The Maccabaean

PROFESSOR OTTO WARBURG's article in the September issue of THE MACCABAEAN, like everything that comes from his pen, is a most valuable one, and he splendidly sums up the whole situation in a few words, when he says: "Zionism with its big talk and its absolute helplessness in the presence of every practical question, is beginning to cut a sorry figure in Palestine. It is actually laughed at, and no longer taken seriously."

These are golden words and ought to be printed on cardboards to be hung up in every place, where Zionists meet, as a sort of memento mori.

I wish to add a few words on the same subject. If anybody has the least doubt that the most important element in colonizing a country is not the urban, but the rural element, let him just see what the German or rather Prussian Government is doing at the present time. Nobody will accuse that Government of being too rich or too extravagant in the expenditure of the nation’s money. Having decided, however, to germanize the Eastern privinces of Prussia, inhabited from times immemorial by Poles, it has been spending for the last years no smaller sum than $60,000,000 per annum (250,000,000 marks) for the purpose of “tearing the land out of Polish hands and transferring it to the German,” justly recognizing the facts, that the man, who sits on and tills the land is far more important than the man, who lives in town, moves from place to place and is liable to leave the country altogether any time. Although meeting with failure so far, because the Pole sticks with bulldog tenacity to the land of his fathers, the Prussian Government continues to sacrifice annually $60,000,000.

Now, I ask what have we done for the Jewish farmers in general and the agricultural laborer in particular. I believe the answer is: Next to nothing.

Chovevi Zionism has naturally failed, it could

not have been otherwise, because it was bwilt on charity, which, says the psalmist, will save from death, but cannot keep anybody alive and healthy. The Rothschild plan has failed, because it was also built on the same principle of philanthropy. The greatest thanks will always be accorded to the late Baron for his munificence and noble intentions, but in justice to the Colonists it must be remembered that not they have eaten up the 20,000,000 francs, which the late Baron spent on the Palestine colonization, but the far greater part of it was used for the benefit of the managers, sub-managers and other numerous servants of the Baron. The magnificent parks and splendid administration buildings were not required for the farmers, but were erected for the pleasure and comfort of the tchinovniks, who left the gaieties of Paris for the wilderness of Palestine. Still it was all charged to the Colonists; and no wonder that the Baron got tired of pouring money into a bottomless cask and handed over the Colonies to the ICA in the year 18%, What has happened then is still fresh in the memory of all who took an interest in the Jewish colonization of Palestine.e A more dis graceful thing has never happened in Jewish history, in the whole long martyrdom of our people. The tchinovniks of the ICA descended on Palestine like a lot of Bashi-Bazouks and committed a regular “pogrom,” no other word will adequately describe what they have done. Hundreds of agricultural laborers were told that they were not wanted any longer and that they were to leave Palestine as fast as their legs could carry them out. In vain did those unfortunate men weep like children and offer to work for a franc a day, only to remain in the land of their forefathers.. A stone would have been moved by the despair of these honest, hardworking men, but the tchinovniks of the ICA did not care a straw. The laborers were definitely told that they would be provided with enough money to reach any place