Palestine Census Preparations Bring Up New Difficulties: Arabs Hold Up Formation of Advisory Committ

The formation of the Advisory Committee for the forthcoming Palestine census is being held up on account of the stand taken by the Arabs, who are insisting that the Arabs should have six representatives on the Committee, and the Jews only two. At first the Arabs had only asked for representation according to their numerical proportion in the population.

The Jews are not likely to accept the proportion suggested by the Arabs, although they attach much less importance to numerical representation than do the Arabs. The Jewish leaders are far more interested in securing an amnesty for illegal entrants and in avoiding tendencious questions which would vitiate the reliability of the census.

The Jews and Arabs will probably be asked to nominate their own representatives to co-operate with the official committee, which will include the heads of the Government Departments of Health, Land and Education.

Everything is being done to establish a united Jewish front in regard to the census, the Agudath Israel having been called in for consultation with the Executive of the Jewish Agency and the Vaad Leumi.

A thorny problem that is bound to arise in the preparation of the questionnaire for the census is understood to be the proposed inclusion of one or more questions relating to the landed state, or landlessness, of the population. Official circles are inclined to believe that the census might yield valuable information on the question of landlessness. A hint to this effect was given in connection with the White Paper.

Jewish circles regard any such question as coming under the head of queries with a political tendency. While not opposed to any full and fair enquiry being made to ascertain the actual number of landless Arabs, those displaced through land passing into Jewish possession and those who have never owned land, the Jewish leaders insist, however, that the census machinery is not calculated to produce answers on these question. A considerable difficulty is the fact that many of the Arabs do not themselves know what their rights are to the land they have or are cultivating.

The census committee will have to weigh the arguments in favour of a questionnaire which will give all possible information, and the Jewish objections that information supplied under certain conditions may only tend to mislead the public on a vital question which should be made the subject of a special investigation.