Die Welt

Published every Friday.

Editorial Office and Administration: VIENNA, IX., Türkenstrasse No. 9. Telephone 14199.

Communications are to be addressed not to individual persons but to the Editorial Office or the Administration: Vienna, IX., Türkenstrasse No. 9. Unstamped letters will not be accepted, and manuscripts will not be returned. Editorial consulting hours daily from half-past eleven to half-past twelve.

Advertising rates: according to the tariff on file. The advertisement section closes on Tuesday evening. Single numbers 30 Heller.

Subscription rates: Austria-Hungary: yearly Kr. 12.—, half-yearly Kr. 6.—, quarterly Kr. 3.—. Abroad: Germany yearly Mk. 13.70, half-yearly Mk. 6.85, quarterly Mk. 3.45; England yearly Shg. 14.—, half-yearly Shg. 7.—, quarterly Shg. 3.10; Russia yearly R. 7.—, half-yearly R. 3.50, quarterly R. 1.75; Switzerland, France, Italy, Turkey, Roumania, Bulgaria, Servia, Greece, Egypt yearly Frcs. 17.—, half-yearly Frcs. 8.50, quarterly 4.25; America yearly Doll. 3.40, half-yearly Doll. 1.70, quarterly Doll. —.85

No. 30. Vienna, 25 July 1902. 6th Year

A Contented Society.

A contented society is the Anglo Jewish Association. This small, exclusive society holds its meetings from time to time in a small room which is still too large for the number of those taking part. There the gentlemen bestow praise upon one another for their profitable activity, which consists in supporting a few schools out of the Anglo Jewish Association's income—a modest one, to be sure (some 3000 pounds). The Association, however, also belongs to the circle of the Ica, and with the administration of this colonisation society a non lucendo the gentlemen are more contented still than with anything else.

But one of the most contented in this contented circle is the President, Mr. Claude Montefiore. At the last general meeting of the Anglo Jewish Association he took issue with the evidence given by Dr. Herzl before the Alien Immigration Commission. Dr. Herzl had said that the experiment of a Jewish colonisation in Argentina had failed. This Mr. Claude denied loudly and emphatically. It was, he said, an entirely groundless assertion, for another Zionist, Colonel Goldsmit, had just returned from Argentina and had reported on the flourishing of one colony, that of Moisesville. Mr. Claude Montefiore, it is true, cautiously adds that one swallow does not make a summer. Many have known that before him. No unprejudiced hearer or reader could understand Dr. Herzl's words before the Commission otherwise than as meaning precisely that the summer of a less wretched condition for the Jewish masses has not been brought about.

Does Mr. Claude really not understand? A man who belongs to the intellectuals cannot have been for one moment in doubt as to the meaning of Dr. Herzl's words. A colonisation experiment which is carried on with such great means and which, after many years, brings only a single one of several colonies to "flourish," has failed. That with money, with much money, one can make a village wherever and whenever one likes—why, every child knows that. Nowadays, with money, one can lay out any garden one pleases on a bare rocky peak. Surely one need not make so many words over such a commonplace. But Mr. Claude Montefiore merely wished to deny something and to assert something.

He wished to deny that Dr. Herzl had shown the Alien Immigration Commission things in their true light. Dr. Herzl's evidence was highly disagreeable to the small, exclusive society. They do not wish that there should be a Jewish Question. If there is one, one must not speak of it. If one speaks of it, one must make it out to be nothing. Now along comes this agitator and tells a Parliamentary Commission of the nameless misery of many hundreds of thousands of human beings, and appeals to purely human compassion in order to bring about a political remedy proportionate to the distress. For the existing institutions of a "charitable" character have proved insufficient. It must be denied that his statements of fact are correct, for if but a single one proves groundless, then one may doubt the rest as well. Then there is no distress either, etc., etc.

Mr. Claude also wished to assert something. Namely, that the administration of the Hirsch funds has gratifying results to show. This assertion becomes more necessary from day to day, for the wish grows ever louder to see made public a real statement of accounts, supported by figures. Granted that there is a single one among the settlements which "flourishes"—what does this flourishing cost? What does this show colony cost? And what do the others cost, of which the administration cannot boast? What, indeed, does the administration itself cost?

These are public questions, and they will not be silenced again. The moneys of the foundations were intended for a suffering community as a whole. This community will demand an accounting ever more energetically, the longer it is withheld from it and the greater its suffering becomes.

Mr. Claude Montefiore, to be sure, is not the administration, and no rendering of accounts is demanded of him personally. But he ought to weigh his words better, especially the solemn ones at the momentous general meetings of the Anglo Jewish Association.

Dr. Herzl said the colonisation in Argentina had failed. Mr. Claude denies it. So it has not failed? If words have even a glimmer of sense, then Mr. Claude means thereby to assert that it