The Maccabaean

WE are now entering upon a new epoch in our work. We are now standing before the task of the reconstruction of Palestine. In the mass of details which are necessarily connected with such a complicated subject as the reconstruction of a country, one can discern three main lines of development—agricultural development, industrial development, and the cultural or educational development. Palestine possesses vast stretches of unoccupied and uncultivated land. These vast stretches of land belonged in the past to the Turkish Government; at present they stand at the disposal of the Mandatory Power. The first task of the Mandatory Power will be, after having carried out a proper survey of this land, to enter into an arrangement with the Jewish Agency, which is to be set up in Palestine for the taking over of this land for its development and for the close settlement of Jewish colonists. It is difficult at present to determine the actual quantity of such land and the number of possible settlers, but if one takes into consideration the fact that the density of Palestine’s population at present is very small, and that the density of a country like the Lebanon, which does not differ very much from Palestine agriculturally and geologically, is very high, I think there is a difference of about 100 per square kilometer. So that after proper development of the land in Palestine there is room for another 100 per square kilometer without in any way encroaching upon the rightful ownership of those at present established in Palestine.

It is safe to take one or two

What will be the method of the agricultural development, what form exactly it will take, it is difficult to foresee at present. But one phenomenon is becoming clear already

from the experience which we have gathered in the last forty years. This experience is partly an answer on the question with which we are always faced—viz.: Is the Jew fit to become an agricultural peasant or an agricultural laborer? The answer to this question is: Yes; the Jew is fitted to become a peasant or an agricultural laborer on one fundamental condition—that agriculture should be raised to the state of a science and should assume the highest possible development.

It is of no use attempting to lower the Jew, who stands on a fairly high level of intellectuality, to the standard of a Russian peasant. The agriculture must be raised to the intellectual level of the Jew. This is possible and has been achieved in Palestine. The valuable experience which we have gained in forty years in this particular direction has to be fully developed, further worked out and applied with care and consideration to the new emigrants who will be streaming into the country in the near future.

A word also about the industrial development of the country. Palestine is not a country which has very many natural resources. It is, fortunately, not rich in gold mines. I have heard something about a gold mine having been discovered in Jerusalem. I hope it is not true. It is also, fortunately, not in possession of many oil wells, if any at all. It will, therefore, never become a country which will attract the rapacious speculator. It has a certain amount of water power, suficient for those industries which can be developed in the country; a water. power which

can be developed out of the Jordan and its affluents and out of the other small rivers is sufficient to electrify the small country of Palestine. The electrification of Palestine is a subject of the greatest importance for us, not only from the point of view of industrial development, but also from the social point of view.

The experience of the old countries has proved to us that all the social injustices and all the social troubles which follow from those injustices are due to the great aggregation of human beings in the industrial monster-factories. It is the factory, the tremendous machine, which collects people round it, which is to a certain extent the center of social progress, but also to the same extent the center of social disease. We must start in Palestine a new country without vested interests. We must not lacerate the landscape with chimneys.: We must have no smoke. We must carry the industry into the home-as is done in Switzerland and.certain watchmaking districts of France. j

I think, just as in agriculture, we shall attempt to develop