The Jewish Agency for Palestine advised the Evian refugee-A.D conference today in a memorandum to the participating governments that 240,000 families could be supported in Palestine by throwing open irrigable land in the Holy Land to cultivation.
“When 375,000 acres of irrigable land are brought under cultivation, they will support at least 60,000 farming families and 180,000 non-farming families,” the Jewish Agency said. “The possibilities can be further increased by extension of development work to the Negeb (undeveloped area in southern Palestine), and still further if Transjordan is in some way brought within the orbit of Palestine, either by extension of Jewish colonization to Transjordan, or by a population transfer on the lines of the Royal Commission’s recommendations.”
“The tempo of immigration depends on the restoration of normal conditions for an influx of employment and of capital,” the memorandum states. “An essential condition for a large Jewish immigration to Palestine or to any other country is that immigrants not be prevented from taking capital with them. The present German practice is an injustice to would-be emigrants and unfair to immigration countries.”
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