Political report of the Executive of the Jewish Agency submitted to the ... Zionist Congress and the ... session of the Council of the Jewish Agency · 1937-08-01 · 8.1937 · p. Seite 78

78 sistance to Jewish settlement, and has not been preceded by any enquiry as to the areas available for Jewish settlement. In the opinion of the Jewish Agency the measure is unlikely to benefit the Arab agricultural population. Arab agriculturists of all classes have not suffered but. on the contrary, benefited from the sale of their surplus land to the Jews. It is mainly in this way that they have been enabled to obtain the capital necessary for the improvement of their farms — a fact evident from the progress of Arab agriculture particularly in those q.reas where land had been acquired by Jews. The prohibition of the sale of "subsistence areas" (lots viables) must, in the submission of the Jewish Agency, deprive the Arab farming community, to a large extent, of its most important source of capital for development, and will tend to crystallise existing agricultural conditions, blocking the road to further progress. I would recall that as a result of the official Enquiry of 1931-32 only a small number of Arabs were found to have remained landless by reason of Jewish land purchase, and even of this small number only a small minority availed themselves of the opportunities for re-settlement offered by the Government. The Jewish Agency is not aware of any recent enquiry establishing a change in the situation since that time and can consequently see little justification in fact for the proposed restriction. For all these reasons I would venture to express the hope that the proposed measure may not be proceeded with. 8. As against the purely negative measure now contemplated I would beg leave to urge the adoption of a positive policy of development aiming at the reduction of the farming unit by the promotion of intensive methods of cultivation, and at the release of land for Jewish colonisation. The Jewish Agency would appreciate an opportunity of examining any Government lands still unallocated, with a view to applying for any areas suitable for Jewish settlement. I would point out that the State land so far allotted to Jewish bodies has consisted for the most part of marshes and sand dunes, and not of agricultural land. In the Covering Letter to the Memorandum presented by the Jewish Agency last year Your Excellency's helpful attitude in authorising the acquisition by the Palestine Land Development Company of the Huleh Concession was gratefully acknowledged. The concession was acquired at a very high price and the cost of drainage and reclamation of the whole area, including the portion set aside for the Arab cultivators, will have , to be borne entirely by the Jewish interests concerned. I would reiterate the hope that Government will make its contribution to the success of the scheme by undertaking the drainage and reclamation of the lands adjoining the concession area, and by facilitating Jewish close settlement in the whole of that region. The case of the Huleh concession, wnere Jie provision of land for Jewish settlement is bound up with the improve-