ZIONISM

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 22, 26 July 1927, Page 11

ZIONISM

ADDRESS BY DR. GOLDSTEIN

DESTINY OF PALESTINE

An address upon tho Zionist movement was given at the Rotary Club to-day by Dr. Goldstein, who traced the gradual development of the great Jewish Commonwealth ideal. Palestine, ruined by Turkish rule, had no coal, oil, or mineral, and Was about the most difficult place in which to rehabilitate a nation, said Mr. Goldstein, but irrigation had largely reclaimed it under tho Zionist movement, which had redeemed the country by the j efforts of a scattered and down-trodden people reunited, who had shown that Palestine could again support its oldtime millions. Hydro-electric power would supply the want of coal. Palestine was already on the way to prosperity. Jaffa, a practical ruin sixteen years ago, was to-day a city entirely re-built. Tho Holy City of Jerusalem, was a sacred museum, but round it was growing a modern city, with motor drives, and Zionist cities were growing rapidly elsewhere, some of them only two years old, but virile and progressive. Thus the early critics of the Zionist movement that tho Hebrews could not return, with their own language, to Palestine, wero already refuted, even in the matter of the Hebrew language. Even the taxi-drivers refused to swear in any other. (Lau»hIcr.) OLD STORIES REVIVED. Seriously, said Dr. Goldstein, all tho old glories of literature and imagery, whether in love-making or in tho expression of tho soul of the oldest of nations, were recrudescing and emerging triumphant after 1900 years of repression and martyrdom. They wished to collect tho wreckage of the Jewish population from uncivilised countries where they wero massacred and despoiled and make them freo and happy citizens of their own country once more, and they wero succeeding. Over a hundred colonies had boon established in Palestine, by draining the marshes, and laying the foundations of cities whose inhabitants looked to a glorious national future for their children. All worked, girls and boys doing road work and tho peasant tasks of tho farm, but as they had no Government and no money, the wherewithal could only be provided by wel-to-do nationals in tho settled great centres of the world, who, through not needing Palcstino for themselves, generously assisted those to whom a haven and security of lifo were paramount. It would be to the everlasting credit of Great Britain, said the speaker,- if the work of Lord Balfour, who had incorporated passages of the Bible in a codicil to the mandate, achieved its object of making a home for tho Jews. Tho Jewish nation had never proved ungrateful, and as long as there was a remnant of this stubborn people, Great Britain's magnanimous action would be remembered. Since the British mandate was signed in 1920 Jews in Palestine had increased from 00,000 to 170,----000, and all difficulties wero being steadily overcome. Kvcn their small university was being greeted and welcomed by all tho nations of the world, because all its teachings wero conducted in the original language of the Bible.