Now-editorial Notes

WE ARE on the eve of a new catastrophe. Austrian Jewry is in danger of experiencing the same fate as German Jewry because of the spread of Hitlerism to Austria. If Chancellor Dollfuss is overthrown by a Nazi revolution, the Jews of Austria will be the scapegoats again. The Dollfuss party, to offset the popularity of the Nazi anti-Jewish program, is manifesting a more intense anti-semitism of its own. The Jews will be the sufferers, no matter what happens in Austria in the near future, but if the Nazi succeed in gaining control of Austria, the plight of the Jews will be tragic. According to our special correspondent’s report from Vienna, the Austrian Jews fear that “Jewish heads will roll” if the Hitlerites win, because the Jews of Austria are supporting the Dollfuss Government against Nazi invasion.

The League of Nations, especially France, Great Britain and the Little Entente, should hasten to exert all their moral powers to save Austria from the clutches of Hitlerism. For Hitler’s triumph in Austria would spur him on to further attempts at the Hitlerization of Europe and then a new war could hardly be averted.

There is one consolation in Hitler’s mad desire to bring about the Anschluss with Austria by force. He will find himself vigorously opposed by Benito Mussolini. There is nothing that Italy fears more than the coming of Nazi Germany too close to her frontier by way of Austria.

AMERICAN JEWISH FARMERS

THE annual report of the Jewish Agricultural Aid Society contains information that is very encouraging as far as the situation of the Jewish farmers in America is concerned. It points out that while Jews pursue all types of farming, many are engaged in dairying, poultry, truck and mixed farming, those branches which have not suffered from normal overproduction but from abnormal underconsumption. They are located near metropolitan areas and good markets, in sections which, though not immune from the forces of depression, have not felt their full fury. Their condition can confidently be expected to improve as soon as normal buying power in the cities has been restored.”

The Society has helped to “keep on the farm every farmer who had the slightest chance of coming through” and to conserve the Society’s investments holding losses to the lowest possible amount. The report states that there has been no perceptible de#ction in the ranks of Jewish farmers and that, on the contrary, there have been new accessions for which,however the Society does not take all credit.

The Jewish Agricultural Aid Society has for years done very useful and constructive work in aiding and guiding the Jewish farmers in America. The only criticism that may be levelled against it is that it has not expanded its activities to a greater extent.

It is disappiontment that during the years of depression, when the craving of Jews to settle on the land as farmers has become keener than ever before, the Jewish Agricultural Aid Society has cone nirated more on retrenchment, on conserving its investments, than on expansion. The years of depression should have been the period of the Society’s most energetic activity and greatest usefulness.