○ THE KATTOWITZ CONFERENCE, 5644 = 1884 Illustration: _Leopold Pilichowski._ 1918 _Lieut.-Col. Sir_ MARK SYKES, _Bart._, _M.P._ SIR MARK SYKES, BART., M.P. (A TRIBUTE) A MOST tragic event took place on the 16th of February, 1919, when the world lost one of the most valiant champions of Zionism, namely Sir Mark Sykes, Bart., M.P. He fell like a hero in the thick of the fight; he was suddenly extinguished, as it were a torch in full blaze. He stood towering above the crowd of sceptics and grumblers, viewing the promised land as from Pisgah’s height, his clear eye fixed on Zion. He was at once a sage and a warrior, a knight in the service of the sacred spirit of the national idea without fear or reproach, whom nothing could overcome but the doom of sudden and premature death. Sir Mark Sykes was but forty years old, physically a giant, a picture of perfect manhood, full of youthful vigour, a soldier and a poet, a fervid patriot and a kindly and self-sacrificing friend of humanity. He was one of the born representatives of that tradition which for centuries has inseparably united the genius of Great Britain with the Zionist ideal of the Jewish people. In him appeared to be harmoniously united the soaring imagination of Byron, the deep mysticism of Thomas Moore, the religious zeal of Cardinal Manning and the statesmanly and wide outlook of Disraeli. The germs of Sykes’ Zionism lay latent in him in his earliest years. He was scarcely eight years old when his father took him for the first time to Jerusalem. He often related how when many years later he visited a certain spot in Palestine, an elderly Arab told him that years before an English gentleman had been there with a little boy, leaving behind him kindly memories. His father, a wealthy landowner in Yorkshire, was one of the principal churchbuilders in England of his time. He was a gentleman of the old style, a protector of the poor, fired with religious enthusiasm, who devoted untiring labour to the management of his family estate. Every foot of this extensive family estate with its churches and schools, its country houses and old and new farms and dwellings, with its great collections and its old and valuable library, bears the impress not only of marked diligence and refined taste, but also of an unusual sense of continuity and tradition. Long before the traveller from Hull reaches the estate, a high and slender tower strikes his eye. It is the monument that has been erected in memory of the grandfather, the old squire, an original character about whom Sir Mark was wont to tell so many amusing stories. Long after the introduction of railways he used to ride his steed to London, and on the way often used to stop, take the hammer from the navvies who were breaking road-metal, and perform their work for them for hours at a time. Now his statue is to be seen in a chapel-like recess crowned