“... In many ways the moment appears to be a peculiarly favourable one for preparing to launch the scheme for providing ‘a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine’ in the sphere of the practical. The Zionist idea has passed through many changes, and may pass through many more.... Never until now have time and place and opportunity been in accord with the dream of returning and building up _Zion_. Mr. Balfour’s letter, read in the light of General Allenby’s march upon _Hebron_, may well sound like the long-postponed answer to the prayer of the exiled and persecuted race, ‘_Next year, O Lord, in Jerusalem!_’” (_Scotsman._) _The Dundee Advertiser_ also put itself in line with its contemporaries which commented on the Government’s pronouncement:―― “Palestine will, therefore, be a suitable field for immigration, and by tradition and inclination the Jews are the people to occupy it. Already before the war a number of colony settlements had been established, chiefly by Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, and without exception these settlements were thriving. One and all they were agricultural, and contradicted the prevailing belief that the Jew is bound to become a trader or an artisan, and will never undertake the tillage of the soil. The Jewish colonies were models of up-to-date agricultural enterprise, in which the best scientific knowledge of irrigation and dry-farming was applied. A very pleasing prospect is therefore opening up.... In the fulness of time a new page in the history of the Holy Land is being opened by Allenby’s army.” _The Irish Times_ expressed its views in the following passage:―― “These fortunate circumstances invest with especial significance the important declaration of British policy in Palestine which we printed yesterday... . In this endorsement of Zionist aspirations at a moment when Jerusalem can hear the distant thunder of British guns the Government has declared a policy of great and far-reaching importance. It is at last an attainable policy, and it is from every point of view a desirable policy. From the British point of view the defence of the Suez Canal can best be secured by the establishment in Palestine of a people attached to us, and the restoration of the Jews under British auspices can alone secure it in this way. From the European point of view it would be a great gain that the Jews should become, in the words of _The Jewish Chronicle_, ‘a nation, and not a hyphenation.’” A leading article in _The Western Daily Press_ ran in part as follows:――