The Seventh Dominion?

Englishmen were asking one another earnestly last week--as Englishmen will-- "Why should not Palestine become the Seventh Dominion of the British Crown?" Specifically this question was asked, in a large and lofty way, by several M. P.'s of each British party--Conservative, Liberal and Laborite--who assembled last week in London to found the Seventh Dominion League. Sat, as chairman of the meeting, Colonel Josiah Wedgewood, M. P. (Labor), flanked by Lieutenant-Commander Joseph Kenworthy, M. P. (a Liberal until 1926, now a Laborite), and by Lord Hartington, M. P. (Conservative), heir of the 9th Duke of Devonshire (Conservative), who fought for the Empire in Egypt, at the Dardanelles and in France.

To these three men of the sword, and to many of their Parliamentary colleagues, there is something almost of divine providence in the idea of turning Palestine -- which Great Britain holds under a mandate from the League of Nations -- into a Dominion.

Every soldier knows the strategic reasons why the Empire "must" keep Palestine, but the mission of the Seventh Dominion League will be to acquaint civilians with the business reasons. The best of these may be summed up in an arresting name -- Pinchas Rutenberg (see cut).

Addressing the House of Commons on July 4, 1922, the Rt. Hon. Winston Churchill profoundly said that "Pinchas Rutenberg's character may not be one which would in every respect compare with those of people who have been fortunate enough to live their lives in this well-ordered land [England]."

Pinchas Rutenberg, in short, is an ex-Russian, an ex-revolutionary, an ex-soldier of Tsar Nicholas II, the ex-Chief of Police of the Kerensky ex-government of Russia ; and furthermore is favorably known in England for having done his very best as Chief of Police to catch and hang Lenin and Trotsky.

Today Mr. Rutenberg is chairman of the Palestine Electric Corp. with a paid capital of $5,000,000. The British government and the General Electric Co. took care of $2,000,000, and $750,000 was invested by the Zionist organization. The German Electric Corp. offered to subscribe $750,000, but thought better of it when informed that the "P. E," (Palestine Electric Corp.) would purchase all its equipment in Britain.

At present the "P. E." has put a small army of engineers in Palestine, to build dams, erect power stations and thus filch electricity from the biblical River Jordan. Since Pinchas Rutenberg is first and foremost a Zionist, the "P. E." is keeping a careful motion picture record of the Jordan "before and after." In so far as possible the engineering staff is kept 100% Hebrew, but Arabs are used for pick and shovel work.

Though the "P. E." is in its infancy, Pinchas Rutenberg has already announced plans for a 50,000 acre irrigation system; and for a "P. E." finance corporation to start and develop enterprises dependent upon electric power. By the time Great Britain's mandate over Palestine expires, it is quite possible that Pinchas Rutenberg will have developed a vertical and horizontal trust so vast that the only way of adequately protecting the capital involved will be to create the Seventh Dominion. Certainly the degraded and impoverished natives of Palestine, who would be raised up to "Rutenberg prosperity" during such a process, might be expected to identify the hand of Pinchas Rutenberg with that of Providence.