3. Colonel C. R. Conder on Palestinian Colonization
The greatest authority on Palestine in our generation, Claude Reignier Conder, wrote:—
“It has always seemed to me that the future element of prosperous colonisation is to be found among the Jews of Eastern Europe. The thrift and energy of the race are not their only qualifications. Those who mean to thrive in Palestine must not only be prepared to work on the land, but they must be accustomed to the harder conditions of existence which are common in uncivilised countries, and almost unknown in the west. It is true that they will have to encounter the evils due to bad government and corruption, which are mitigated by civilisation; but if the accounts received from America are credible it is doubtful if these evils are less apparent in South America than they are in Turkish dominions. A people which has not only been able to live, but which has prospered more than the native born population, under Russian tyranny, will not find it difficult to prosper as subjects of the Sultan. A people which has lived under one form of Oriental despotism will be less discouraged by another similar condition than Europeans would be. It is from the Oriental, Jewish, agricultural class, expelled from Russia for their religion, that the colonists most naturally fitted for agriculture in Syria may evidently be drawn.
“I have often thought that the words of that famous passage in the Law, which predicts the future of Israel, must have come home with a sad and overwhelming force to the Jews in Russia during the last few years:
“‘And among these Goim shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest, and thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night; and shalt have none assurance of thy life. In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even; and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning; for the fear of thy heart wherewith thou shalt fear; and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see.’
“But what is the other picture which the Law presents of Israel in its own land? ‘Blessed shalt thou be in basket and in store.’
“The proposal so to settle agriculturists, as freeholders tilling their own lands, is in accord with the general tendency of all enlightened statesmanship of the present age. We have too many artisans starved by competition, and too few tillers of the earth. Whether is it better for a man to sell penny toys in the streets of a foggy metropolis, or to till the red corn lands, and make food for himself, for his wife and for his children, for the citizens beyond the seas? Even if the whole of Palestine east of Jordan were covered with cornfields and vineyards, with mulberry and fig gardens, with cotton and maize, and pot herbs, and fruit orchards, there would not be too much produce useful to man. There would be markets in which the growers could compete with ease; and towns would grow up, where manufactories of silk and cotton might arise. There would be rice and indigo grown in the Jordan Valley, where now there are only flowers, and there would be petroleum and bitumen, and other minerals, to be worked near the Dead Sea shores. There would in short be a return of the old prosperity, which once covered this country with great Roman cities, and a prosperity yet greater because of the facilities offered by modern science.
“If then I were asked for advice on this subject I would say: Buy all the land you can get at moderate prices in Bashan and in Northern Gilead, and buy it soon, for the price will go up. Promote as far as possible the making of a railway, which is practicable, and which will bring this region within the pale of civilization. Send out as many fit men as you can, to till the land; and send their wives and children after them. They will be happy, and, if they work, they will be rich. The difficulties are less than those to be expected elsewhere, and the advantages are greater. The movement is not artificial, not merely due to religious sentiment, or to visionary philanthropy. It is a natural and healthy one, which ought to be encouraged, by giving power and money to the organization which seeks to aid it, and to control its direction in a wise course. The case has been laid before you fairly, and the details and precedents have been sufficiently studied. The experience of ten years will be of high value; and the consent of the Sultan, whose country it is, has been gained, both to the construction of a very important line of railway, and to the settlement of Jews, willing to abide by the law of that land as they have obeyed the much more tyrannical laws of the Czar.
“I confidently expect therefore, within a few more years, to see prosperity increasing in Palestine, and the empty lands filling up with an industrious population. And if this be so the Jewish people will have reason to remember with gratitude the name of Baron Rothschild as a generous benefactor, and the Society of the Chovevi Zion, as an organisation which undertook a very important work at a time when help was sorely needed.”[¹]
[¹] Eastern Palestine. A Lecture delivered for the Western Tent of the Chovevi Zion Association. By Claude Reignier Conder ... Chovevi Zion Association.... 1892. (8º. 36 pp. in printed wrapper) pp. 5–6 and 35–36.