Baron Edmond began to take an interest in Palestine at a time when the doctrine of assimilation was still triumphantly making headway throughout the whole of West-European Jewry. Under the guidance of the preachers of disintegration, Judaism was supposed to emancipate itself from the antiquated traditions of Palestine and from a belief in its future renascence. All this was to be altered. Neither the past nor the future was to interfere with the present. All that Jewish leaders could do to mitigate the lot of their unfortunate co-religionists was――charity. It was in such a world as this that Baron Edmond found himself when he first became a public character and a public force. Breaking away from the assimilation doctrine, he co-operated most cordially with the “Lovers of _Zion_.” His activity found appreciation and emulation in England. Representatives of English Jewry, who were at the same time English patriots, supported the colonization of Palestine movement. One of the most prominent “Lovers of _Zion_” and an ardent supporter of the Jewish national idea, was Colonel Albert Edward Williamson Goldsmid, M.V.O. (1846‒1904),¹ a scion of an old and distinguished Anglo-Jewish family. He made the Army his career, and in January, 1869, after serving two and a half years with the Fusiliers at Walmer, proceeded to India with his regiment. He was appointed Deputy Assistant Adjutant-General at headquarters in 1889, and held this position till 1892. In 1892 he accepted the responsible task of organizing the Jewish agricultural colonies in the Argentine, and, having obtained a year’s leave of absence, he proceeded to South America as Director-General. During his administration there enormous tracts of land were surveyed and parcelled out. About seven hundred families were settled in four great colonies, the majority of whom, being quite ignorant of agriculture, had to be instructed in its first principles. The Colonies were organized on a system whereby, as the colonists gained sufficient experience, the administration could be so materially reduced as to render the Colonies virtually self-governing. On returning from the Argentine, Colonel Goldsmid was unanimously elected chief of the “Lovers of _Zion_” Association of Great Britain and Ireland.