The Maccabaean

IV. The Role of the Palestine Land Development Company.

The Palestine Land Development Company is a valuable institution of the Zionist movement which might, with great profit, be utilized for the realization of such a social commonwealth of Judeans. The charter of the company provides that the voting control shall be vested in a number of "founders' shares," which are held by prominent Zionists, who act practically as trustees, so as to assure us that the company shall not become a scheme merely for securing profits. This provision will always compel a consideration of the broader Jewish interests, while shrewd business management is encouraged because of the profits that might accrue to individual shareholders. Encompassed by such safeguards, the Palestine Land Development Company might, even at this day, proceed with the establishment of a co-operative association of Jewish farmers in Palestine to serve as a nucleus of the future commonwealth.

Let us secure the adoption for this company of a definite program, which would be scrupulously followed in the development of Palestine and in the evolution of a social commonwealth of Judeans. Our first step should be to obtain from Turkey commercial concessions—which would probably be readily granted, since the Young Turks are anxious to develop the country, provided there be no loss of political power. They would, in all probabilities, be more willing to grant concessions to an English joint stock company controlled by Jews (like the Palestine Land Development Company) rather than endanger the political existence of Turkey by grants to German corporations or Russian citizens that may result in the introduction into Asia Minor of the mailed fist or the "Bear that walks like a Man."

In seeking for such concessions, there must be no attempt to gain political power. We must proceed on the proposition that

(Concluded)

fair and adequate commercial concessions will enable us to rear an institution that shall prove to be a "Social Commonwealth in Zion," free from political chicanery or diplomatic manipulations. And just as soon as Turkey will recognize that this is our true aim, she will hold out a helping hand to us. Politically, the members of such a commonwealth will be component parts of the Ottoman empire; socially, morally and religiously they will be as distinct as the Jews of every country are to-day.

The program of the Palestine Land Development Company must rest upon the following concessions obtained for it from the Porte:

I. The right to acquire, and hold title to, Palestinean lands lying between the northern boundary of Haifa and the southern boundary of Jaffe, and from the Mediterranean Sea inland for ten or twenty miles. (This is the district which contains more than two-thirds of all the Jewish colonists in Palestine at the present time).

2. The right to exercise over lands so acquired all the privileges of a citizen landlord of Turkey, and, in lieu of a certain annual tax to be paid by the Palestine Land Development Company, such lands and residents thereof are to be free from all taxation, direct or indirect.

3. The right of the Palestine Land Development Company to impose regulations and to enact by-laws for the management of these lands and for the benefit of its residents over and above laws enacted by the Turkish Parliament.

4. The residents of these lands shall not be discriminated against by the Turkish government, and no laws or ordinances of the Empire shall apply to them which are not applicable to all Turkish citizens and to the entire domain of Asiatic Turkey.

5. A Supreme Court of three judges should be appointed with jurisdiction over all legal disputes involving an interpreta tion of these commercial concessions. Such