Page:A Jewish State 1917.djvu/41

 might, perhaps, even try to oppose the Jewish movement by means of their secret servitors and agents. Such opposition we shall meet fairly and bravely.

Supposing that these magnates are content simply to refuse their support of the scheme:

Is it, therefore, done with?

No.

For then the money will be raised in another way—by an appeal to moderately rich Jews. The smaller Jewish properties would have to be united in the name of the National Idea till they were gathered into a second and formidable financial force. But, unfortunately, this would require a great deal of financing at first—for the £50,000,000 would have to be subscribed in full before starting work; and, as this sum could only be raised very slowly, all sorts of banking business would have to be done and loans made during the first few years. It might even occur that, in the course of all these transactions, the ultimate object of them would be forgotten; Jews would create a new and large business, and forget all about emigration.

The notion of raising money in this way is not by any means impracticable. The experiment of collecting Christian money to form an opposing force to great financiers has already been tried; the experiment of opposing it with Jewish money has merely been thought of; it is quite feasible.

But these financial quarrels would bring about endless crises; the countries in which they occurred would suffer severely, and Anti-Semitism would become rampant everywhere.

This method is therefore not to be recommended. I have merely suggested it, because it comes up in the course of the logical development of the idea.

It is also doubtful whether smaller private banks would be willing to adopt it.

In any case, the refusal of moderately rich Jews would not even put an end to the scheme. A third method of carrying it out remains to be tried.

The Society of Jews, whose members are not business men, might try to found the Company on a national subscription.

The Company's capital might be raised without the assistance of a syndicate, by the direct imposition of a subscription on the public. Not only poor Jews, but also Christians who wanted to get rid of them, would subscribe their small quota to this fund. A new and peculiar form of the plebiscite would thus be established, whereby each man who voted for this solution of the Jewish Question would express his favorable opinion by subscribing a stipulated amount. This stipulation would produce security. The funds subscribed would only be paid in if their sum total reached the required amount; if the tenders were not sufficiently numerous, they would be returned.

But should the sum total raised all over the world by a public tax reach the required amount, then each little subscription would be secured by the great numbers of other small subscriptions.

All this could, of course, not be done without the express and definite assistance of interested Governments.