Jewish Colonization Work in Poland is Merely Academic Question, Leaders Say

(Jewish Telegraphic Agency Mail Service)

The views of the Minister for Agriculture, M. Staniszewicz, regarding the possibilities of Jewish agricultural colonization in Poland have aroused much interest here and several Jewish Deputies have given their opinions on the subject to the representative of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency here.

Deputy Dr. Schreiber said that the Minister for Agriculture appeared to be well informed regarding the position. The Jewish population was practically debarred from obtaining any advantage from the Agrarian Reform Law, and even the Jewish landowner who desired to distribute his estates among Jews experienced much difficulty. Jews who had been employed on the estates as administrators, managers, etc., and according to the law ought to have benefited from the distribution of the land were entirely ignored or were being given very small areas of land. These facts, Dr. Schreiber concluded, showed that the Minister in speaking of the Jews as enjoying equal rights under the Agrarian Reform Law, was speaking purely in the theoretical sense.

The Minister’s statement did not impress him as sincere, Deputy Rosmarin declared. Had the Minister been honest, he would not have concealed the fact that the tendency of the Polish Governments has always been directed against permitting the Jews to benefit from the Agrarian Reform Law. Moreover, the Jewish landowners were being deprived of their existing small areas of land. Had the Polish statesmen taken into serious consideration the Jewish problem in Poland, they would have come to the conclusion in spite of the dearth of land in the country that it is in the interests of the State that a part of the Jewish population, those Jews at any rate who had been trained in agriculture, should be settled on the land. If the Soviet Government found it possible to launch a Jewish Back to the Land Movement, the Polish Government ought also to have considered the possibilities of settling Jews on the land, particularly in view of the fact that Jews could no longer emigrate in as large numbers as before, and that it was not desirable that more Jews should engage in trade.

Deputy Heller said that it appeared to him that the Minister had confused two different problems. The Agrarian Reform Law had been devised only to help those who were actually engaged in agriculture. It did not concern itself with the creation of more agricultural workers. Those who wanted to transfer the Jewish masses to productive work ought not to allow themselves to be misled by imagining that they would obtain land through the application of the Agrarian Reform Law.

Solomon Friedman, New York cotton goods merchant, died Sunday night at the age of 67. Mr. Friedman retired in 1916. He was a supporter of many philanthropies and was Treasur## of the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews.