JEWISH COLONY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20104, 24 March 1928, Page 14 (Supplement)

JEWISH COLONY

FIVE MILLION ACRES IN SIBERIA. The Russian Government has been asked by the “Comzet,” the Soviet Department for settling Jews on the land, to allocate a territory of some 5,000,000 acres in the Bureya region of Siberia for colonisation, according to a .Moscow despatch of January 25 to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Commenting upon the plan, Dor Ernes, the Moscow Communist Yiddish daily, hails it as opening a new chapter in the history of the Jewish working masses. While the present population of the region is put at only about

27,000 mostly Russians and Koreans, it is estimated that .1,000,000 persons could support themselves there with ease. It is only a few hours’ journey from Khabarovsk and 940 kilometers from Vladivostock.

An expert commission of the Comzet has conducted an investigation of the territory. The climate is good, the investigation showed, there being no malaria or other diseases in the region. There are no present claimants to the land, which is unoccupied. Because of the railway, which was laid since the Revolution the Far East is counted the land of the future. The report of the commission showed that the cost of settlement would be. 2000 rubles per family, and it is possible to settle at once 35,000 families in the region which could be developed into a Jewish region within the Soviet Union, the Ernes declares.