JEWISH COLONISATION

Evening Star, Issue 23354, 25 August 1939, Page 2

JEWISH COLONISATION

REFUGEES ON THE UNO THE KIMBERLEY SCHEME While some of the professions ara hostile to the admittance of German and Austrian refugees, Australia’s wide spaces are crying aloud for population. National importance, therefore, attaches to the ceaseless activity which i* in progress at the Jewish Welfare So- ' ciety’s training farm at Chelsea Park, where 100 refugees have received farm training and have been established on farms in : all parts of the State. So far there has been only one failure. A school teacher from Berlin and a 50-year-old : German millinery manufacturer,. qre .learning poultry farming. A .dentist" and" a textile manufacturer from Vienna are studying. mixed farming., A' man who once manufactured expensive evening bags in > Vienna clears weeds from a ‘ vegetable patch. Nearby a former jeweller and a banker are ploughing. Former merchants, a french polisher, a watchmaker, • a dealer in hides and skins, and. a garage owner assiduously till the soil. “ We refugees must go on the land. That is our proper destiny in a country like Australia.’-’ In those words a former Viennese merchant expressed the sentiment which has led him and his comrades to seek new life and happiness on Australian soil. Dr I. Steinberg, secretary of tha Freeland League for Jewish Territorial Colonisation, accompanied by an agricultural research graduate of the University of Western Australia, > after a, three weeks’ visit to the Kimberleya and portion of the Northern Territory, said he was deeply impressed by all ha - had seen. The country could be mada suitable for a, vast ,settlement o« modern lines and a paradise for engineers. ■ • „ “ I felt,” added Dr Steinberg, that 10,000 or more people could live there, work there, and be happy there, Hera 1 have seen millions and millions or acres of fertile land which some people could develop with pastoral and agricultural pursuits and secondary industries for the benefit of Australia and themselves. I really believe that if tha Jewish refugees from Efirope could ba given the chance to pioneer and develop the country a great historio work would be achieved.”