carried out in life, we must have a strong, well-disciplined organization, at the head of which the coming Eighth Congress will have to place a unified leadership composed of men true to the cause and devoted unambiguously and without exception to the above principles, who will possess enough of the will, the necessary special knowledge, and the capacity for self-sacrifice, to lead our party forward.
These, most respected gathering, are my views as to the tasks that lie immediately before us, and in case you share them with me, I dare hope that you will in this sense instruct your delegates to the Congress, whereby you will contribute in a considerable degree to the successful deliberation of the next Congress.
And now I subscribe myself, with great respect and Zion's greeting,
M. USSISCHKIN.
LETTER FROM LEVONTIN.
FEDERATION OF AMERICAN ZIONISTS:
I received your honored letter of the 8th ult. and am glad of the opportunity of acquainting you and our Zionists over there with what, in my epinion and judging from my experience in Palestine, should be the next and most important tasks for Zionistic activity, hoping that the agitation for these enterprises in America will lead to good results. Inasmuch as I am especially competent to speak of practical work for the present in Palestine, I shall, in what follows, confine myself exclusively to that phase of the subject.
Very much is said concerning practical work in Palestine, but unfortunately in a very immature way and with very little special knowledge of the subject, or of possibilities and necessities. The mistakes that are made in consequence are of two kinds. First, the needs put forward are themselves false; secondly, they are presented to the organisation instead of to the Zionists themselves. The organization with its weak financial resources can do so little, that a real advancement and development of our cause cannot be expected from it. If opinions on this matter were formerly different, it was because the strength of the movement and its income were
overestimated. The remedy can come only from the people themselves, and from private initiative. And I shall show, further on, what tasks private initiative can and should attack. I wish, however, as a preliminary matter, to point out the incorrectness of the chief demands that again and again are heard. Among these principal demands are the establishment of an Agrarian Bank and the purchase of land by the National Fund.
The establishment of an Agrarian Bank is a project that lacks in every respect a sound basis. There is lacking the necessary clientele, the possibility of getting together money in adequate quantities, and, for years to come, the indispensable firman of the Sultan.
The further purchase of land by the National Fund, outside of the cities, and not for reselling, is forbidden, in my view for the following reasons:
1. Administrative working of the land is very expensive and impossible for the National Fund.
2. There is no proper Jewish leasing element in existence, the best proof of which is the fact that in the neighborhood of the Jewish colonies there were not found Jewish renters for even a few hundred Dunam of land. Thus, the land of the Anglo-Palestine Company in Hulda, in the centre of the Jewish colonies, lies idle this year because Jewish renters were not to be found. And paying Jewish renters would be altogether a novelty in Palestine. Neither the Chovevi-Zion, nor the I. C. A. nor the Baron have educated them up to that.
3. If one had renters and if they paid, there would still be a very serious factor to reckon with: the right to property, which according to the Turkish law belongs to the person who cultivates the land. Therein lurks a great danger for the National Fund, which must be especially avoided, because the land cannot be credited directly to the National Fund but must stand in the name of some middleman, which might occasion very difficult or almost impossible proceedings.
If the National Fund is to follow national aims, and if it is to acquire —as was meant in the conception according to which it was created—things of everlasting value for the