Report to the ... Zionist Congress and to the Council of the Jewish Agency in ... · 1935-08-01 · 8.1935 · p. Seite 455

of 57,000—for the requirements of local Arab cultivators, and to bear the cost of the drainage and reclamation of this area. The area so set aside for Arab needs is considerably larger than that which the original concessionaires undertook to reserve for the same purpose under the terms of the Turkish concession. Originally negotiations proceeded on the assumption that Government would bear a share of the reclamation expenditure proportionate to the area set aside for the Arabs, but in the course of the deliberations other considerations entered and produced a change of plan. It appeared that in order to make the concession area habitable and cultivatable it might prove necessary to carry out extensive drainage operations in the region adjoining the concession area, from which the development of the latter would naturally benefit. The proposal, therefore, emerged that Government should undertake to defray the cost of draining the lands outside the concession area, while the Jewish concessionaire would cover the entire cost of the reclamation of the concession area proper. The question of the interdependence of the drainage works within and without the concession area is still the subject of enquiries, but it is understood that there are definite prospects of a substantial appropriation being made by the Government for the drainage of lands adjoining the concession area, as a result of which new tracts of land may become available for Jewish close settlement. 2. The last two years have witnessed an inordinate rise of land prices in Palestine, particularly in urban areas and in the citrus zone. Land speculation, with all its concomitant evils, has developed on an unprecedented scale. Although there was great activity in the land market, the net addition to Jewish land possessions was comparatively small. In 1933 an area of 37,000 dunams was acquired and in 1934, 62,000 dunams, exclusively of the Huleh. The average price per dunam of the registered transactions, which stood at £23 in the years 1931 and 1933, rose to £35 in 1933 and to £54 in 1934—a rise indicative not only of a general rise in the price level, but of growing predominance of transactions in urban plots. The relatively slow progress made in the acquisition of agricultural land for close settlement—as compared with the considerable increase of the Jewish population—was naturally a cause of grave concern to the Executive. It was realised that the haphazard purchase of small and scattered tracts at prices continuously driven up by land speculation could not keep pace with the growing requirements. The conclusion was reached that there was need for special arrangements to be made which would secure, with Government's sanction, larger areas of land in the outlying parts of the country for Jewish colonisation under conditions which would preclude the interference of the private speculator. Accordingly, the Executive represented to the Government on many occasions the vital necessity of broadening the land basis of the J.N.H. It urged the adoption of a policy aiming at the provision of land for Jewish close settlement, while safeguarding the re- 455