300 Lithuanian Jews, most of them experienced builders, have signed on to go out to the Jewish colonisation region of Bureya, in Siberia, according to a statement made here to-day by Mr. Rashkes, the head of the Jewish colonisation work in Bureya, who has been conducting a recruiting campaign for workers in Lithuania, Latvia, and other countries. (Mr. Rashkes’ arrival in Riga to recruit there Jewish artisans and specialists for Bureya, was reported in the J.T.A. Bulletin of April 23rd., and soon after Mr. Rashkes proceeded on the same mission to Lithuania).
In addition to carpenters, tilers, and plasterers, Mr. Rashkes says that he has been recruiting blacksmiths and draymen, and also men experienced in handling logs on the river for the Bureya lumbering industry. Most of the Lithuanian immigrants are young men between 20 and 30 years of age, he adds, and all have expressed willingness to undertake the difficult life of the pioneer in the Siberian colonies.
A group of eight people, skilled mechanics, have also arrived here from the Argentine, on their way to settle in Bureya. Reports from Tichonkoye, the centre of the Jewish settlement area in Bureya, state that all necessary preparations have been made there to receive the newcomers, and provide for their comfort.
The arrival in Moscow of the first group of Jewish emigrants from the Argentine for Bureya was reported in the J.T.A. Bulletin of the 1st. inst. The group, it was stated, consisted of 30 members and 14 more were said to be at Hamburg on their way. All were said to be skilled builders, who had brought their own tools. The editor of the Argentine Communist daily “Red Star”, Mr. Chaim Rosen, accompanied the group, and a second group of 30 members was reported to be on the way.
An appeal to Jews in South America and in all other countries to start a large-scale emigration movement into Russia, particularly into Bureya, was made about the same time by the Jewish Communist leader Dimanstein, in the “Emess”. Only such Jews should be encouraged to emigrate to Russia, he said, who are known to be favourable to the Soviets. It is a land suitable not only for agriculture, he claimed, but for all sorts of trades and industries. It is a region for fish culture, canning and preserving, and moreover it is a region, as has been indicated by President Malinin, which is ultimately to become an autonomous Jewish region.
Mr. Dimanstein, it was pointed out in connection with this article, did not explain why Russian Jews could not be induced to go to Bureya when there are thousands upon thousands of them in need of employment. We have temporary difficulties in Bureya, he admitted, but these will soon cease. The more population we have there the easier life will become. The Far East is growing and Bureya will grow with it.
Mr. Frank Owen, M.P. (Liberal), who has just returned from Russia, in describing his experiences in to-day’s “News-Chronicle”, records that on his boat going out there were “unemployed workmen from the United States bound for a country where they say there is no unemployment”. He later found they were “Russians returning from Detroit after ten years. They can’t find a job in Detroit because one man is minding the machines of three. There will be plenty of work in Russia and no capitalism. Millions of others will follow them”.
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