothschild, though returned
five times for the City of London, was not allowed to vote. Another
Jew, Alderman Salomons, elected for Greenwich in 1851, ventured
to take his seat, to speak, and to vote in the House, though in
repeating the oath he omitted the words “on the true faith of a
Christian.” The experiment cost him a fine of £500 and expulsion
from Parliament. Meanwhile, the Bill for the admission of the Jews
continued to be annually introduced, to be regularly passed by the
Commons, and as regularly rejected by the Lords. The comedy did
not come to an end till 1858, when an Act was passed allowing Jews
to omit from the oath the concluding words to which they
conscientiously objected. Immediately after Baron de Rothschild took
his seat in the House of Commons, and another “red letter day” was
added to the Jewish Calendar.
The Factories Act of 1870 permits Jews to labour on Sundays in
certain cases, provided they keep their own Sabbath; and the
Universities Tests Act, passed in the following year, just after a Jew
had become Senior Wrangler at Cambridge, enables them to
graduate at the English seats of learning without any violation to their
religious principles. At the present day the House of Commons
contains a dozen Jewish members, and there is scarcely any office
or dignity for which an English Jew may not compete on equal terms
with an English Christian. The one remnant of ancient servitude is to
be found in the Anglo-Jewish prayer for the King, in which the
Almighty is quaintly besought to put compassion into his Majesty’s
heart and into the hearts of his counsellors and nobles, “that they
may deal kindly with us and with all Israel.”
Tolerance has not failed to produce once more the results which
history has taught us to expect. As in Alexandria under the
Ptolemies, in Spain under the Saracen Caliphs and the earlier
Christian princes, and in Italy under the Popes of the Renaissance,
the Jews cast off their aloofness and participated in the intellectual
life of the Gentiles, so now they hastened to join in the work of
civilisation. When the fetters were struck off from the limbs of Israel,
more than the body of the people was set free. The demolition of the
walls of the ghettos was symbolical of the demolition of those other
walls of prejudice which had for centuries kept the Jewish colonies
as so many patches of ancient Asia, incongruously inlaid into the
mosaic of modern Europe. The middle of the eighteenth century,
which marks the spring-time of Jewish liberty, also marks the spring-
time of Jewish liberalism. It is the Renaissance of Hebrew history; a
new birth of the Hebrew soul. The Jew assumed a new form of pride:
pride in the real greatness of his past. He became once more
conscious of the nobler elements of his creed and his literature. And
with this self-consciousness there also came a consciousness of
something outside and beyond self. Moses Mendelssohn did for the
Jews of Europe what the Humanists had done for the Christians. By
introducing it to the language, literature, and life of the Gentiles
around it he opened for his people a new intellectual world, broader
and fairer than the one in which it had been imprisoned by the
persecutions of the Dark Ages; and that, too, at a moment when the
shadows of death seemed to have irrevocably closed round the body
and the mind of Israel. This deliverance, wondrous and unexpected
though it was, produced no thrill of religious emotion, it called forth
no outpourings of pious thankfulness and praise, such as had
greeted the return from the Babylonian captivity and, again, the
Restoration of the Law by the Maccabees in the days of old. The joy
of the nation manifested itself in a different manner, profane maybe
and distasteful to those who look upon nationality as an end in itself
and who set the interests of sect above the interests of man; but
thoroughly sane.
Orthodoxy, of course, continued to hug the dead bones of the
past, to denounce the study of Gentile literature and science as a
sin, and to repeat the words in which men of long ago expressed
their feelings in a language no longer spoken. This was inevitable.
Equally inevitable was another phenomenon: a religious revival
springing up simultaneously with the intellectual awakening. The
Jewish race includes many types. As in antiquity we find Hellenism
and Messianism flourishing side by side, as the preceding century
had witnessed the synchronous appearance of a Spinoza and a
Sabbataï Zebi, so now, while Moses Mendelssohn was writing
Platonic dialogues in Berlin, another representative Jew, Israel
Baalshem, was mystifying himself and his brethren with pious
152
hysteria in Moldavia. But the more advanced classes declared
themselves definitely for sober culture. The concentration which was
forced upon Judaism as a means of self-defence, more especially
after the expulsion from Spain and the subsequent oppression
during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, was now to a great
extent abandoned, and then ensued a period of dissent
proportionate to the previous compulsory conformity. There was a
vast difference of opinion as to the length to which reform should go.
But one result of the movement as a whole was a more or less
thorough purification of Judaism of the stains of slavery. The solemn
puerilities of the Talmud and the ponderous frivolities of Rabbinic
tradition, grotesque ritualism, and all the inartistic ineptitudes in belief
and practice, with which ages of barbarism had encrusted Judaism,
were relegated to the lumber-room of antiquarian curiosities, and all
that was fresh and truly alive in the Jewish race sought new vehicles
for the expression of new thoughts: modern emotions were
translated into modern modes of utterance and action. The
Messianic dream came to be regarded as a vision of the night,
destined to vanish in the light of freedom, and its place was taken by
an ideal of a spiritual and racial brotherhood of the Jews, based on
their common origin and history, but compatible with patriotic
attachment to the various countries of their adoption.
Nothing is more characteristic of the general healthiness of the
emancipation of the Jewish mind than the new type of renegade Jew
which it brought into being. In the Middle Ages the Jew who
renounced the faith of his fathers often considered it his sacred duty
to justify his apostasy by persecuting his former brethren. The
conditions which produced that vulgar type of renegade having
vanished, there began to appear apostates of another kind—men
who, though unwilling to devote to a sect what was meant for
mankind, or, perhaps, unable to sacrifice their own individuality to an
obsolete allegiance, yet never ceased to cherish those whom they
deserted. In them the connection of sentiment outlasted the links of
religion, and these men by their defection did more for their people
than others had done by their loyalty. Heinrich Heine, born in 1799,
was baptized at the age of twenty-five, prompted partly by the desire
to gain that fulness of freedom which in those days was still denied
to the non-Christian in Germany, but also by a far deeper motive: “I
had not been particularly fond of Moses formerly,” he said in after
life, “perhaps because the Hellenic spirit was predominant in me,
and I could not forgive the legislator of the Jews his hatred towards
all art.” The case of Benjamin Disraeli in this country was an
analogous, though not quite a similar one. Among later examples
may be mentioned the great Russo-Jewish composer Rubenstein
who, though baptized in infancy, never sought to conceal his Jewish
birth, but always spoke of it with pride—and that in a country where it
still is better for one to be born a dog than a Jew. Many of these ex-
Jews have attempted, and in part succeeded, in creating among the
Gentiles a feeling of respect towards the Jewish people as a nation
of aristocrats. And, indeed, in one sense the claim is not wholly
baseless.
Since the abolition of religious obstacles the Jews have taken an
even more prominent part in the development of the European mind
under all its aspects. Israel wasted no time in turning to excellent
account the bitterly earned lessons of experience. The persecution
of ages had weeded the race of weaklings. None survived but the
fittest. These, strong with the strength of long suffering, confident
with the confidence which springs from the consciousness of trials
nobly endured and triumphs won against incredible odds, versatile
by virtue of their struggle for existence amid so many and so varied
forms of civilisation, and stimulated by the modern enthusiasm for
progress, were predestined to success. The Western Jews, after a
training of eighteen hundred years in the best of schools—the school
of adversity—came forth fully equipped with endowments, moral and
intellectual, which enabled them, as soon as the chance offered, to
conquer a foremost place among the foremost peoples of the world.
Science and art, literature, statesmanship, philosophy, law, medicine,
and music, all owe to the Jewish intellect a debt impossible to
exaggerate. In Germany there is hardly a university not boasting a
professor Hebrew in origin, if not always in religion. Economic
thought and economic practice owe their most daring achievements
to Jewish speculation. Socialism—this latest effort of political
philosophy to reconcile the conflicting interests of society and its
constituent members—is largely the product of the Jewish genius. It
153
would be hard to enumerate individuals, for their name is legion.
But a few will suffice: Lasalle and Karl Marx in economics, Lasker in
politics, Heine and Auerbach in literature, Mendelssohn, Rubenstein
and Joachim in music, Jacoby in mathematics, Traube in medicine;
in psychology Lazarus and Steinthal, in classical scholarship and
comparative philology Benfey and Barnays are some Jewish workers
who have made themselves illustrious. Not only the purse but the
press of Europe is to a great extent in Jewish hands. The people
who control the sinews of war have contributed more than their
share to the arts and sciences which support and embellish peace.
And all this in the course of one brief half-century, and in the face of
the most adverse influences of legislation, of religious feeling and of
social repugnance. History can show no parallel to so glorious a
revolution. Mythology supplies a picture which aptly symbolises it.
Hesiod was not a prophet, yet no prophecy has ever received a
more accurate fulfilment than the poetic conception couched in the
following lines received in the Hebrew Palingenesia:
“Chaos begat Erebos and black Night;
But from Night issued Air and Day.”
 CHAPTER XXI

IN RUSSIA

The one great power in Europe which has refused to follow the new
spirit is Russia. In the middle of the sixteenth century Czar Ivan IV.,
surnamed the Terrible, voiced the feelings of his nation towards the
Jews in his negotiations with Sigismund Augustus, King of Poland.
The latter monarch had inserted in the treaty of peace a clause
providing that the Jews of Lithuania should be permitted to continue
trading freely with the Russian Empire. Ivan answered: “We do not
want these men who have brought us poison for our bodies and
souls; they have sold deadly herbs among us, and blasphemed our
Lord and Saviour.” This speech affords a melancholy insight into the
intellectual condition of the people over whom Ivan held his terrible
sway. Nor can one wonder. Printing had been popular for upwards of
a century in the rest of Europe before a press found its way into the
Muscovite Empire, where it aroused among the natives no less
astonishment and fear than the first sight of a musket did among the
inhabitants of Zululand, and was promptly consigned to the flames
by the priests, as a Satanic invention. Things did not improve during
the succeeding ages. Till the end of the seventeenth century Russia
remained almost as total a stranger to the development of the
Western world and to its nations as Tibet is at the present day.
Venice or Amsterdam loomed immeasurably larger in contemporary
imagination than the vast dominions of the White Czar. British
traders at rare intervals brought from the port of Archangel, along
with their cargoes of furs, strange tales of the snow-clad plains and
sunless forests of those remote regions, and of their savage
inhabitants: of their peculiar customs, their poverty, squalor, and
superstition. And these accounts, corroborated by the even rarer
testimony of diplomatic envoys, who in their books of travel spoke of
princes wallowing in filthy magnificence, of starving peasants, and of
ravening wolves and bears, excited in the Western mind that kind of
wonder, mingled with incredulity, which usually attends the narratives
of travellers in unknown lands.
This home of primordial barbarism was suddenly thrust upon the
attention of the civilised world by the genius of one man. Peter the
Great, a coarse and cruel, but highly gifted barbarian, conceived the
colossal plan of bridging over the gulf that separated his empire from
Western Europe, and of reaching at a single stride the point of
culture towards which others had crept slowly and painfully in the
course of many centuries. It was the conception of a great engineer,
and it required great workmen for its execution. It is, therefore, no
matter for surprise if the work, when the mind and the will of the
original designer were removed, made indifferent progress, if it
remained stationary at times, if it was partially destroyed at others. It
must also be borne in mind that Peter’s dream of a European Russia
was far from being shared by the Russian people. The old Russian
party, which interpreted the feelings of the nation, had no sympathy
with the Emperor’s ambition for a new Russia modelled on a
Western pattern. They wanted to remain Asiatic. And this party found
a leader in Peter’s own son Alexis, who paid for his disloyalty with
his life. The idea for which Alexis and his friends suffered death is
still alive. Opposition to Occidental reform and attachment to Oriental
modes of thought and conduct continue to exercise a powerful
influence in Russian politics. Europe and Asia still fight for
supremacy in the heterogeneous mass which constitutes this hybrid
Empire, and there are those who believe that, although Russia
poses as European in manner, in soul she is an Asiatic power; and
that the time will come when the slender ties which bind her to the
West will be snapped by the greater force of her Eastern affinities.
Whether this view is correct or not the future will show. Our business
is with the past.
The history of the Russian Empire from the seventeenth till the
twentieth century is largely a history of individual emperors, and its
spasmodic character of alternate progress and retrogression is
vividly illustrated by the attitude of those emperors towards their
Jewish subjects. Peter the Great welcomed them, his daughter
Elizabeth expelled them, Catherine II. re-admitted them, Alexander I.
favoured them. No democratic visionary was ever animated by a
loftier enthusiasm for the happiness of mankind than this noble
autocrat. By the Ukase of 1804 all Jews engaged in farming,
manufactures, and handicrafts, or those who had been educated in
Russian schools, were relieved from the exceptional laws against
their race; while special privileges were granted to those who could
show proficiency in the Russian, German, or Polish language. Other
decrees, issued in 1809, ensured to the Jews full freedom of trade.
These concessions, while testifying to the Emperor’s tolerant
wisdom, show the severity of the conditions under which the race
laboured normally. On the partition of Poland the Russian Empire
had received an enormous addition to its Jewish population, and the
Czars, with few exceptions, continued towards it the inhuman policy
already adopted under Casimir the Great’s successors. The Jews
were pent in ghettos, and every care was taken to check their growth
and to hamper their activity. Among other forms of oppression, the
emperors of Russia initiated towards their Jewish subjects a system
analogous to the one formerly enforced by the Sultans of Turkey on
the Christian rayahs: the infamous system of “child-tribute.” Boys of
tender age were torn from their parents and reared in their master’s
faith for the defence of their master’s dominions. Alexander I.
determined to lift this heavy yoke, and, as has been seen, he took
some initial steps towards that end. But, unfortunately, the closing
years of the high-minded idealist’s life witnessed a return to
despotism, and consequently a series of conspiracies, which in their
turn retarded the progress of freedom and hardened the hearts of its
foes.
1825 Alexander’s stern son, Nicholas I., was a
nineteenth century Phalaris. His reign was inaugurated
with an insurrectionary movement, whose failure accelerated the
triumph of the Asiatic ideals in Russian policy. Nicholas, imbued with
a strong antipathy to all that was Occidental, and convinced that the
greatness of Russia abroad depended on tyranny at home, set
himself the task of undoing the little his predecessors had done in