PALESTINE LIFTS up its head with hope. The new Governor of Jerusalem has recently made a most sympathetic pronouncement. It is believed that he voices the sentiment of the Turkish Government. Everywhere the Pacha, Muhdi Bey, is enthusiastically received by the Jewish colonists. The principal of these, Richon-le-Zion, gave a gala dinner in the Pacha's honor. At it the colonists expressed unswerving fidelity of the Jews to the Ottoman Constitutional Government.
The Governor made quite a lengthy speech, the substance of which is reported as follows:
"Gentlemen, allow me first of all to thank you for the hearty reception you have accorded me.
"You have undoubtedly heard from both people and press abroad that our Government objects to Zionism. This is incorrect. We, Ottomans, know the Jews too well to suspect them of disloyalty.
"We know that the Jews do not come to Palestine for mere political reasons. It is the holy associations connected with this land that act magnetically upon them; therefore our Ottoman Government has no reason to oppose Zionism.
"History proves that Turkey has always welcomed the Jews in times of persecution and distress, and we have embraced with open arms the exiles from Judae-phobian countries.
"We rejoice to see the wonderful progress you have made in Palestine during the few years of your indefatigable labors, and you are this day a model for the Arab villagers around you. You are an object lesson to your native neighbors, who can neither read nor write, that they may see the great possibilities of the land. I therefore lay before you the following proposition:
"In order that your life and property may be placed beyond jeopardy, it is your bounden duty to establish yourselves on a firm basis, and this is what you should do.
"Choose from among yourselves a municipal head, whose appointment will be ratified by the Government, to administer justice and execute judgment according to the rules and regulations of the Ottoman provinces.
"You will have to appoint guards and gendarmes, whose names will be registered by the local government, which will provide them with uniforms and all necessary accoutrements and invest them with authority.
"You must also install telephonic communication between colony and colony, village and village, so that any attack or outrage may at once be notified at headquarters and the marauders be apprehended and punished.
"I know there are unlimited possibilities in this land, but we are unfortunately still handicapped. I trust, however, that little by little the goal will be reached, to the great benefit of the country.
"For my part, I will try to put you in possession of the sandhills bordering on the seashore and give you legal title-deeds for the same.
"A part of it I will allot you for a capacious Government Building which will serve as your central administrative premises. "Brethren and kinsmen, give your helping hands to the Government, and the Government, on her part, will aid you on to further progress."
The following from a worldly standpoint sticks closely to the predictions of the Bible, hence we reproduce them from Woman's World:—
"Coal strikes in England and America—revolution in Mexico—anarchy in China—Italy at the throat of Turkey—woman clamoring for the vote!
"What of it? There's no cause to be pessimistic—nothing's really the matter with the world—just growing pains!
"Progress has set for herself a sudden and terrific pace. The earth has been spinning faster in the last twenty years than it ever before whirled. Naturally, there's a bit of displacement in spots, but nothing to hurt.
"We can't very well apply electricity to a thousand uses, go snooping among the clouds, universalize education, introduce penny journalism, and give science a free rein without some trivial consequences.
"Old viewpoints are sure to shift, old creeds must give way to new ideals, society is bound to readjust its divisions.
"The ancient molds of thought and economics, religion and government, are splitting. Our eyes see truths which our ancestors could not behold and by their light we perceive their errors and their inadequacies.
"The greatest revolutions that have ever swept the universe will break within the coming hundred years.
"Before this century is closed, the last king shall have lost his throne, the last battleship shall be scrapped, the last army shall have junked its guns. East and West shall [R5107 : page 304] meet in a thousand common causes and the Five Races join hands in brotherhood.
"Perfected wireless telephony and telephotography, mile-a-second trains and airships will condense the seas and continents into ponds and back lots.
"Africa will become a week-end resort for the New Yorker, and the Canadian farmer will press a button, lift his receiver and exchange crop gossip with his son in Siberia.
"Pain will be banished. Surgery will have accomplished the relief of insanity and blindness. Cancer, tuberculosis, paralysis, will be as easily cured as sprains and lumbago.
"There will be no waste in food nor in land. The air will yield its wealth of nitrates to the condensers and every arable acre will luxuriate with vegetation.
"The stored heat of the sun will furnish power and warmth for all humanity. Plagues and pests will disappear.
"Eugenics will regulate society; men and women will mate by definite laws; efficient organization will check economic spendthriftry and eradicate poverty; engineering will solve the problems of competent housing, ventilation and sunlight; the standardization of health and of welfare will extirpate prostitution and crime.
"A far-fetched vision? You are wrong!
"No imagination can pierce the horizons that cloak the tomorrow from our sight.
"The farthest-flung optimism can only estimate a fragment of man's coming glories. How can you sneer!
"Turn back and view the fifty years behind you. What prophet in your father's youth would have dared proclaim the many magics of today?
"Strikes, revolts and wars are but chips that fly beneath the chisel of progress.
"There will be many wars, mobs will rage, battles will wage, tyranny will clutch with strangling fingers, bigotry will plot, avarice will scheme—but to what will these avail?"