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No. 7 Vienna, 16 February 1900. Vol. IV

The Galician Question.

There is a Galician question. A Jewish question, of course. This has now been recognised even by circles which otherwise possess an ancient prerogative of coming everywhere too late with their insight. We mean the so-called — self-styled — Jewish-political circles in Austria. Whence has this somewhat belated insight come even to such people? Perhaps from the fact that the national-Jewish movement has sharpened their sense of duty; perhaps, however, also through the fear which is calculated, for the country, will sooner or later cast out a mass of Jews numbering in the thousands, which is calculated to prepare for the country in which, for want of means, they will be compelled to remain, an economic and perhaps even a political Jewish catastrophe.

Thus, in the last few years especially, the Galician question is again and again unrolled. There has truly been no lack of enquêtes, communal deliberations, foundings of leagues, projects for societies, and more or less fantastic plans of individuals. Quite recently another humanitarian society has been founded for the Galician relief work. Since those concerned are going at the matter with great zeal, and since even the Byk clique finds it necessary already now to secure its influence in the new action, a discussion of this newest plan may well be in place even in the columns of a serious organ.

This time we will leave aside all the other, less important proposals and projects, and speak only of the one plan now particularly favoured, that of the so-called internal colonisation of Galicia by Jews. It is desired to lead as large a number of the Galician Jews as possible to agriculture, and to procure for them the soil necessary thereto in Galicia itself. One need only consider the enormous costs with which, for example, the Prussian Government pays for its colonising activity in the Polish parts of the country, in order to form an approximate picture of the amount of capital which such a work requires when it is to be accomplished not by a State, by a powerful Government, but by private hands. Yet from this we shall wholly abstain. We will assume from the outset that the raising of the money would succeed. We shall speak only of the possibility, whether Galicia and its Jews can seriously come into consideration for such an undertaking. Within a foreseeable time, at least.

First of the Galician Jews. Did the Jews of Galicia occupy themselves with agriculture in former days, and do they do so now, and in what measure? There shall be no speaking here of the Jews of old Poland, although it is very interesting to consider the fitness of the Polish Jews for agriculture in olden times. Let it only be briefly mentioned that the Jews of old Poland pursued agriculture just as they pursued other callings, though in smaller numbers. The deputation of Jews which begged the heathen Polish duke Leszek for admission into his lands is said expressly to have asked for, and also to have obtained, permission to till the soil. A whole series of the Jewish privileges of Poland declares expressly that under certain conditions the possession of lands cannot be denied to the Jews. Other privileges, it is true, restrict these rights or abolish them altogether; but again and again one finds the confirmation that Polish Jews also carried on husbandry and lived as tillers of the soil. From the privilege of Boleslav IV., Duke of Kalisch, down to Wladislav Lokietek, from the statute of the year 1447 to the time of the sorest oppression of the Polish Jews, there are always to be found regulations, commands, or prohibitions which prove this. The matter took another shape when Galicia, after the partition of Poland, came into Austrian possession.

From the year 1772—1789 the acquisition of a landtäflich*) property was not permitted to the Jews. Judgment was given according to the old Polish laws, which allowed such possession of an estate only to the nobility and the clergy. Peasant holdings are said to have been only in the hands of the Karaites, who dwelt in small numbers at Halicz, Kukizow, and Tysmenice, as also in the districts of Brzezan, Sambor, and Zolkiew. Otherwise, at the revindication, no peasant holding is said to have been in the hands of the Jews. Joseph II., the friend and esteemer of mankind, wished to draw the Jews away from trade and to lead them to agriculture. He not only gave them permission to buy and to lease plots of land, he not only freed the Jews engaged in agriculture from

*) Landtäfliche estates were those possessions which gave a right to seat and vote in the Diet. At present the possession of a landtäflich estate carries with it the franchise in the curia of the great landed proprietors.