THE AIMS OF THE PALESTINE LAND DEVELOPMENT COMPANY
UNDER the pressure of necessity which weighs upon the Jews of Russia, Romania and Galicia, and the Bukovina, and inspired with: the idea of a new Jewish national life in Palestine, some thousands of Jews come annually from these countries to Palestine for the purpose of establishing homes there. As many hundreds of thousands of Jews stand ready in eastern Europe for emigration. Many of the immigrants, or of the would-be- immigrants, are in possession of slight or moderate means. Most of them are able and willing to work and are filled with a lively desire to settle on their own soil in Palestine and support themselves by agriculture.
How, then, does it come about that in spite of this great supply of Jews who are willing to labor and who are to some extent possessed of means, that the agricultural colonization of Palestine by Jews has made such slow progress? Extended observation in Palestine has shown that , to the following obstacles chiefly, is due the delay in colonization:
I. The difficulty of gaining possession of small plots of land.
Whereas the Jew who wishes to begin an agricultural life in Palestine requires an acreage of from 200 to 300 dunam, there can be obtained from the Arabian owners nothing but large tracts of several thousand dunams.
2. The complexity of Turkish land laws. It is impossible for the immigrant just arrived from Europe to accurately comprehend the complex legal questions that arise on the transference of a piece of land. He fears to lose his money and is often frightened away from purchasing, although in reality, the purchase of land in Palestine, complicated
and tedious as the process may be, is not a risky affair.
3. The bad cultivation of the soil. The ground hitherto worked by the Arabs with the primitive Arabian plow, must be prepared for (European methods of cultivation by a thorough working over for a number of years before it can be handed over to the colonists. Land, for example, now grown over with sisyphus grass, must be freed from the growth, large stones that make plowing with a European plow difficult, must be removed, and swampy places must be drained. Besides this single going over, there is necessary the establishment of roads and wells. All these works cannot be carried through by the individual farmer with his slight means.
4. The discomfort of individual settlement outside the Jewish colonies. As the land in immediate proximity to the Jewish colonies can often not be bought at all, or only at a very high price, the immigrant is obliged to buy his land at a certain distance from the Jewish colonies and to erect his house on this land. It is not everyone, however, who is willing to accept with his purchase the uncongenial conditions of such an isolated settlement (lack of intercourse, of education, of kosher meat, etc.). It is not everyone, that has tle courage to be the first to live outside the Jewish colonies in Arabian surroundings, and frequently in fact, the occupation of land far from the Jewish colonies can be recommended only when the land can be occupied by a considerable number of powerful individuals together who are able to inspire the Arabs with a wholesome respect of their ability to take care of themselves.
The obstacles thus far mentioned might