downtrodden and persecuted Jews of Eastern Europe,
there would be very few farmers among _that_ lot--except tax-farmers.
Even in England, where he labours under no landowning disability, the
Jew thinks that farming for a living is a mug's game and confines his
agricultural activities to week-ends in the autumn with a "hammerless
ejector" and a knickerbocker suit. As for mechanics and skilled labour
generally, such Jews as take to it usually excel in such work and do
very well where they are. The bulk of the immigrant population--unless
Palestine is going to be artificially colonised without regard for the
necessitous claims of the very people who should be drawn off
there--will be indigent artisans, small shopkeepers, shop assistants,
weedy unemployables, and a sprinkling of shrewd operators on the
look-out for prey. If the scheme is going to be run entirely on
philanthropic lines (and there are ample resources and charity at the
back of it to do so) the Zionists will be all right, and will, perhaps,
improve immensely in the next generation under the influence of an
open-air life--if they adopt it; but the resident majority of Moslems
and Christians will not take too kindly to their new compatriots, while
the Palestine Jews are already carping at the idea of so many trade
rivals and accusing them of not being orthodox. None of this ill-feeling
need matter in the long run with a firm but benevolent government, but
the authorities will have to evolve some legislation to check
profiteering and over-exploitation, or there will be trouble. It is not
only the new-comers who will want curbing, but the present population.
During the War the flagrant profiteering of Jew and Christian operators
in Palestine and Syria did much to accentuate the appalling distress and
was the more disgraceful compared with the magnificent efforts of the
American and Anglican Churches to relieve the situation. The Jews nearly
incurred a pogrom by their operations, which were only checked by a
wealthy Syrian in Egypt starting a co-operative venture of low-priced
foodstuffs and necessities with the support of the British authorities.
As for the local Syrians, some of them were even worse. French and
British officers speak of wealthy Syrians (presumably Christian,
certainly not Moslem) giving many and sumptuous balls at Beyrout, at
which they lapped Austrian champagne while their wives, blazing in
diamonds, whirled with Hunnish officers in the high-press