Promises Not Kept in Petach Tikvah, is Charge (J. T. A. Mail Service)
The Jerusalem Municipality has already spent the whole amount assigned for public works this year, Mr. Keith-Roach, the Deputy District Commissioner for Jerusalem, told a delegation of the Jerusalem Workers’ Council which interviewed him yesterday to urge that the Municipality should employ Jewish labor and that the Government should carry out public works to relieve unemployment.
The question of employing Jewish labor by the Municipality, Mr. Keith-Roach proceeded, can therefore be considered only after the beginning of the new budget year. With regard to Government public works, he said that he was awaiting the High Commissioner’s reply to the proposals submitted by him in this connection.
A labor delegation also interviewed Mr. Campbell, the District Commissioner for the Southern District, at Jaffa yesterday, asking that the Government should speed up the carrying out of the public works it had promised to undertake for the relief of unemployment.
Mr. Campbell told the delegation that he had instructed the District Engineer to do his best in this direction.
In spite of all the promises of the Agriculturists’ Committee of Petach Tikvah, only four Jewish workers are employed in the orange groves there leased by Arab merchants, while the number of Arab workers exceeds 700, it was stated at the meeting of the Petach Tikvah Workers’ Council.
The Council adopted a strongly worded resolution warning Palestine Jewry that it is impossible to tolerate the state of starvation in which the Jewish unemployed in Petach Tikvah are living and that they insist they are entitled to the work which is available locally.
A general meeting of the orange growers of Petach Tikvah held earlier in the week approved the attitude taken by the Agricultural Committee during the recent incidents in Petach Tikvah. The meeting approved the decision of the committee to encourage the introduction of Jewish labor in the collection of the oranges and assigned a sum of £300 to cover the difference between the cost of Jewish and Arab labor this season.
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