Page:Zionism 9204 Peace Conference 1920.pdf/28

16 return from his dispersions', but imagined that conversion to Christianity was the condition precedent.

In 1844 a clergyman named Crybbalt convened a meeting in the Hanover Square Rooms for the formation of the "British and Foreign Society for promoting the Restoration of the Jewish Nation to Palestine"; another clergyman, named Bradshaw, in A Tract for the Times, asked Parliament to grant four millions if the churches collected one million for such restoration. Next year E. L. Mitford, of the Ceylon Civil Service, in 'An Appeal on behalf of the Jewish nation, in connexion with British Policy in the Levant', asked for their re-establishment in Palestine 'as a protected state, under the guardianship of Great Britain', with a view to 'their final establishment as an independent state'. In 1845 Colonel George Gawler, founder and second Governor of South Australia, advised 'the foundation of the most important colony that the world will perhaps ever witness' in his 'Tranquillization of Syria and the East. Observations and Practical Suggestions in furtherance of the Establishment of Jewish Colonies in Palestine: the most sober and sensible remedy for the miseries of Asiatic Turkey'. In 1849 he accompanied Montefiore to Palestine, and in 1853 renewed his proposals that Jewish settlements there should be promoted by England, which 'does most urgently need the shortest and safest lines of communications.... Egypt and Syria stand in intimate connexion. A foreign hostile power mighty in either would soon endanger British trade.' 



Not till after a generation of heated controversy did even England admit Jews to Parliament. In this controversy Macaulay took a leading part. His