highly respected banking firm in Holland, was more interested in the financial institutions of the organization. He joined the Zionist Organization at the very beginning and has served the Zionist cause whole-heartedly and devotedly, particularly in the founding of the Jewish Colonial Trust, the Anglo-Palestine Company and all the other financial institutions. He travelled in Palestine, Wrote a book (Erez Israel) dealing with his impressions, and is also active in the Zionist work in his own country.

Holland has a well-organized and active Zionist Organization, to which great impetus was given by the Eighth Congress at The Hague, 1909. M. de Liema, Professor Orenstein, Dr. Edersheim, M. Cohen, M. Pool and many others are among the prominent leaders. They take a very active part in the general organization work and in that of the Jewish National Fund, the headquarters of which at present are at The Hague. The Dutch Zionist Federation has an excellent weekly paper, Het Judischer Wachter, which has appeared regularly for several years, and contains much information concerning Zionist and Jewish matters as well as other excellent articles and contributions. It is worthy of note that Zionism in Holland has had for several years now a Zionist University Movement-with some good publications-which was started by Orenstein, Edersheim and others. Mention of Holland reminds one that a place of honour in Zionist history belongs to Belgium, and particularly to Antwerp, which has been for several years a first-class Zionist centre. Messieurs Jean Fischer, Oscar Fischer, S. Tolkowsky, Dr. Wulf, Ruben Cohn, the late Mehrlender, Grunzweig and many others, occupying important positions in the general Zionist Organization, made Zionism a living force in Belgian Jewry. M. Jean Fischer is a member of the Actions Committee and of the great financial institutions of Zionism: he and his friends have taken an important part in colonization undertakings in Palestine of which the devoted pioneer M. S. Tolkowsky is the representative at Rechoboth. M. Fischer visited Palestine and wrote a book containing his observations. Belgian Zionists had also a paper of their own, L'Esperance (HaTikvah), which brought very valuable contributions and

information.

In connection with Zionism the smaller countries of Central and Southern Europe, Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries also deserve special mention. Switzerland,

d

the land of the Zionist Congresses, has a good organization, of which Dr. Camille Levy, Dr. Felix Pinkus, M. Levy are the most notable. They were always very active in propaganda, had their delegates at the Congresses and always made their regular contributions. Denmark and Sweden have now had for some years a good Zionist Organization, and, of late, are developing great activity, owing to the Zionist Office which has been established at Copenhagen. Roumania and Bulgaria are still more important as great centres of Zionist activity. Roumania was almost equal to Russia in the Chovevé Zion movement. Now, M. Pineles, M. Schein, M. Schwarzfeld, the learned and well-known Dr. Nacht and Dr. Nemirower, with many other leaders are at work in that country.

CHAPTER XLIXC

The Year 1906-The Pogroms-Emigration-Conder and his ActivitiesAn Emigration Conference-The Eighth Congress-The Question of the Headquarters.

THE year 1906 was one of the ans terribles in the annals of Jewish history. It was a year of bloodshed and terror. Not even the dark ages extracted so heavy a toll of Jewish blood: something like 1400 pogroms took place all over the Ghetto. In many districts the Jewish population were completely exterminated. The number of persons directly affected, that is to say of those whose houses, shops, or factories were the objects of attack and pillage, reached a total of some 200,000 to 250,000. To this number must be added that of the clerks, workmen, etc., indirectly affected by the destruction of factories and shops, which could not be ascertained. The casualty list was estimated at approximately 20,000 murdered and 100,000 injured. Public opinion was stirred up. Why had those Jews suffered ; what sins had they committed? Their loyalty and steadfastness to Judaism, instead of winning respect and admiration for their faithfulness, had called down upon them a treatment so immeasurably atrocious that it outdistanced the conventional words of sorrow and suffering and tempted many thinking men to ask whether the vaunted tolerance of the twentieth century was anything but an extravagant dream. If other nations suffer, they afterwards get freedom and indemnity. If in 1860 the Christians in Syria had suffered, their suffering afterwards brought them an autonomy. But what of the Jews? Every day it becomes clearer that it is impossible to allow the Jews to remain a prey to revolution and counter-revolution, between which they are crushed just as the corn is ground between the upper and nether millstones. "Emigration, then." But whither? The mass of Jewish emigrants, in spite of all Emigration Committees (which were established in America), resists dispersion; it holds together like a swarm of bees. In New York and elsewhere gigantic Jewish cities have sprung up that have become a menace to the safety of the present inhabitants and

therefore to the possibility of further Jewish immigration. Attempts made to substitute agricultural colonies at an enormous expense by philanthropists have met with failure everywhere except in Palestine, where it seems that at last an effective form of organization has been discovered. There alone the immigrant Jew finds himself at ease in language and customs, and to that land he brings the indescribable imperishable feeling of home that elsewhere comes to him but slowly and gradually.

Palestine is not far from Russia and Roumania, and is unquestionably so adapted for cultivation that as soon as the soil has been prepared the main stream of present emigration can be directed thither. And, further, it is the connecting link between the three great human divisions of the earth, while its commercial future promises to be of the brightest. It is therefore natural that the Jews, longing to possess the land of their fathers, should be encouraged to immigrate both on political and industrial grounds.

This great and powerful problem has roused English public opinion, but the Zionist propaganda has made considerable progress since 1900. One of the foremost English authorities who supported a Zionist solution of the Jewish problem was Colonel Claude Reignier Conder, to whom we have referred several times in this book. Some space must be devoted to a brief reference to the activities of this wonderful man in connection with Palestine.

Colonel Conder's name will always be associated with the exploration of Palestine and with the history of Christian sympathy in this country for the colonization of Palestine by the Jewish people. No other person has ever done as much as he for the correct interpretation of the Bible with reference to Palestine. He was born on December 29, 1848, and was trained for the Royal Engineers. He was associated, almost from its creation, with the Palestine Exploration Fund, which was founded in 1865. He was only twenty-six when, as a Lieutenant, he went out to join in the survey of Western Palestine. He returned to England in September, 1875, having surveyed 4700 square miles. He brought with him a mass of notes, special surveys, observations and drawings, which formed the bulk of the material for a work which may be said to have become historical: Tent Work in Palestine. It is a book which even now well repays perusal, if only for the light it throws upon the geography and topography of Palestine, and the many incidents and experiences it

records. The remaining 1300 square miles of the survey were finished by Lieutenant (later Lord) Kitchener in 1877. The scientific results of the work occupied some twenty-six memoirs, one to every sheet of the map. The whole of Western Palestine was mapped out on a scale which showed every ruin and waterway, every road, forest and hillock. More than a hundred and fifty biblical sites were ascertained and from these the boundaries of the tribes were worked out and the routes taken by the invading armies traced. The other books and memoirs on Palestine which Conder published form a library in themselves. In addition to the one already mentioned, there are Heth and Moab and Memoirs of the Survey of Western Palestine in 1883. This was followed in 1890 by Memoirs of the Survey of Eastern Palestine, The Bible in the East in 1896, The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1897, The Hittites and their Language in 1898. Besides these must be mentioned his Handbook to the Bible (1879), Primer of Bible Geography (1884), and Palestine (1891), which contained in one small volume a handy summary of all that was known of the geography of the country up to date. His last work, published only a year before he died, was on the City of Jerusalem. Special notice is also due to his Judas Maccabeus and The Jewish Tragedy, in which he deals with Jewish history from a national point of view.

Conder pointed out that Zionists are the natural leaders to whom the destitute and oppressed Jews turn for counsel and guidance, that "emigration has not settled the eternal question," and that "a nation without a country must be content with toleration as all that it can expect. He, too, sees the only solution in Palestine, and declares that Englishmen should be "only too glad to see Palestine increasing in civilization and prosperity as an outpost in the neighbourhood of Egypt." (See Appendix LXXXV.)

The Zionist Organization called, in 1906, mainly under the pressure of the pogroms, a conference of representatives of Jewish organizations at Brussels, to discuss the question of emigration, particularly to the East. A number of organizations-including the Anglo-Jewish Association -sent their delegates; others, probably in consequence of their anti-Zionist tendencies, declined. Resolutions in favour of investigating the condition of the emigration to the East were accepted, and a committee was elected; but nothing practical resulted from these efforts, except a little "rap