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No. 7. — Vienna, 18 February 1898. — 2nd Year.

As a considerable number of subscriptions expire at the end of this month, those concerned are reminded to see to their renewal in good time, so that no interruption may occur in the delivery of the paper. The Administration.

The Second Zionist Congress.

The Actions Committee has resolved to hold the Second Zionist Congress in Basle, namely in the last week of August this year. On the 27th, 28th, 29th, and 30th of August 1898, the representatives of Jewry from all over the world will thus assemble once again on the hospitable soil of this city, in order to carry forward the work which was begun there last year under the sympathetic attention of very wide circles.

The first Congress had charged its Bureau with fixing the time and place of the next meeting according to the general circumstances. The Committee therefore had first of all to examine the question whether a Congress should again be convened this year. After mature deliberation the question was answered unanimously in the affirmative.

It is still in everyone's memory what the first Congress was. A surprisingly successful improvisation. Hastily called together — amid the mockery of our opponents, amid the distrust of the indifferent — to discuss the plight of the Jews, this assembly won for itself in three days, by the earnestness of its deliberations, general respect; that much we may surely say. But in the resolutions and arrangements of the improvised Congress a certain hastiness was scarcely to be avoided. The experiences of the very first months already showed the necessity of shaping much, in practice, in a form other than had originally been assumed.

It will now be a matter of submitting to the deliberation and decision of the Congress those forms in which our daily and mightily growing movement can be guided toward the good.

If at the first Congress we unrolled the picture of the Jewish condition throughout the whole world, then the second, and every following Congress, will have to sum up the events of the past year and draw from them the conclusions necessary for the community as a whole. Among the most important occurrences belongs, of course, the progress of our Zionist movement, of which we intend to furnish a survey.

The organs appointed by the first Congress are to render their reports and to request approval for them. The Congress must be given the opportunity to approve or to disapprove of what has been done.

The guiding line for the coming activity will emerge from the debates.

In this way the central office for the wishes and grievances of Jewry will be built up and consolidated. Here we point once more, with all emphasis, to the principle which was laid down for the first Congress and also faithfully observed: "With the internal political conditions of the individual countries we concern ourselves neither at the Congress nor anywhere else in any common manner. In these matters we have nothing in common, and we expressly abhor any kind of joint action whatsoever. The Congress is international only in so far as the question itself is. For the solution of these difficulties — which exist in many countries and are of the same kind, though variously graded — the cooperation of Jews from all countries is required. That we want — nothing less and nothing more."

People have seen us at work, and therefore already know that this is the full truth.

Our work is, to be sure, hard and great. The annual meeting is absolutely necessary, precisely because our movement makes use of the means of public discussion. The improvisation of last year must be given permanence; the further development must be prepared and put in order.

If, then, the convening of the Congress for 1898 is affirmed, we have still to give the grounds for the choice of place. Every Zionist already feels today a sense of reverence for Basle, where our first assembly took place. In Basle the government, the population, and public opinion received us in a noble manner. It will, we think, be yet another page of glory in the history of this beautiful city on the Swiss Rhine, that the men who came together there to take counsel over the fate of their unhappy people were received as they were. Thus a feeling of gratitude draws us once again to this place.

Grounds of reason, too, speak for holding the Congress in Basle. It is a wholly neutral place, and we were able to observe that nowhere in public opinion were misgivings raised against our meeting in this Swiss city. The Zionist movement does not wish to stand under the protectorate of any single European power,