THE NEW DEVELOPMENT OF ZIONISM.
IT is difficult for Englishmen not to sympathise more or less heartily with the views and aspirations of the Zionists,—so long as they are directed towards Zion. Some of us still believe that the restoration of the Jews has been divinely prophesied, and is therefore an ultimate certainty, in reaching which Mr. Zangwill and his sup- porters may be the appointed instruments. Others believe that the intellectual potentialities of the race which has done so much for mankind will never be fully developed until its members have a country of their own, and are freed from that disturbing pressure which they have undergone ever since their dispersion. They have borne the pressure with marvellous endurance, refusing to yield either to tyranny or cajolery with a persistence and success which students of history find it difficult to explain. All the successful races possess absorbent power, all have exerted it upon the Jews with steadily cruel persistence, and all have failed. Nevertheless, the Jews have suffered from the tremendous pressure, and in every country have assimilated something from the governing race, which must affect their innermost thoughts, whether it be by exciting admiration or by over- developing dislike and scorn. The Jews are one, and yet there are a dozen kinds of Jews, varying with the country in which they were born and bred. German education leaves the Jew a Jew, yet he is something different from the Jew either of England or of France. It is therefore at least possible that the race, restored to the calmer life of agriculture, and released by inde- pendence from the superincumbent pressure, may develop qualities other than any that in the last few cen- turies it has exhibited, qualities which have made its literature a priceless possession even to those who do not believe it to have been inspired by a higher Power. And all of us, whatever our opinions, recognise that the Jews' title to Palestine, if they can regain it, is historically complete. There is no title so old, none so little inter- cepted by the growth of a new population who might have
filled and utilised the deserted land. Pagan Roman,
warrior Christian, wandering Arab, destructive Turk, have all held Palestine ; but none has so settled it as to ease the claim of the Jew, who when settled in it as an agricul- turist—we speak on the testimony of eye-witnesses—seems to develop a kind of healthiness and vigour which, in spite of his splendid endurance, and power of surviving amidst malaria, has been wanting to him during his wandering of sixteen hundred years. If, therefore, the Jew, by purchase from the Turk, or by the consent of Europe, can regain Palestine for himself, he will have the hearty sympathy of the immense majority of our people, who will watch the consequent experiment with unfailing interest, and hope that it may succeed. It is one which will involve much suffering to the Jewish race, for from the moment they have a country of their own the latent hatred of the Continental peoples, which, except in France, seems quenchless, will vent itself in a series of expulsions and laws of disability; but the Zionists must have reckoned with that con- tingency, and if they choose to set it aside, it is not for the English, who are free from the envy which produces Anti-Semitism, to remind them of that danger, which may even prove illusory, great expulsions of innocent men pro- ducing an effect upon opinion which only a Govern- ment like that of Russia, blinded by its fanaticism for unification, can face without dismay.
While, however, we feel attracted by the idea of regaining Palestine for the ancient possessors who used it so worthily, producing at all events the highest teachers of theology, morality, and the noblest kind of thought, we cannot so heartily sympathise with other colonisation projects. They seem to us merely to widen the area of the dispersion. What are Jews to do in Uganda that they should be bribed to go there ? They will certainly not merge themselves in the blacks, and as a separate community they will considerably increase the difficulties of the governing authorities. It is said that, once in possession of land, they will speedily become excellent cultivators, and no doubt it is true that they were once a successful agricul- tural people ; but why should they be better in that capacity than Englishmen, or Germans, or Italians, or any other Europeans who may choose to adventure themselves in Africa ? Their Asiatic blood will not help them in Africa, nor will they be in the least disposed to exercise influence over the tribes around them. No tradition draws them to settle in such a place, nor have they any special faculty for succeeding there. The popular notion that they will make good traders may be true enough if they have time and opportunity ; but they will not make better traders than the Parsees and Hindoos, who, if we protect them sufficiently, will in five years swarm into Uganda, as they have done into Zanzibar and Natal. Their own instinct is to disperse ; why should we endeavour to promote their huddling all together in a country where their invincible desire for education, and for the whole process which we know as "getting on," cannot possibly be gratified ? It is said that if Uganda is " opened " to them the Russian Jews will be able to emigrate, and that seems a kindly thought ; but we fancy the Russian Jews are far too shrewd, and far too much afraid of the severe manual labour of a new country ; and if they are not, if they are really ready to go en masse, or, at all events, in crowds, what stops their doing it ? No- body is going to shut the doors of Uganda, or any other place owned by the British Crown, upon Jews flying from persecution. We cannot ourselves imagine white men choosing Uganda as a place of permanent residence while the United States, Canada, Australia, and South Africa are open to them ; but if the Jews of Roumania and Russia, or the wealthier co-religionists who help them, are attracted by the interior of Africa, the British are throwing and will throw no obstacles in their way. But why Great Britain as a State should help them we confess we do not see. Mr. Zangwill thinks, we perceive, that settlement in Uganda may be a " step " towards the settlement which he much more earnestly desires, for the Jews there, he thinks, or indeed anywhere where they can be massed together, will be sure to learn the lessons of co-operation and self-government. He says :—" The road to Palestine is hard and long : the Jew will probably make many a detour to his goal, and is most likely to settle as a first step in some neutral territory, less beset with political and religious titfalls, there to reorganise his scattered forces,
to re-learn the lessons of co-operation and self-government,
to readjust the balance of the old world and the new, and to reconcile his conceptions with the modern scientific vision of the universe and with the new historical per- spectives opened up to us by archeology. Thus tempered and prepared and reunited, he will await the opportunity of colonising the Holy Land with his overflowing popula- tion, and there, reinspired and resanctified by the fulfilment of this secular dream, he will continue his work towards the creation of a model State, which, set on Zion's Hill, may be a light to the peoples." With every respect for Mr. Zangwill's genius, and his devotion to his people, we must pronounce that view to be a little dreamy. The Jews can learn self-government in Palestine, if they have not learned it in the Ghettos, just as well as in Uganda, indeed, much better, for if we know any- thing of our countrymen in Uganda, they will not be independent, but will be expected to accept English laws and English control just like any other Colonists. The only special effect of sending them there, even if the Colony is fairly successful, will be to divert attention from the other and greater project just at the moment when it is possible that, with the decline of Turkish power and wealth, the fate of Palestine may be within the power of collective Europe to decide: If the Jews wish it to be decided their way, they must appeal to feelings and beliefs in this country which are undoubtedly strong, but which will be materially weakened when it is once understood that ordinary Jewish emigrants would as soon go to Uganda as to Palestine, and that the race as a race wants a century or half-a-century of training before it is fit to govern any place. If it is not fit for Palestine, as Mr. Zangwill seems to imply in his article in the Daily Mail of Tuesday, why is it fit for Uganda, where it will lack all the restraining and stimulating influence born of a splendid tradition ? Has, then, Russia really succeeded in crushing political capacity out of the Jew ? That is not the idea of M. de Plehve, or of any Russian who is eager to see him go away.
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