Report to the ... Zionist Congress and to the Council of the Jewish Agency in ... · 1935-08-01 · 8.1935 · p. Seite 298

first days in the country. Every immigrant under a Jewish Agency certificate costs the Immigration Offices about £2 in expenses at. the port, keep at the hostel, registration with the Kupat Holim (Sick Fund), and loan connected with his settling down at his place of work. Under the new polic}^ the Palestine Offices were instructed to collect from the immigrant these expenses, or at least part, in advance. Thanks to this, the Immigration Department covered nearly all its expenses by income from immigrants' payments and commission from the shipping companies without having to fall' back on the budget of the Keren Hayesod. Comparison of the budgets of recent years shows the results.. Table 17. Comparison of the Budgets of Immigration Department in Years 5691-5695. Allotted by Year. Expenditure. Income. Jewish Agency.. £P. Mils. £P. Mils. £P. Mils. 5691 ...... 29,054.900 17,803.674 11,261.136 5692 ...... 13,127.938 4,496.603 8,629.335 5693 ...... 22,466.178 2,630.276 19,835.892 5694 ...... 42,139.866 38,921.808 3,218.058 5695 (estimate) ... 57,000.000 52,000.000 In reading these figures one must take into account the increase in immigration and the number of persons coming in under Jewish Agency Certificates, in connection with whom most of the expenditure is incurred. The question of accommodation for the immigrants, now numbering tens of thousands, has become acute owing to the high rentals prevailing in the towns, in spite of all the building that is being done, and to the shortage of houses in the settlements. The question of the organisation of the various institutions of the Immigration Department in Palestine and abroad became more pronounced with the growth of immigration among all countries and in all classes. The administrative cuts made in these institutions a few years ago, when scores of officials with valuable experience in matters of immigration were dismissed, were now felt adversely with the advent of changes in immigration which demanded constant adjustment of the machinery of the institutions to their tasks; much work has been done during the past two years in the reorganisation of the immigration and Palestine Offices. More officials have been engaged and a policy of consolidated budgets has been adopted; nevertheless, the increase of staff is in no way proportionate to the present volume of work. In addition to the Palestine Offices at Warsaw, Bucharest, Czernowitz, Vienna, Trieste and Kovno, for which we have for a long time supplied the budgets, we have now become responsible 298