Asks Congress’ Aid

While order now prevails in Saloniki, the scene of anti-Jewish riots last week, the Jewish population is still anxious and fears renewed distrbances, a special emissary upon the fostering of peace and order throughout the wourld, Albert Thomas, director of the International Labor Organization and a former member of the French cabinet, declared yesterday at the morning and only session of the Zionist Congress today.

Characterizing the Congress as “a gathering of high political significance,” M. Thomas, who was the first non-Jew to address this Congress since the opening greetings Tuesday night, related how he came to sympathize with the Jewish national movement. Pinchas Rutenberg, the noted Jewish engineer and head of the Rutenberg Electric work in Palestine, was the first to interest him in the idea of Jewish liberation, M. Thomas said.

“The French people will always assist suffering nations,” he declared, and added that he finds Jewish nationalism different from other nationalisms because all Jews strive for the same aspirations. M. Thomas, whose address was greeted with tremendous applause and which Dr. Weizmann characterized as “a beautiful piece,” was welcomed by Dr. Leo Motzkin, chairman of the presidium, and Nahum Sokolow, chairman of the Zionist Executive.

APPEALS FOR COALITION

Before M. Thomas’ address, abraham Goldberg, speaking for the American delegation appealed for a coalition of all parties on the basis of free immigration and free purchase of land in Palestine. Attacking Dr. Weizmann’s address of Wednesday as a defeating utterance, Mr. Goldberg criticized the Laborites for creating the impression that they support the British policy for Palestine.

The American Zionist charged that England’s attitude toward the Jews has changed so much in the last two years that the Jews no longer recognize her as the same England. “Each time she cuts off a piece of some of the Jewish rights,” he declared, adding, “that is why the Jews are compelled to lose confidence in her.” Rabbi Meyer Berlin of New York, president of the Mizrachi, Orthodox Zionist party, greeted the Revisionists for what he called their demand for real Zionism.

Earlier in the morning the Congress heard two impressive speeches, one pro-English and the other anti-British. The first speaker, Uri Zvi Greenberg, Palestine Revisionist, bitterly attacked the Palestine government, charging that a pogrom atmosphere still prevails in Palestine. He also blamed the Palestine Zionist Executive for spreading optimistic reports, and pointed out that the Palestine Jewish community is not responsible for the Jewish Agency’s negotiations with the British government nor for the MacDonald letter because the Jewish community had abstained from sending a delegate to London to participate in the negotiations.

ATTACKS BRITAIN

“If we were to exert as much effort and to bring as much money into other countries as we have brought into Palestine, then Poland and other nations would undoubtedly create more safety for us in their countries than do the Palestine government and the Arabs,” Mr. Greenberg declared.

The pro-British address was made by Nahum Goldmann, German Radical, who spoke for the Zionist political commission. Urging the Congress to accept the MacDonald letter because it would be a fatal mistake to reject it, he said: “Let us see how the MacDonald letter will be converted from theory into practice.”

Vladimir Jabotinsky, Revisionist leader, who had called for the rejection of the MacDonald letter on the one hand and for a last experiment with Great Britain on the other, interrupted Mr. Goldmann with a shout of “We have seen it alredy in the Protection of Cultivators’ Ordinance issued after the letter, and by the practical closing of immigration.” Robert Stricker, erstwhile Austrian Radical turned Revisionist, and Meer Grossman, English Revisionist, also interrupted Mr. Goldmann.

The morning session concluded with addresses by Arje Tartakover, Palestine Labortie, and M. Schramek, General Zionist from France.