Palestine Will Expand Like American Southwest, Szold Predicts at Hadassah Conference

The prediction that “Palestine and indeed the whole Near East is due to expand in the next generation in the way in which the American Southwest did within the last hundred years,” was made here today by Robert Szold, American Zionist leader who just returned from Palestine, during an address before more than 100 leader and members of the national board of Hadassah at the concluding session of their mid-winter conference.

Surveying the political, agricultural and industrial developments in Palestine, Mr. Szold reported that Palestine produced more than forty million dollars worth of goods on army order during the past year. “Palestine’s industries are now turning out millions of water and gasoline containers, ambulance bodies and government trucks for the armed forces,” he stated. “New plants have been set up to produce receptacles for storage batteries, bath tubs, heavy castings and small ships, while countless converting depots are turning coal-building locomotives to oil burners. An essential oil factory in the Haifa Bay district, according to an official report, is now acknowledged to be one of the most efficient plants of its kind anywhere in the world.”

Mr. Szold cautioned his listeners to remember, however, that Zionism is and must continue essentially to be a back-to-the-land movement,” though for the immediate future and in view of the imperative needs of masses of Jews who are now there and who will enter later, emphasis must necessarily be on industry and on its concomitants-trade, commerce and transportation.”