Joseph Chamberlain: Biography
Joseph Chamberlain
Born: July 8, 1836, London;
Died: July 2, 1914, London
Joseph Chamberlain was a British businessman and politician who initially was a member of the Liberal party before joining the Liberal Unionist and ultimately the Conservative party. Chamberlain was born in Camberwell, England, his father was a successful shoe manufacturer. He was raised in a liberal household and decided against going to university instead directly working for his father for a while before ultimately joining a family member’s screw-making business which was a great success earning him a fortune on which he retired.
He got involved in politics during this time where he was a social reformer. As Mayor of Birmingham, he passed educational reforms, improved living conditions, and brought utilities under the control of the city. He got elected as a Member of Parliament where he continued to be a social reformer. In 1895, he was made British Secretary of State for the Colonies. Chamberlain was a new type of Zionist. He wasn’t a Christian Zionist, who supported the establishment of Israel because of religious reasons; either because they wished a recreation of the Kingdom of Israel in the Bible or because the return of the Jewish people to Israel is a Biblical Prophecy preceding the Second Coming of Jesus Christ or Isa (AS). Nor was Chamberlain supportive of a Jewish state for humanitarian reasons, such as the antisemitism that Jews have suffered around the world, but especially in Europe.
In Chamberlain’s own country, Jews were immigrating en masse and he was a fervent supporter of the Aliens Act of 1905 which restricted immigration. While not explicitly saying that the act was restricting immigration for Eastern European Jews, that was its ultimate aim. Chamberlain’s main reason for restricting Jewish immigration was his fear that it would lower wages for working class Britons and would cause social problems.
The Zionism of Joseph Chamberlain was founded on his view that the British Empire was his most important concern. Zionism presented an enticing opportunity for the British Empire. Julian Amery, a biographer of Joseph Chamberlain wrote that a “Jewish Colony in Sinai might prove a useful instrument for extending British influence in Palestine proper when the time came for the inevitable Dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire.” One of the places that Joseph Chamberlain offered to Zionist leadership was Al Arish, a land in the Sinai. Arthur Balfour, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and author of the Balfour Declaration supported this plan as a Christian Zionist.
Though the Al Arish plan was rejected, Joseph Chamberlain came up with the Uganda Scheme which he presented to Theodor Herzl, who met with many leaders to support Zionist efforts in establishing a Jewish state such as Kaiser Wilhelm II and Sultan Abdul Hamid II. Chamberlain offered Herzl a Jewish home in British-controlled East Africa. He wrote that “If Dr. Herzl were at all inclined to transfer his efforts to East Africa; there would be no difficulty in finding land suitable for Jewish settlers.” Joseph Chamberlain had ulterior motives for the Uganda Scheme. He was a supporter of a railroad and believed that this railroad would be beneficial economically and politically as it would secure British interests against the Germans in the south. Chamberlain thus found the perfect solution to the issues he faced. Against a wave of Jewish immigration to the United Kingdom, he could divert them to East Africa where they could secure the British Empire’s influence against Germany and also produce amongst the Jewish settlers, many loyal British subjects, a win-win for Joseph Chamberlain. Herzl would present this plan to the Sixth Zionist Congress, proposing it as a temporary solution, but would ultimately be rejected at the Seventh Zionist Congress.
Sources:
The Zionist Project and the British Mandate in Palestine
