Palestine’s economy has so far withstood unrest and political uncertainty, but continuation of these conditions may have serious effects, the Palestine Economic Corporation declares in its report for 1938, issued today.
“In the emergency of the last three years,” the report states, “Jewish Palestine has been purged of its dross, stripped of its economic fat. What was narrowly speculative or flagrantly unsound has to a large degree vanished. The steadiness with which Palestine has faced its long ordeal proves that what remains is generally well rooted in the needs of the country.
“A stable economic base has been provided for future contingencies — for resistance if it is necessary; for expansion when it becomes possible. But continued unrest and dislocation of the country’s normal economic processes may yet jeopardize the gains which have been won by so much labor and devotion. Modern Palestine is still too young to have built up the reserves which older and richer countries possess to tide them over long periods of economic stress.”
The report, for the first time in its 12 years, is largely pictorial. The growth of the Jewish homeland, its farms, industries and towns, is depicted in profuse illustration.
Despite the note of warning, the report is generally optimistic. It notes that even in these troubled times, 27,380 dunams of land were bought in 1938, 38 new settlements established, citrus fruit growers exported a record crop of 15,000,000 cases, industry has held its own and production of electric power has increased slightly. It is estimated that “economic activity has not been reduced by more than 10 to 20 per cent since the halcyon days of 1935.”
The “unexpected economic resiliency” is accounted for by (1) the “broader base of communal life” on which Jewish settlements rests, (2) “the investments of earlier years in the citrus industry are at last beginning to bear fruit” and (3) “labor is temporarily untilized in building strategic roads and defense works; and workers are employed in greater number in the Government security services.”
“Acting as a community,” the report finds, “the Jews have tapped their reserves of mutual self-help, of self-discipline, of cooperation — and they have not been found wanting. Their resistance under emergency conditions springs from a spiritual enthusiasm arising from the knowledge that they are working to translate an ideal into concrete terms — an ideal inseparably bound up with the territory in which they live.”
Regarding its own activities, the corporation reports current assets of more than $3,600,000, a total of 1,400 stockholders, an aggregate of $25,000,000 issued in loans, an operating surplus of$413,835 and continued payment of 2 per cent on its common stock. The corporation’s activities are devoted largely to aiding Palestine cooperatives societies, which now have a total membership of 250,000; assisting housing developments and city planning, providing water and investing in basic enterprises like Palestine Potash, Ltd., and Palestine Electric Corp., Ltd.
The P.E.C. is the outgrowth of a meeting held in 1920 under the leadership of ex-Justice Louis D. Brandeis and began its corporate existence in 1926 upon the merger of several interested groups. Julius Simon is president and Bernard Flexner is chairman of the board.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
