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Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16118, 24 January 1918, Page 6

Recent cable messages show that the .British Government's promise to support the proposal to reconstitute Palestine as the home of the Jowish people has given a great deal of satisfaction to leaders of Jewish public opinion. The London "Spectator/' in an interesting article, shows tho idea is a very old one. It was in A.D.. 134 that the Emperor Hadrian took Jerusalem and drove the Jews out of thoir country, but it was the Mongol and Tartar invasions of the thirteenth anil fourteenth centuries which laid Palestino waste with such thoroughness that it has never sinco recovered from the shock. Napoleon, who seems to havo thought of most things, proposed to found a Jewish colony in Palestine when he was besieging Acre, but the suggestion was roceivcd coldly by tho Jews at that time. The revival of Palestiuc as a Jewish land is said to date from about the year IS4O, when Mehemot Ali's claim to Syria set the Powers by the ears. Lord Palmerston, who had saved the Sultan from his Egyptian vassal, compelled the Turks to protect the Jews from tho Druses and the Syrians, and appointed a Consul in Jerusalem to watch over the interests of all Jews. The first Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem, appointed in 1841, was a converted Jew. Sir Moses Montofiore and M. C'remicux drew the attention of thoir coreligionists to the prospects of settlement in Palestine.

Disraeli, in his novels, "Alroy" and ' Tailored,'' refers to the Zionists' proposals then afloat. The movement grew. In 1840 there were said to be no more than 15,000 Jews in all Palestine. By 18S0 there wero 15,C00 .Tews m Jerusalem alono. George Eliot, in "Daniel Dcronda" (187G) urged that Palestine should bo "a republic whore the Jewish spirit manifests itself in a new ordor founded on the old." A number of the Jews tfriven out of llussia by the "pogroms" in ISBI and 1882 settled in Palestine, and a treat impetus was givon to the movement by 1 the generous help of Baron Edmund -de Rothschild and Baron H irscli, the latter of whom left •C 10,000,000 for the ■work of the Jewish Colonisation Association. In spito of the unfriendly attitude of the Young Turks, the Jews in Palestine wero prospering. They were said to I number 125,000, and half of these lived in Jerusalem. Thorc is no doubt that L.v means of irrigation and labour Palestine may once more bo made into a veiy fruitful land, but tho "Spectator" thinks generations may elapse beforo Palestine is capable of maintaining with comfort a million Jewish inhabitants.

The "Spectator" thinks it "neither necessary nor desirable that we should become solely responsible for the administration of the country." It suggests a fresh settlement "under the supervision of Great Britain or her Allies and America." We cannot imagine any solution more likely to lead to disaster. Surely the doublecontrol of the New Hebrides, and the tri-partite control which formerly existed in Samoa are sufficient objects to prove that those international compromises are far from satisfactory.

Mr F. L. Carter, who will Le remembered as the very able master who was lent to Christ's College by Clifton school for a time, during which l-o madu many friends here, has contributed an able and interesting article to "United Empire" 011 the subject of "The Public School, the Master and the Empire." In it Mr Carter urges that tlio plan of interchange of masters be revived on a still larger scale when peace reigns once more. "If," he says, "we would have our childnn grow up trained to think Imperially, not blinded by the narrow circle or local difficulties nor cankered by petty prejudices, but looking beyond to the great problems that are of concern to the whole Empire, then wo must have the interests of the children in the various parts of the Empire quickened by men who are, thoroughly acquainted with the difficulties and who a-u keer.ly alive to the importance of their solution."

Mr Carter goes on to say that ihp English schoolmaster who is able to spend a couple of years in a colonidJ school, will find himself thoroughly shaken out of his old grooves. He will find himself among "men of much greater simplicity of thought and much greater directness of action. He will derive fresh inspiration in seeing what has been done in these youag countries. The words empire, colony, life will assume a new meaning—a meaning which on his return to the crowded Motherland he will try to translate afresh to his pupils." The benefits to a colonial-born schoolmaster of experience in one of the great public schools of England are obvious. W'c join Mr Carter, therefore, in his -lope that the system —the initiation of which is due to the late headmaster of Christ's College, ill- Belcher, wii] be levived and greatly extended in tho future.