and of allowing them free transportation up to the Russian
border.

[Footnote 1: The tax levied on passports for travelling abroad amounting
to fifteen rubles ($7.50).]

2. THE JEWISH COLONIZATION ASSOCIATION AND COLLAPSE
OF THE ARGENTINIAN SCHEME

White's report was discussed by Baron Hirsch in conjunction with the
leading Jews of Western Europe. As a result, the decision was reached to
establish a society which should undertake on a large scale the
colonization of Argentina and other American territories with Russian
Jews. The society was founded in London in the autumn of 1891, under the
name of the Jewish Colonization Association (JCA), in the form of a
stock company, with a capital of fifty million francs which was almost
entirely subscribed by Baron Hirsch. White was dispatched to St.
Petersburg a second time to obtain permission for organizing the
emigration committees in Russia and to secure the necessary privileges
for the emigrants. The English delegate, who was familiar with the frame
of mind of the leading Government circles in Russia, unfolded before
them the far-reaching plans of Baron Hirsch. The Jewish Colonization
Association was to transplant 25,000 Jews to Argentina in the course of
1892 and henceforward to increase progressively the ratio of emigrants,
so that in the course of twenty-five years, 3,250,000 Jews would be
taken out of Russia.

This brilliant perspective of a Jewish exodus cheered the hearts of the
neo-Egyptian dignitaries. Their imagination caught fire. When the
question came up before the Committee of Ministers, the Minister of the
Navy, Chikhachev, proposed to pay the Jewish Colonization Association a
bonus of a few rubles for each emigrant and thus enable it to transfer
no less than 130,000 people during the very first year, so that the
contemplated number of 3,250,000 might be distributed evenly over
twenty-five years. A suggestion was also made to transplant the Jews
with their own money, i.e., to use the residue of the Jewish meat tax
for that purpose, but the suggestion was not considered feasible. The
official chronicler testifies that "the fascinating proposition of Baron
Hirsch appeared to the Russian Government hardly capable of
realization." Nevertheless, prompted by the hope that at least part of
the contemplated millions of Jews would leave Russia, the Government
sanctioned the establishment of a Central Committee of the Jewish
Colonization Association in St. Peters