The Maccabaean

THE subject I have chosen may be divided into four heads. I propose, first of all, to treat it in regard to Palestine, secondly, in regard to the European attitude to Palestine, then as regards the Turkish attitude to Palestine, and finally the Jewish attitude. When I made enquiries about your league I was told that you stuck to the original objects of the movement, and were determined to work for Zion. I thought I saw in that the spirit in which great enterprises are brought to a successful termination. When Jeremiah was advising his people that they might have to wait, but that the time would come when they would go back to Palestine, no statesman or politician could have foreseen that, in time, there would arise a tolerant king who, in the first year of his reign, gave them the required permission to return, so that Ezra led the people back. And when opposition came upon you, a great leader, Judas Maccabaeus, set you free. These men bided their time, but they did not wait until the end of all things, but set to work to do what they could in all the circumstances. The grand symbols of future happiness and prosperity used by the ancient rabbis do not apply to the age in which we are living. We are living in a grey world, and the greater number of us are very hungry and anxious to know how we and our children are to live.

I think of that great crowd of your poor coreligionists herded on the west frontier

* Address delivered before the London Zionist League, Sunday, February 5.

of Russia and Galicia. There are, I believe, some who think that this Zionist movement may be premature, but we know that it is the duty, and that it is the wisdom, of the rich and the well-to-do to help their poor brethren, and this is not a question of anything in the way of attempting to induce people to go to Palestine. If they are comfortable in the lands in which they live and they wish to remain, Zionists will not interfere with them. It is not even a question of trying to persuade anyone to go to Palestine; it is a question of dealing with this large mass of your poor brethren who are continually asking to be helped to go to Palestine. These poor people are driven out of Russia with great cruelty, and when they are on the other side of the border they find anti-Semitism waiting for them. Fortunately, anti-Semitism has no hold in England. I do not think that England will ever shut her doors to an industrious and temperate people who desire to work in peace in England, but there is no doubt the world is filling up very fast, and the question is in what parts are the surplus populations to find a home? Some say that there are various delightful regions in West Africa, East Africa, and other places. I have been in some of these. But my impression is that the first strong races took the best countries, and drove to the worse countries the weaker races. The old countries are, therefore, the best countries.

When I went to Palestine first there were several things that struck me. One