Page:A Jewish State 1917.djvu/37

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THE JEWISH QUESTION
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of countries will not cause their impoverishment and produce economic crises?

I have already mentioned that honest Anti-Semites will combine with our officials in controlling the transfer of our estates.

But the State revenues might suffer by the loss of a body of taxpayers, who, though little appreciated as citizens, are highly valued in finance. The State should therefore receive compensation for this loss. This we offer indirectly by leaving in the country business which we have built up by means of Jewish shrewdness and Jewish industry, by letting our Christian fellow-citizens move into our evacuated positions, and by thus facilitating the rise of numbers of people to greater prosperity in a manner so peaceable as has never been known before. The French Revolution had a similar result, on a small scale, brought about by bloodshed on the guillotine, in every province of France, and on the battlefields of Europe. Moreover, inherited and acquired rights were destroyed, and cunning buyers only enriched themselves by the purchase of State properties.

The Jewish Company will offer to the States that fall under its sphere of work, direct as well as indirect advantages. It will give Governments the first offer of abandoned Jewish property, and allow buyers most favorable conditions. Governments, again, will be able to make use of this extensive appropriation of land for the purpose of social experiments and improvements.

The Jewish Company will give every assistance to Governments and Parliaments in their efforts to control and guide the inner migration of Christian citizens.

The Jewish Company will also pay heavy duties. Its central office will be in London, so as to be under the protection of a Power which is not at present Anti-Semitic. But the Company requires to be officially and publicly supported, and must therefore be in a position to pay taxes. To this end, it will establish taxable branch offices everywhere. Further, it will pay double duties on the two-fold transfer of goods which it effects. Even in transactions where the Company is really nothing more than a business agency, it will temporarily appear as a purchaser, and will be set down as the momentary possessor in the register of landed property.

These are, of course, purely calculable matters.

Every place will raise and discuss the question, how far the Company can go without running any risks of failure. And the Company itself will confer freely with Finance Ministers on the various points at issue. Ministers will recognize the conciliatory spirit of our enterprise, and will consequently offer every facility in their power for the successful achievement of the great undertaking.

Further and direct profit will accrue to Governments from the transport of passengers and goods, and where railways are State property the returns will be immediately recognizable. Where they are held by companies, the Jewish Company will make favorable terms for transport, in the same way as does every transmitter of goods on a large scale. Freight and carriage must be made as cheap as possible for our people, because every traveler will pay his own expenses. The middle classes will travel with Cooks tickets, the poorer classes in emigrant trains. The Company might make a good deal by reductions on passengers and goods; but here, as elsewhere, it must adhere to its principle of not trying to raise its receipts to a greater sum than will cover its working expenses.

In many places Jews have control of the transport; and the transport industries will be the first needed by the Company, and the first to be bought up by it. The original owners of these in-