The Jews have brought $225,000,000 into Palestine, declared Sigfried Hoofien, general manager of the Anglo-Palestine Company, and the first Zionist witness called by Sir Boyd Merriman to repel the Arab frontal attack, at the morning session of the Inquiry Commission today. Merriman quickly disposed of the events leading up to the riots so far as Hoofien, a temporary advisory member of the Zionist Executive, was concerned, and used the last half hour of the morning’s sitting to plunge into essential facts and figures.
The Arab counsel sneered at the statement by Hoofien that the Arab population had reaped great benefits from the Jewish immigration. Hoofien explained that Jews or no Jews after the World War. Palestine entered into a new stage of development and passed from extensive to intensive cultivation. Dislocation of parts of the population was inevitable, he claimed, where cultivation replaced grazing. Hoofien admitted that a peculiarity of the country was that the Jews who are bringing prosperity are instrumental in this temporary dislocation.
Hoofien pointed out that the Jews had brought $225,000,000 into the country, of which the Jewish National Fund had contributed $33,500,000. He declared that the Arabs had materially benefited, since much of this Jewish money had passed into the Arab economic system through the Jews paying for rural and urban lands, for goods, services and rent. As an example of what he meant, Hoofien said that the annual rent bill of the Jews of Haira to Arab landlords reached $275,000.
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