PLEA FOR THE JEWS

Otago Witness, Issue 3618, 17 July 1923, Page 21

PLEA FOR THE JEWS

THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT. MR LLOYD GEORGE’S SUPPORT. [The following nncl oil of Mr Lloyd George’s articles are copy right by the United Press Affociution in America (all countries), copyright in Australia and New Zealand by the Australian Press Association, copyright in Britain by the Jfaily Chronicle. Pep rod net ion in full or part is prohibited.] LONDON, July 13. In his latest article Mr Lloyd George writes as follows:

“Of all the bigotries that savage the human temper there is none so stupid as the anti-Semitic feeling. It is just one of those dark, unwholesome weeds that grow in the morass of racial hatred. How utterly devoid of reason it is must be gathered from , the 'fact that it is almost confined to nations who worship the Jewish prophets and apostles and revere the national literature of the Hebrews as the only inspired message delivered by the Deity to mankind. In the sight of these fanatics the Jews, if rich, are birds of prey ; if poor they are vermin. If Labour is oppressed by the greed of Capital the Jew is responsible. If Labour revolts against Capital, as it did in Russia, the Jew is blamed for that also. If he lives in a strange land he must be persecuted, and pogrommed out of it. If be wants to go back to his own land lie must be prevented Through the centuries in every land, whatever he dees or fails to do, he is pursued by an echo of the brutal cry of the rabble of Jerusalem against the greatest of all Jews: “Crucify Him!’' No good has ever come of the nations that crucified the Jews. The latest exhibition of this agitation is against settling poor Jews in the land of their fathers, who made Palestine famous. Once it maintained a Jewish population of 5,000,000, but now, under the blighting rule of the Turk, it barely supports 700,000. A land which once flowed with milk and honey is now largely a stony, unsightly desert. If Palestine is to be restored it must bo by settling tlie Jews on its soil. Jewish resettlement started practically 70 years ago with Sir Moses Monteflore’s experiment. It has proceeded slowly but steadily everywhere. Cultivation by the Jews produces richer

and heavier crops than those of their Afab neighbours. The Jew has introduced more scientific methods of cultivation. The effects of misrule arid neglect cannot be restored in a single generation. Works must be constructed if settlement is to proceed on a satisfactory scale. A settled Government gives tlie Holy Land its first chance for 1900 years; but there is so much undeveloped country demanding the attention of civilisation that Palestine will lose its chance unless it is made the special charge of some powerful influence. The Jews alone can redeem it from the wilderness. The Arabs have neither the means, the energy, nor the ambition to discharge their duty. The British Empire has too many burdens on its shoulders to carry this experiment through successfully. The Jewish race, with its genius, its resourcefulness, its tenacity, and, not least, its wealth, can alone perform this essential task. Lord Balfour’s declaration is not an expropriating but an enabling clause. It is a charter of equality for the Jews. The declaration was subsequently adopted by President Wilson and the French and Italian Foreign Ministers. The Zionists ask for no more. The Zionist memorandum to the League of Nations refutes the suggestion by their enemies that they will establish a Jewish obligarchy. There are 14,000,000 Jews in the world. Is it too much to ask that those amongst them whose sufferings are worst shall be able to find refuge in the land which their fathers made holy by the splendour of their genius, by the loftiness of their thoughts, by the consecration of their lives, and by the inspiration of their message to mankind?