Report to the ... Zionist Congress and to the Council of the Jewish Agency in ... · 1935-08-01 · 8.1935 · p. Seite 451

includes the infiltration from Transjordan and the Sinai, but it may well be that the entrants from the two latter countries and from other territories should be taken as exclusive of that figure. The Jewish Agency has recently been informed of the energetic steps taken by the Government to prevent any further influx from across the land frontiers as well as gradually to deport the illicit Arab entrants found in the country. On the other hand, the Government is continually suggesting to this Executive not to exaggerate the gravity of the issue, since the work done in Palestine by these people is of a seasonal and therefore temporary character. Much as this Executive appreciates the measures adopted to protect the Palestine labour market and the standard of life of its labouring population from incursions of lowpaid labour from outside, it must express its doubts whether police measures alone can effectively solve the grave economic and social problem involved. Nor can this Executive accept the contention that these incursions are merely a seasonal feature, or that employment is but temporary. There is a close succession of seasonal works in this country, forming an almost continuous chain and creating a permanent volume of employment which in the long run makes it worth while for poor peasants from the neighbouring countries to settle in Palestine as wage earners. Moreover, it is by no means always the case that non-Palestinian Arabs are employed only on seasonal works. Hauranis are observed in large numbers in the employ of Arab planters of the effendi class and even as farm hands to whom Arab peasants entrust their field or plantations while they themselves earn a higher wage in the Jewish orange groves. They are counted by the thousand in each o£ the port towns of Jaffa and Haifa, in port work proper—for which labour is also imported from Egypt—as well as in building and transport throughout the town. They are fairly conspicuous in Jerusalem, are much in evidence throughout the zone of Jewish citriculture, and cases have been reported of their even being employed by Government contractors on public works. Information from the Hauran speaks of villages left with about one-tenth of their population and of women-folk following the men in their migration. It is obvious that we are witnessing a growing pressure of the poor population of the neighbouring countries, where development is either slow or nonexistent, upon the abundant resources of employment in Palestine. The quick pace of this country's progress is necessarily making of it a magnet for the poverty and drought-stricken peasantry and pastoral tribes living on its borders, and with time the draw must make itself felt at greater and yet greater distances. A danger is thus created that the development of Palestine may defeat its own purpose by sucking in people from north, east and south who would leave their own regions even more sparsely populated and therefore more backward than before, deprive the Arabs of Palestine of their legitimate chances of progress and restrict the scope of Jewish immigration. In the face of such prospects, while all possible police measures should be taken to resist this pressure, it is submitted that a more effective solution of the problem, which is also the only just solution, is to admit to the fullest possible extent of the country's absorptive capacity, working people of that race whose immigration into it is a matter of right and the main cause and purpose of its development. In its memorandum on the labour requirements of 12th March, 1935, the Executive again dwelt at some length on this subject, quoting the results of a census undertaken privately in February, 1935, by two independent enumerators at Haifa among the Haurani and Transjordanian labourers. The figures were as follows : 451