Views Colonization in Bureya, Siberia, As Necessity for Russian Jews

(Jewish Telegraphic Agency)

The fact that the Bureya region is so far away will not prevent Jews going there, Mr. Weizmann, one of the leading workers in the Jewish colonization movement in Russia, declared reporting on the Bureya scheme to the plenary meeting of the Jewish Colonization Society (Ozet) in Charkoff. The people, he said, will go to Bureya, and not merely for the sake of the journey, but because economic conditions compel them to go. Private trade is dying out. Co-operation and State trading compelled the Luftmensch to take to productive work.

If we want the first migrants to arrive in the Bureya region in the spring of 1929, he went on, we must start the preparatory work this summer, for it is a gigantic work which is ahead of us. The Bureya region is neither Cherson nor the Crimea. The work in Bureya must be conducted along entirely different lines. Roads must be built from the railway to the colonization areas. Without these it is impossible to supply the colonists with building materials, machinery, etc. The building of the roads will also be a help in draining the land. There are no marshes in Bureya as there are in White Russia, but in several places it will be essential to drain off water.

It will not be possible to put up the settlers in barracks. The Bureya region is not the Crimea and people cannot live there in mud huts in the winter. And it is too far away for the settlers to be able to return to their native towns over the winter. It will be necessary to make preparations for their permanent residence. Houses must be provided on a cetralized method and stables must be provided. The settlers arriving in Bureya in 1929 must find a thousand houses and stables ready for occupation. The land which has never yet been cultivated must for eight months previously be turned over and allowed to lie idle before it can be sown. We expect a thousand families to be settled in Bureya in 1929 and we must therefore turn over this summer five thousand desiatin of land. We must prepare a thousand farms for 1929 and a further two thousand farms for 1930. The first settlers must be sent to Bureya in June or July of this year to inspect the land and return at the end of the summer in order to prepare everything that is necessary for their settlement in the spring of 1929. The work requires this year a milion roubles, which we expect to obtain from the State budget. In the course of five years we intend to settle ten thousand families. That will cost about 22 million roubles. We hope to obtain this from the State budget, from the Bank of Social Organizations, etc.