It is always at this time of the year, when the rainy season starts in Palestine, that certain sections of the country suffer from over-abundance of rain. Last year Tiberias was the chief victim. This year the deluge seems to have hurt especially the Sharon Valley, where the Jewish orange groves are located.
There is no doubt that if any relief work is to be started in the affected regions this work should be carried on by the government on its own funds. For the Palestine government now has a sufficient surplus to cope with the situation. The Yishuv as well as the Jews of the world will expect the Palestine government to restore the damaged territories to normalcy.
In connection with the disaster, which affects chieflly the Jewish orange belt, it is only natural to expect that the Palestine government will now give up its project to impose a larger tax on land used for growing oranges. This project, if not abolished, would prove to be more injurious to the Jewish citrus industry than the flood disaster.
The Palestine government has, for the last few years, foregone the collection of land taxes from the Arab fellaheen. The announcement that it intends to modify the existing land taxation scale by lowering it to a maximum of ten cents for each dunam of land used for agricultural purposes and by raising it to over four dollars on each dunam of land used for orange planting, shows that the Palestine government wishes to collect from the Jewish orange planters the sums it donates from time to time to the Arab fellaheen.
Should the proposal of the government to tax orange groves with four dollars per dunam be carried out, it would mean a severe setback for the entire citrus industry in Palestine. It would actually reduce the income of the orange planters by at least ten per cent. This measure should, therefore, be combatted, especially since the tariff barriers existing for the importation of Palestine oranges to British territories are already making it difficult for Palestine planters to compete with their products on the international market.
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.
