JEWS AND PALESTINE.

Waikato Times, Volume 98, Issue 15289, 16 July 1923, Page 5

JEWS AND PALESTINE.

A POWERFUL PLEA. FOR SETTLEMENT IN ZION. ARTICLE BY MR LLOYD GEORGE. Australian and N.Z. Cable Assn. LONDON. July 13. Mr Lloyd George has supplied the following copyright article to the Australian Press: Mr Lloyd George writes: —Of all the bigotries that savage the human temper, there is none so stupid as the anti-Semitic. It is just one of those dark, unwholesome weeds that grow in the morass of racial hatred. How utterly devoid of reason it is may be gathered from the fact that it is almost confined to those 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, and if poor they are vermin. If labour is oppressed by great capital, the greed' of the Jew is held 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 pogromed out of it; and if he wants to go back to his own land he must be prevented. Through centuries in every land, whatever he does or fails to do, he is pursued by the 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 the settling of poor Jews in' the land their fathers made famous. Palestine, which once maintained a Jewish population of 5,000,000, now, under the blighting rule of the Turk, barely supports 700,000. A land flowing with milk and honey is now largely an unsightly desert If Palestine is to be restored it must be by settling Jews on its soil. Jewish re-scttlemcnt started practically 70 years ago with Sir Moses Monteflore's experiment, and it has proceeded slowly but steadily. Everywhere the Jew cultivator produces richer and heavier crops than his Arab neighbour. He has introduced more scientific methods of cultivation. The effects of misrule and neglect cannot be restored in a single generation. Great irrigation works must be constructed if settlement is to proceed on a satisfactory scale. Settled government gives the Holy Land its first/ chance for 1900 years, but there is so much undeveloped country demanding the attention of civilisation that Palestine will lose ils chance unless it is made the special charge of some powerful influence. Jews alone can redeem it from the wilderness; Arabs have neither the means, energy nor ambition to discharge their duly. The Briitsh 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 only a charter of equality for the Jews. The declaration was subsequently adopted by President Wilson and French and Italian Foreign Ministers. The Unionists ask for no more. The Unionists' memorandum to the League of Nations refutes the suggestion by enemies that they are seeking to establish a Jewish oligarchy. 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 a refuge in the land of 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?"