'Oh, then you're not really a British patriot,' Barstein began.
'I will beg you to remember, sir, that I equipped a corps of volunteers for the Transvaal.'
'I dare say. But a corps of volunteers for Zion—that is blasphemy, narrow tribalism.'
'Zion's soil is holy; we want no volunteers there: we want saints and teachers. And what would your volunteers do in Zion? Fight the Sultan with his million soldiers? They couldn't even live in Palestine as men of peace. There is neither coal nor iron—hence no manufactures. Agriculture? It's largely stones and swamps. Not to mention it's too hot for Jews to work in the fields. They'd all starve. You've no right to play recklessly with human lives. Besides, even if Palestine were as fertile as England, Jews could never live off one another. And think how they'd quarrel!'
Sir Asher ended almost good-humouredly. His array of arguments seemed to him a row of steam-hammers.
'We can live off one another as easily as any other people. As for quarrelling, weren't you in Parliament? Party government makes quarrel the very basis of the Constitution.'
Sir Asher flushed again. A long lifetime of laying down the law had ill prepared him for repartee.
'A pretty mess we should make of Government!' he sneered.
'Why? We have given Ministers to every Cabinet in the world.'
'Yes—we're all right as long as we're under others. Sir Asher was recovering his serenity.