Palestine Rapidly Progressing Says Sir Alfred Mond

Palestine is progressing with American rapidity, but needs most of all more American settlers, Sir Alfred Mond, financier and member of Parliament, who is bound for America on the Berengaria declared in an interview with the representative on board, of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Sir Alfred said he was glad to learn Louis Marshall, Herbert Lehman and other American Jews proposed starting an investment bank for Palestine, fathered by a group of American Jews on the recent visit of Dr. Chaim Weizmann to the United States. He will confer with these men during his brief stay in the United States.

Sir Alfred declared that even non-Zionist Jews of Britain had consented to enter the Jewish Agency through the Economic Board and work for Palestinian reconstruction. There was also reason to hope that the wealthy ICA Foundation (Jewish Colonization Association) founded by the late Baron deHirsch would participate in the Agency, he stated.

“More American blood among the Palestine settlers, with its initiative and resourcefulness would revolutionize thutland”, he declared. The Arab difficulties have been greatly exaggerated. The Arab agitators”, he asserted, “are really using anti-Zionism as a smoke screen to make their anti-British propaganda. The Arab delegation left London absolutely unsuccessful”, he said.

“The success of the Zionist undertaking hinges entirely on bringing into Palestine a yearly minimum of 25,000 settlers”, Sir Alfred Mond stated. Sir Herbert Samuel, High Commissioner of Palestine whom he had seen recently was tired of his task, which was made difficult by the fact that the British Government must reckon with seventy million Mohamedans. If it had not been for Samuel, the Government might have been inclined to throw over Zionism, he said.

Mond also paid tribute to Dr. Weizmann. It was the confidence and affection entertained for him by the government that led to the Balfour declaration, he stated.

It was easy to criticise, he concluded, but the Zionist situation both in Palestine and London was improving and it was the duty of Jews to support Dr. Weizmann “who had created such a powerful position that even the anti-Semities were forced to respect### it”.