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Basle, 27 August 1903 — 4 Elul 5663.

A Declaration of the English Government.

Foreign Office.

Sir Clement Hill*) to Mr. L, J. Greenberg.

14 August 1903.

Dear Sir,

Mr. Chamberlain communicated to the Marquess of Lansdowne the letter which you addressed to him under date of the 13th ult., containing the draft of an agreement which Dr. Herzl proposes should be concluded between His Majesty's Government and the Jewish Colonial Bank, and which has as its object the establishment of a Jewish settlement in East Africa.

His Lordship has also considered the observations which you made on the 6th inst. in the course of your interview with Sir E. Barrington and Mr. Hurst at this Office.

I am now directed by His Lordship to say that he has studied the question with the interest which His Majesty's Government must always take in any well-considered scheme for the amelioration of the position of the Jewish race. The time at his disposal was too short to make it possible for him to go into all the details of the scheme or to discuss it with His Majesty's representative for the East Africa Protectorate, and he therefore regrets that he is not in a position to express a final opinion upon the matter.

Lord Lansdowne assumes that the Bank will wish to send some gentlemen to the East Africa Protectorate to ascertain in person whether there is free land there suitable for the purposes in view; and if this be the case, he will be happy to afford them every facility for discussing with His Majesty's representative the possibility of meeting the views which may be expressed at the next Zionist Congress concerning the conditions under which a settlement would be possible.

If a tract of land can be found which the Bank and His Majesty's representative regard as suitable, and which appears to His Majesty's Government to be commendable, Lord Lansdowne will be disposed to entertain favourably proposals for the establishment of a Jewish colony or settlement on conditions which will enable the members to observe their national customs. To this end he would be prepared, once a suitable tract has been found, and subject to the opinion of the Secretary of State's advisers in East Africa, to discuss the details of a scheme whose principal features should be: the grant of a considerable area of land, the appointment of a Jewish official as chief of the local administration, and the guarantee to the colony of full liberty of action in regard to municipal legislation and to the management of religious and purely internal administrative affairs; this right of local self-government must, however, leave unimpaired the right of His Majesty's Government to exercise a general control.

It is unnecessary at present to consider the details of the terms on which the land would be granted, whether this would be done by way of sale or of lease; but His Lordship assumes that no part of the cost of administering the settlement would fall upon His Majesty's Government, and the latter would reserve to itself the right to resume possession of the land should the settlement prove a failure.

I am, dear Sir, your most obedient servant,

Clement Hill.

At the sitting of Wednesday, 26 August, the election of a commission for the dispatch of an expedition to explore the territory held out in prospect by the English Government for the settlement of Jews in East Africa was resolved upon by 295 votes to 178.

*) First head of the Protectorates Department in the Foreign Office.