While it controls Jewish immigration on the one hand owing to its plea of the satiation of economic absorption in the country and declares that there is widespread Arab unemployment, must on the other hand admit a grave shortage of labor. Such as the anomaly reported by “Davar” in connection with the position in Jaffa roadstead.
Tel Aviv and Jaffa merchants, both Arabs and Jews, have asked for an increase of workers as their present number in the port is insufficient to unload the boats. Authorities aver that additional labor is not available in spite of the fact that there are many Bedouins and Trans jordanians among this class of stevedore.
The customs authorities as a result are unable to fulfill the services in the port and twenty or more boats come in daily but connot be unloaded.Import figures total a million pounds a month, and exports are increasing Traffic at Jaffa port has reached a record and unprecedented peak.
Complaining of the inability or unwillingness by the government to take radical measure “Davar” points on that the provements and alterrations at hte port are far less constuctive than the situation demands. The excuse for refusal to build a jetty or subsidiary port at the mouth of the Yarkon river, near Tel Aviv, was that the authorities could remedy matters sufficiently at the port in Jaffa, but this has not beer done. According to experts, Jaffa can be given a modern port, which would be self-supporting from the point of constructional costs.
Jews and Arabs are complaining bitterly of the shortsighted policy adopted by the development of Tel Aviv and Jaffa.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
