¹ “Palestine: The Rebirth of an Ancient People.” By Albert M. Hyamson. London, 1917. “Mr. Balfour’s declaration translates into a binding statement of policy the general wish of British opinion. It emphatically favours ‘the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.’ If we were to analyse this sentiment we should find at its core the simple and humane instinct of reparation. Our own record towards the Jewish race is, from Cromwell’s day downwards, one of relative enlightenment; but it is on the conscience of all Christendom that the burden falls of secular persecution which this enduring race has suffered. One of our solidest reasons for welcoming the Russian Revolution was that it had freed the whole Alliance from complicity in the sins of one of its chief partners towards the Jews. To end this record by restoring the dispersed and downtrodden race to its own cradle is a war aim which lifts the struggle in this region above the sordid level of Imperial competition.” (_The Nation._) “The British Government’s declaration in favour of Zionism is one of the best pieces of statesmanship that we can show in these latter days. Early in the war _The New Statesman_ published an article giving the main reasons why such a step should be taken, and nothing has occurred to change them. The special interest of the British Empire in Palestine is due to the proximity of the Suez Canal. The present has killed the idea that this vital artery ought to be used as a line of defence for Egypt, and there is a general return to the view of Napoleon (and indeed history long before his time) that Egypt must be defended in Palestine. To make Palestine once more prosperous and populous, with a population attached to the British Empire, there is only one hopeful way, and that is to effect a Zionist restoration under British auspices. On the other side of the account it is hard to conceive how anybody with the true instinct for nationality and the desire to see small nations emancipated can fail to be warmed by the prospect of emancipating this most ancient of oppressed nationalities.” (_The New Statesman._) “The forty-six Jewish colonies, with their co-operative societies, their agricultural schools, and their experimental station for agriculture, seem to have prospered before the war. Their wine and oranges were one-fourth of the total export trade of _Jaffa_, and while the war has set back their development the Turks are likely to have been less destructive than the Germans in France. Their labour――one of the chief difficulties foreseen by critics of Zionism――is partly Arab, but largely supplied by Jews from Russia, Roumania, and the Yemen. With sufficient capital――already furnished in part by Zionist organizations――the removal of the blight of Turkish rule, and the coming shortage of all food products, the economic future of a Jewish Palestine should be bright.” (_The Economist._)