A high Government official warned Jewish organizations today against premature publicity to plans for settlement in Australia after a scheme for colonizing Jews in the Kimberley region had aroused a storm of opposition here.
“If Jews have in the future proposals to submit to the Australian Government, it is essential not to indulge in publicity until after the Government has considered the proposals,” the official told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “Otherwise, there is danger of prejudging the issues although the details are unknown.”
The statement was made after great prominence had been given to a scheme for settling hundreds of thousands of Jews in the Kimberley region, outlined in a London newspaper by Steinberg, secretary of the Freiland League for Jewish colonization, and cabled to Australia by London and Australian news agencies.
Steinberg, in an interview with Reynolds News, leftist London newspaper, made the highly optimistic forecast that over 135,000 square miles of Australia’s unused territory could be peopled by a thriving community. He advocated mass colonization of hundreds of thousands of Jews in Kimberley.
The interview created a storm in the Australian daily press, which received the proposals unsympathetically, and almost with derision. Australian Jewish authorities deplored the probability of deluding the European Jewish masses with non-existent prospects, since, apart from the antagonism already created, local experts regard large-scale Jewish settlement in the northwest as impracticable.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
