The Maccabaean

MR. GREENBURG has addressed the following "open letter":—

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE INNER ACTIONS COMMITTEE, VIENNA.

GENTLEMEN.—The Commission which was despatched to examine the territory offered to us by the British Goovernment for the purposes of a Jewish settlement having now reached the area of its operations, this seems a fitting time to consider the present aspect of the proposal and inter alia its relation to our movement, on the one hand, and the relation of our movement to the proposal on the other. With this in view I hope it will not be deemed presumptuous for me to address this note to you, seeing it has fallen to me to carry on negotiations which resulted in the offer being made to us, and largely to assist in the sending out of the Commission of Enquiry. I venture to submit my personal views to you as a humble contribution towards the fixing of a definite course of action which it is essential should be reached by the next Congress.

It is, of course, improbable in the extreme that any policy may be decided upon will carry the whole movement with it. In all great national movements such as ours, it is well-nigh inevitable that strong currents of opposing thought should manifest themselves. This is not peculiar to Jews nor to Zionists. It has occurred everywhere and in all times under similar conditions. I know of no movement in history which, comparable

with Zionism, has not had to encounter internal dissension. And this is not wonderful. Big movements with large ideals attaining to great possibilities do not gather round them mental weaklings with puny spirits having no freedom of thought, whose opinions are so shallow, and whose principles are so feeble that they become ready sacrifice to the constant craving for personal ease and comfort, which is their abiding ideal. It was inevitable that so soon as Zionism asserted itself as a practical movement dissension should appear. It has been frequently stated that the East African plan heralded dissent in our ranks. That is not quite the fact. Every practical step taken by the movement has aroused opposition, more or less fierce. That the feeling in regard to East Africa is stronger and more marked on both sides than in respect to any previous matter, proves nothing for or against the scheme. It shows only that is is the most important with which we have been called upon to deal. It gives evidence happily, too, of the vitality of the National movement among Jews, of which Zionism is the expression. While, therefore, in all this there is nothing at which we ought to be dismayed, it is none the less our duty to endeavor to formulate a policy which, consistently with our duty to the Jewish people and to the ideals with which we have identified ourselves, will carry our movement along upon its path to future usefulness and ultimate triumph.

Nor do I think that any conclusions