Report to the ... Zionist Congress and to the Council of the Jewish Agency in ... · 1937-08-01 · 8.1937 · p. Seite 25

— 25 — tion of land for their colonisation in various parts of the country, especially in the Sharon plain, the Haifa district, Emek Yezreel and the Lake Tiberias vicinity. Middle-class and haluts settlers were to be settled in these localities. Lands were also purchased for establishing auxiliary farm-households for hired labourers in the plantation colonies, especially near Petah-Tikva, Ra'anana, Hedera and Gan Shomron, the latter established by the Central Bureau. The Water Company established by the Central Bureau, and known as the Palestine Water Supply Company, lent large sums of money for boring of wells at Meged, Gan Shomron, Ramot Hashavim and through the Keren Hayesod's own water company, Emek. The property of this water company, amounting to LP. 10,000, was later used in order to acquire shares in the new Mekßrot Water Company which is undertaking an extensive irrigation project in the Western Plain of Esdraelon. But the Repayments of the loans extended by the Palestine Water Supply Company will be utilized in future to furnish German Jewish settlers with water. The Rural and Suburban Settlement Company (Rassco) initiated during the period under review its first agricultural settlement. The land for this purpose consisted of 600 dunams near Herzlia and was intended for 40 settlers' families and 30 auxiliary farmhouseholds, and will be named Kfar Shmaryahu in memory of the late Shmaryahu Levin. The contracts with the settlers have already been concluded, and 36 settlers are already on the land. Rassco has also commenced the construction of 20 houses in Kiryat Bialik, in the Haifa Bay zone. Rassco is to carry out the settlement of middle-class German % Jewish newcomers under the supervision of the Central Bureau. The lands acquired by the Central Bureau through the Jewish National Fund will, therefore, be placed at Rassco's disposal for agricultural and suburban settlement. Rassco itself possesses areas of land at Yokneam, Afule and in Tel Aviv. The direct activities of the Central Bureau in the sphere of agricultural colonisation are of two categories : (A) Extension of existing middle-class settlements and support of new individual settlers; (B) colonisation of halutsim in existing labour settlements.