Report to the ... Zionist Congress and to the Council of the Jewish Agency in ... · 1935-08-01 · 8.1935 · p. Seite 458

and to place its incidence on the long-term tenants of the land. Under the definition of the term " owner," as embodied in the Ordinance, the registered owner of any rural property was liable for the payment of the land tax even in cases where the land was held on a long-term or heritable leasehold by a settler whose tenure differed in no essential respect from that of a peasant proprietor. This, it was shown, was of particular concern to the Keren Kayemeth and the Pica. The Executive urged that it was not just to impose upon these companies the additional burden of liability for the payment of the taxes of their nominal tenants and of compelling them to act, as it were, as tax collectors on behalf of the fiscal authorities. As a result of a series of interviews with the heads of the Department concerned a compromise proposal was worked out which, while placing the initial liability on the long-term tenant, would retain the eventual liability of the land-owning company, to operate in case of any default of the tenant. Although the Ordinance has in the meantime been enacted with the definition of the term " owner " in its original form, negotiations on the change of the definition in the sense indicated are still being pursued with a hope of a successful conclusion. 6. In February 1935 a Damages Bill was published in the Palestine Gazette which provided that if any contract for the sale of immovable property contained a provision for the payment of damages or penalty, in the event of a breach of such contract the Courts should not be bound by such provision but should have full discretionary power to award such damages as appeared just to them having regard to all the circumstances of the case. The Executive of the Jewish Agency submitted urgent representations on this Bill, which was generally felt to involve serious consequences to Jewish land purchase in Palestine. It was pointed out that in the absence, under the existing law of Palestine, of the remedy of specific performance, the effect of the proposed Ordinance would be that no effective remedy at all would be available for ensuring the due execution of contracts for the sale of land. It was urged that the inevitable outcome of the measure would be to encourage the fraudulent evasion of contractual obligations in respect of the sale of land, and that the real sufferer would be not the land speculator but the genuine purchaser for cultivation and development. The Executive proposed that if Government were resolved to proceed with the measure it should be supplemented by the simultaneous introduction of the fundamental equity principle of specific performance into the law of Palestine. No further steps have been taken in the matter by the Government. 7. The Executive has negotiated with the Government Departments concerned on a number of propositions of lease or of grant of tracts of Government land for purposes of Jewish housing and development activities. Some of these efforts are nearing a success- 458