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No. 41. | Vienna, 7 October 1904. — 28 Tishri 5665. | 8th Year.

On the Jewish Migration. *)

III.

The recognition that Jewish emigration must be regulated will most readily be gained by those Jews who have already perceived the value of organisation. Consequently it is the Zionists who will bring the liveliest interest to such endeavours. That this is so is attested by the Zionist committees, and the committees founded by Zionists, already in existence, which even now come to the aid of Jewish emigrants as far as they are able. A number of reports on the activity of these committees are already to hand, quite apart from the newspaper notices which have told us here and there of such committees.

First of all, mention must be made here of the report of the Relief Committee for Jewish Emigrants in Basle. After two years of activity (July 1902 to July 1904) this committee recently issued its statement of accounts. For some four years an endless stream of Jewish emigrants has been passing through Basle. They are those who begin the voyage to America on French ships. The appalling misery of the emigrants first moved two members of the executive of the Basle Zionist Society to distribute provisions to the emigrants over a period of several weeks. But it was shown in the shortest time that individuals can render next to no help worth mentioning. The two gentlemen therefore issued a circular to the Jewish inhabitants of Basle, and in this way they succeeded in constituting the Relief Committee. With modest means this committee has indeed accomplished things worthy of recognition, but the report itself cannot refrain from pointing to the imperfection and insufficiency of this help. The organisation of the Jewish emigrants appears to it the only means that can bring real help to the Jewish emigrants.

*) See "Die Welt" Nos. 39 and 40.

Similar conclusions are reached by our fellow Zionists in the towns on the Russian frontier, and likewise by those in Hamburg, Bremen, Holland, England and America. The Dutch fellow Zionists in particular have heavy work. A great many Jewish emigrants who wish to travel from Russia to England or America are conveyed by the Anglo Continental Travel Bureau in Rotterdam. The emigrants can obtain their ship's ticket either at the Russian frontier, or they pay there only for their railway ticket and buy the ship's ticket only at the Dutch frontier. For want of money, or because of the high prices the agent demands, many emigrants decide upon the latter course. But then it often happens that the people who arrive at Zevenaar have not enough money for the ship's ticket, or, owing to unforeseen expenses during the journey, no money at all. The Anglo Continental Bureau cannot then furnish proof that the emigrants will leave Holland again within eight days; they are therefore to be regarded as aliens without means and must be taken back to Germany by the police. There they either find another route (often they traverse the whole of Germany before they can get across the frontier), or the German police send them back to Holland. Then, as the case may be, expulsion to Germany and a renewed return to Holland may follow once more. This pitiable state of affairs aroused the compassion of certain individuals, and they tried (with the valiant co-operation of Rabbi M. Petzon) to help the unfortunates. Naturally the means were soon exhausted here too, and the fellow Zionists who are exerting themselves in Holland to help the Jewish emigrants have likewise come to the conviction that only a world organisation can remedy these evils.

Our fellow Zionists in America have very great difficulties to overcome at Ellis Island in their work for the emigrants. Ellis Island is the small island on which all steerage passengers who wish to immigrate into America by way of New York have to land. There it is decided whether