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No. 29. | Vienna, 20 July 1900. | Vol. IV.

The World's History is in Haste. By Prof. G. Belkowsky (St. Petersburg).

The expectations of those who believed that the plenary assembly of the Actions Committee held in May of this year would summon no Congress for the present year have not been fulfilled. Scarcely a month separates us from the day on which the active bearers of the idea of the rebirth of the Jewish people in its historic homeland will assemble in London, in order to deliberate upon the questions which, in the present state of Zionist affairs, are to be solved.

Anew there sounds a piercing sigh from the soul of the Jewish people, deeply stirred by the occurrences which have taken place in Roumania, Polna, Konitz, Paris and Vienna. But only the first day will the Zionists devote to the outpourings of Jewish misery. However great the significance of a temporary public discussion of Jewish misery may be, the Zionists could nevertheless never bring themselves to make, for that alone, the considerable sacrifices which the arranging of a world congress involves.

In choosing as their watchword the principle of national self-help, the Zionists are penetrated by the firm conviction that the unshakable will of our people to take a definite place in the family circle of the nations must lead to the desired goal. The existence of such a will must stand beyond every doubt. It must therefore express itself in quite definite forms. The question of the Zionist organisation thus takes the first place of itself. To unite the scattered parts of Jewry in one body, which shall have the right to speak and to act in the name of the whole of Jewry and to direct its life-activity towards a fixed goal — this task indisputably demands a great work of agitation. Our exaggerated individualism, however, is not easily accessible to influence. The organisation created at the first Congress has indeed shown its full vitality; but life makes various demands upon it which cause certain important improvements to appear necessary.

For the first time there have been taken into the programme of the Zionist Congress the uncommonly important questions of the physical, intellectual and economic development of the Jews. It is to be hoped that the fourth Congress will succeed in destroying one of the most widespread errors which prevail concerning us: as though Zionism were to be divided into a political, a diplomatic, a cultural, a colonising Zionism, and so forth. It must be established that Zionism, according to its essence, can consist in nothing else than in the creation of regular conditions for the development of our national individuality in our historic homeland, and that with this generic conception one must always connect a quite definite content. Zionism must act upon every side of our life. He, for example, who devotes his powers to co-operation in the intellectual development of the people fulfils but one part of the general Zionist programme, since cultural Zionism represents only a specific conception.

The determination of the right proportions of the several parts of the general Zionist programme among themselves and to the whole offers a great practical interest. Work must be directed towards the union of all those forces which operate in different spheres but strive towards one and the same end. Far too much work still lies before us for us to be able to permit ourselves such a luxury as the formation of factions. He who has not developed in himself the capacity to submit to a certain discipline has no right to call himself a Zionist.

It will scarcely be an exaggeration to say that the most important auxiliary means of Zionism for the attainment of its final aim is the Jewish Colonial Bank. Its creation is the best proof that the Zionists recognise the significance of the real factors which must lie at the foundation of their activity. For this purpose it is not necessary to open the pages of the colonial history of various States. One need only penetrate into the depths of the events which are being played out before our eyes, and that from the standpoint of those real conditions by which the relations of various peoples to one another