profitable trade. An Ordinance, therefore, was promulgated (1921) prohibiting exportation local products-grain and olive oil”, your memorandum states on page four.
It has been repeatedly stated in public that the measures taken immediately after the war to restrict the exportation of food products had reconnection whatever with the Zionist movement or with land policy, but were dictated solely by shortage of food supplies and the danger of excessively high prices or even of famine. The exportation of olive oil was prohibited by the Military Authorities in August 1919, and the restriction was removed by the Civil Administration October, 1920. The exportation of wheat and barley was prohibited in September 1920, in consequence of the report of a Committee on food supplies, presided over by Sir Wyndham Deeded and including the District Governor of Jerusalem the Director of Customs, Director of Agricultural. Director of Commerce and Industry and the Deputy Treasurer. This prohibition was removed in April, 1921. Precisely similar measures were take at the same time in the neighboring countries of Syria and Egypt, where no question of Zionist policy could in any case arise. It is obvious that the allegation made is totally unfounded.
3.-“When the proprietor’s confidence in the safety of his property is shaken, he can have no other alternative than to sell it or exchange it for a safe one. The Palestine Administration in pursuance on this rule put into force (1921) a Turkish law that has never been enforced before, whereby a proprietor who fails to cultivate his land or part of in during three consecutive years, will lose his title to it.” It is stated that in consequence the land owners sold the land to Jews at a low price, your memorandum states on page four.
As a matter of fact, the Turkish law referred to has only once been put into operation by the Palestine Administration, in relation to a piece of land of 193 dunams which was needed for an aerodome in the neighborhood of Haifa and which belonged to a wealthy Syrian land owner to whom the considerations mentioned in the allegation can not apply. It is true that certain land-owners were reminded that the Turkish Law did not allow land to remain uncultivated indefinitely, but there had been no case in which persons so warned have subsequently sold land to Jews.
4.-Reference is made on page six to the statement in the Palestine Government’s report for 1923 that unemployment has increased and that the need for additional labor immigrants had been slight “Yet the flow of immigrants never ceased and so the whole country had to bear the burden”, the memorandum proceeds.
This is directly contrary to fact. Measures were taken to reduce to an absolute minimum the immigration laborers during the latter parts of 1923 Only 100 immigrants were admitted for the purposes of entering the labor market; the small number of other immigrants who came in were either members of the families or persons already in the country, or individuals possessing means of their own. In any case, no charge whatever was imposed upon the Palestine Budget.
5.-“Police force distribution was not based on local requirements for suppressing and preventing private crimes but rather on unusual, sudden requirements for suppressing or preventing inter communal political attacks, which distribution had greatly affected public security with regard to private crimes. For instance, the road between Jerusalem and Jericho, so much noted for its in security even since those very old days of the Bible, is left unguarded to the pleasure of highway.(Continued on Page. 4)
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.
