The District Commissioner has written to the Mayor of Tiberias registering a protest against a contract made by the municipality for selling water to the Elizabetha Haven of Rest from the Hot Springs. The protest is based on the law by virtue of which all mineral sources and water springs of the country belong to the Government.
The Municipal Council, in its reply, (Continued on Page 4)
contends that the exploitation of the Hot Springs has always been in the hands of the Tiberias municipality, which sold the waters to anyone it pleased. The Council says that the Government was aware of the contract into which it has entered, and since it did not protest at the time, it has no ground now to protest. The cancellation of the contract would, it adds, cause great inconvenience and is impossible.
Meanwhile, the Elizabetha Haven has started advertising the mineral waters from the famous thermal springs of Tiberias to the public of Palestine, Syria and Egypt. “Medical luminaries throughout the world,” the advertisement says, “have repeatedly affirmed that the waters of the Tiberias hot springs are, from a curative point of view, far superior to those of Carlsbad, Marienbad and the other celebrated spas.”
There was a dispute also between the Palestine Government and the Tiberias Municipality with regard to the ownership of the Tiberias hot springs in 1927. Lord Plumer ruled at that time that the springs are Government property and not the property of the Tiberias municipality.
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.
