The Jewish Company is intended to be the receiver and administrator of
the non-transferable goods of the Jews.
Its methods of procedure can be easily imagined in the case of houses
and estates, but what methods will it adopt in the transfer of
businesses?
Here numberless processes may be found practicable, which cannot all
be enlarged on in this outline. But none of them will present any
great difficulties, for in each case the business proprietor, when he
voluntarily decides to emigrate, will settle with the Company's
officers in his district on the most advantageous form of
liquidation.
This will most easily be arranged in the case of small employers, in
whose trades the personal activity of the proprietor is of chief
importance, while goods and organization are a secondary
consideration. The Company will provide a certain field of operation
for the emigrant's personal activity, and will substitute a piece of
ground, with loan of machinery, for his goods. Jews are known to adapt
themselves with remarkable ease to any form of earning a livelihood,
and they will quickly learn to carry on a new industry. In this way a
number of small traders will become small landholders. The Company
will, in fact, be prepared to sustain what appears to be a loss in
taking over the non-transferable property of the poorest emigrants;
for it will thereby induce the free cultivation of tracts of land,
which raises the value of adjacent tracts.
In medium-sized businesses, where goods and organization equal, or
even exceed, in importance, the personal activity of the manager,
whose larger connection is also non-transferable, various forms of
liquidation are possible. Here comes an opportunity for that inner
migration of Christian citizens into positions evacuated by Jews. The
departing Jew will not lose his personal business credit, but will
carry it with him, and make good use of it in a new country to
establish himself. The Jewish Company will open a current bank account
for him. And he can sell the goodwill of his original business, or
hand it over to the control of managers under supervision of the
Company's officials. The managers may rent the business or buy it,
paying for it by instalments. But the Company acts temporarily as
curator for the emigrants, in superintending, through its officers and
lawyers, the administration of their affairs, and seeing to the proper
collection of all payments.
If a Jew cannot sell his business, or entrust it to a proxy or wish to
give up its personal management, he may stay where he is. The Jews who
stay will be none the worse off, for they will be relieved of the
competition of those who leave, and will no longer hear the
Anti-Semitic cry: "Don't buy from Jews!"
If the emigrating business proprietor wishes to carry on his old
business in the new country, he can make his arrangements for it from
the very commencement. An example will best illustrate my meaning. The
firm X carries on a large business in dry goods. The head of the firm
wishes to emigrate. He begins by setting up a branch establishment in
his future place of residence, and sending out samples of his stock.
The first poor settlers will be his first customers; these will be
followed by emigrants of a higher class, who require superior goods. X
then sends out newer goods, and eventually ships his newest. The
branch establishment begins to pay while the principal one is still in
existence, so that X ends by having two paying business-houses. He
sells his original business or hands it over to his Christian
representative to manage, and goes off to take charge of the new one.
Another and greater example: Y and Son are large coal-traders, with
mines and factories of their own. How is so huge and complex a
property to be liquidated? The mines and everything connected with
them might, in the first place, be bought up by the State, in which
they are situated. In the second place, the Jewish Company might take
them over, paying for them partly in land, partly in cash. A third
method might be the conversion of "Y and Son" into a limited company.
A fourth method might be the continued working of the business under
the original proprietors, who would return at intervals to inspect
their property, as foreigners, and as such, under the protection of
law in every civilized State. All these suggestions are carried out
daily. A fifth and excellent method, and one which might be
particularly profitable, I shall merely indicate, because the existing
examples of its working are at present few, however ready the modern
consciousness may be to adopt them. Y and Son might sell their
enterprise to the collective body of their employees, who would form a
cooperative society, with limited liability, and might perhaps pay the
requisite sum with the help of the State Treasury, which does not
charge high interest.
The employees would then gradually pay off the loan, which either the
Government or the Jewish Company, or even Y and Son, would have
advanced to them.
The Jewish Company will be prepared to conduct the transfer of the
smallest affairs equally with the largest. And whilst the Jews quietly
emigrate and establish their new homes, the Company acts as the great
controlling body, which organizes the departure, takes charge of
deserted possessions, guarantees the proper conduct of the movement
with its own visible and tangible property, and provides permanent
security for those who have already settled.