The Maccabaean

TO obtain the land necessary for Jewish colonization there are four ways open: (1) the occupation of land without an owner; (2) the acquisition of occupied land which is not registered; (3) the acquisition of State lands; (4) the acquisition of private lands.

RIESEN NED A NS EP So aan 1 De NE SER MALE ER TER In general, the whole soil of Palestine which the native population can cultivate is in somebody’s possession. The lands without an owner are only such as the population cannot cultivate at all. For example, the sand dunes which stretch in a broad belt along the coast from the Egyptian boundary to Haifa; the stony wilderness of Judea between Hebron and the Dead Sea, and great waste stretches to the south of Beersheba. The greater part of these waste lands are also dificult to put under cultivation even with the best technical methods, because the cost would be very great. A small part, however, of this land can be made profitable for certain forms of cultivation, notably for such trees as flourish on a sandy soil. It would be difhicult to estimate the whole area of ownerless land and the amount which can be profitably cultivated under present conditions. The total area of ownerless land in Palestine may amount to 5,000,000 dunam (1,250,000 acres) , and the amount which can be made to pay at no distant date, 5 per cent or 250,000 dunam. The Jewish colony, Richon-le-Zion, in the year 1916, with the consent of the Government, took possession of 30,000 dunam of sand dunes between the colony and the sea with a view to planting it with trees.

According to Turkish law, ownerless land becomes the property of the one who first cultivates it and notifies the Government. He receives a title to it. The figure of 250,000 dunam could be much increased if the land Iying across the Egyptian border as far as the Wady-el-Arish were added. In this district most of the land is without an owner, and much of it could be cultivated. Five or six years ago there were negotiations for the purchase of large tracts of land in the neighborhood of Raffa, and investigations showed that a good deal of this land was suitable for tree plantations. On this Egyptian border territory there are at least 250,000 dunam suitable for cultivation, so that the whole area of this kind of land available can be put at 500,000 dunam.

Into the category of occupied unregistered lands fall such lands as were before without an owner but to which private claims were made on the ground of alleged cultivation, although these claims have not been entered into the Land Book. Such lands are in a transition stage from ownerlessness to private property. In many cases the claimants have cultivated only a very small part of the land they claim. It is a common thing to find owners who, according to the Land Book, possess only a few hundred dunam, but in fact call themselves the owners of several thousand dunam. Strict enquiry would doubtless prove that most of these lands are still without an owner, and it should not be difiicult to come to an arrangement with the claimants.

Such lands are not of first class quality, but in general they are much better than the ownerless lands and are good for plantations—eucalyptus, olives, almonds—and in part for barley. There are great stretches of them near Beersheba, in the Jordan valley, in the mountains around Jerusalem and Hebron, in the dunes by the sea, and in the neighborhood of the wilderness. The district of Beersheba is particularly well adapted to Jewish colonization as soon as the danger from the nomads is removed by a strong gendar-

merie. One may estimate that in that district not less than 500,000 dunam of useable land are to be found. There are 300,000 dunam elsewhere, making a total of 800,000 dunam.

State lands in Palestine are such as once belonged to the Sultan Abdul Hamid, but on his deposition were handed over to the State. Along with other smaller tracts they include the following: (a) some estates in the neighborhood of Sedjed, Hebron, and Gaza—100,000 dunam; (b) the swampy tracts by Lake Huleh, which after being drained would make excellent land, 50,000; (c) lands in the Jordan valley near Beisan, mostly very good land, for the purchase of which Baron Edmond de Rothschild was negotiating with the Turkish Government in 1913, 600,000 dunam; (d) lands in the Jordan valley between the River Zerka, 400,000. Total, 1,150,000 dunam (280,000 acres).

nice Fe ne a a ee re es Hat aneke Diane? AR These lands could be obtained from the Government. Much of them is rented to Arabs who leave most of it uncultivated. It would be easy to allow the Arab tenants to retain suffhicient land for the maintenance of their families, and yet obtain a good deal for Jewish settlement. There are other State lands such as those belonging to the War Office, with an estimated area of 50,000 dunam of very good land. One way or another the total of State lands may be put at 1,400,000 dunam. If one-fourth is left for the present tenants and one-fourth for the State, 700,000 dunam would become available for Jewish colonization. Adding the 500,000 dunam of ownerless and mostly bad land, and the 800,000 dunam of unregistered and poor land, we have a total of 2.000.000 dunam or five hundred thousand acres.

As even a very modest program of Jewish colonization calls for 4,000,000 or 5,000,000 dunam in the first twenty years, and as much of the land we have considered is of poor quality and hardly suited to settlement by immigrants of little agricultural experience, it is clear that Jewish colonization must obtain possession of much land in private ownership. The soil of Palestine is for the most part held in great estates by landowners, most of whom are non-resident. Many of these landowners live outside the country. Practically all of them do nothing for the land except extract the maximum revenue with the minimum trouble of expenditure. The land is cultivated by fellahin tenants, many of whom were originally owners but were dispossessed by the processes familiar to Turkish misgovernment. In Judea, which is the region least burdened by great estates, 60 per cent of the land is owned in this way, and the proportion rises to as much as 85 per cent in the Hauran. Under proper cultivation the land can hold ten times the population it now supports, and it is therefore very easy to settle large numbers of Jews without dispossessing any of the cultivating peasantry. The fellahin, on the contrary, would gain very much in the process from the improvement of means of communication, sanitation, and marketing, and methods of cultivation, and not least of all the abolition of the rack-renting absentee landowner.

But the key to the whole problem is that the Jewish colonization should be able to obtain the great estates at a fair price. The effendis or big landowners have no sentimental interest in the land, they are prepared to sell it at the highest price to which speculation will drive it up. Between 1900 and 1914 the Jewish demand for land drove up the price from 20 francs to 40 francs a dunam, and the

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