The Revolution of 1936-1939 in Palestine - Ghassan Kanafani

THE PEASANTS

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CHAPTER VIII. THE LAND PROBLem.

As stated elsewhere in this report the question of land, its ownership, occupation and colonization is, perhaps, one to which more than to any other matter importance is attached both by the Jews and the Arabs. Both in evidence which was submitted to us in Jerusalem and in the speeches which were addressed to us by the spokesmen of the many deputations which we received in every part of the country, the fears of the Arabs that the success of the Zionist policy meant their expropriation from the land were repeatedly emphasised. As an example of evidence of this character we would cite that at the Mayor of Nablus who told us that :-

" In the early days the Jew who came worked on his land and employed Arab labour. Since immigration commenced in large numbers these Jewish employers have turned away the Arab labourers and have employed Jewe in their place thereby throwing out of work a large number of Arabs. Great harm has been caused to the country by the sale to Jews of large estates - for instance the Sursock family in Beirut who owned large areas of land in Palestine and the Wadi el Hawereth - and this throws out of employment a large number of Arabs. I understand, as all Arabs understand, that the Zionist policy is to dispose of the Arabs in every possible way and to replace them with Jews."

There is no doubt that the fears so stated by the Mayor of Nablus are deeply seated in the Arab mind and from whatever angle it is examined the land problem is a serious one, of great complexity and difficulty. Before expressing any opinion as to whether the Arabs are or are not justified in their point of view, it is necessary to examine in some detail the sequence of events which has led up to the present position.

According to the estimates supplied to us by the Director of Lands, the area of cultivable land in Palestine is approximately eleven million dunoms* of which approximately nine hundred thousand dunoms are recorded in the land registers of the Palestine Government as being in Jewish ownership. The figure for the total area given to us by the Director of Lands does not include that part of the Jordan Valley north of Jericho andsouth of Nablus where there is practically no rainfall and no cultivation. The soil in this area has so far been unproductive. Nor does Mr. Stubbs' figure include the large area south of Beersheba, occupied by Beduin, where the rainfall is very slight. But, we are informed, his figure includes, with these exceptions, the whole cultivable land of Palestine wherever situate.

Other figures were supplied to us by Dr. Ruppin, a land expert who was deputed to give evidence before us on behalf of the Palestine Zionist Executive. According to Dr. Ruppin'a figures twelve and a half million dunoms of land in Palestine are cultivable and of this area 1,200,000 dunoms are in Jewish * A dunom is 1,000 square metres or approximately a quarter of an acre.

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ownership. It should, however, be noted that in Dr. Ruppin's calculations the dunom has been taken as having an area of 919 square metres. If his figure for the total cultivable area is reduced by 8 per cent in order to express it in the standard dunom of 1,000 square metres, the difference between it and the figure furnished by the Director of Lands to the Palestine Government is not material.

Jewish colonization is mainly concentrated in the Plain of Esdraelon and the coastal plain. We annex a map, kindly supplied to us by the Palestine Zionist Executive, which shows the distribution and size of the Jewish holdings. Inasmuch as the map distinguished between high and low ground it gives a rough indication of the geographical distribution of the fertile land in Palestine. Of the land purchased by the Jews, so Dr Ruppin informed us, relatively small areas not exceeding in all 10 per cent, were acquired from peasants. The other areas have been acquired from the owners of large estates most of whom live outside Palestine and, in consequence, leased their land or allowed it to be worked on various condition& of tenure. Most of the Jewish purchases from peasants occurred in the coastal zone while in the Plain of Esdraelon all land was bought from absentee landlords.

It is clear from documents to which we have been referred that soon after the institution of civil government in Palestine, the Administration became anxious lest the interests of tenants and occupiers should be prejudiced by the sales of large estates. That this is the case is shown by the following extract from the Minutes of the Advisory Council on the Land Transfer Ordinanees of 1920-1921 :-

" Third Editing. 7th December, 1920. DR. Sahib SALEM asked what measures were being taken te safeguard the rights of cultivators, etc., as he understood that in several villages cultivators had been expelled from their holdings. His Excellency quoted the following extract from the Land Transfer Ordinance, and the terms of reference to the land Commission, to illustrate the precautiona taken by the Government to prevent such expulsions:-

Extract from Land Transfer Ordinance - paragraph 6.

' The Governor shall also withhold his consent unless (from a proposed disposition) he is satisfied that in the case of agricultural land the tenant in occupation, if the property is leased, will retain sufficient land in the district or elsewhere for the maintenance of himself and his family. The Governor may refer to the High Commissioner any case in which he withholds his consent."

Extract from instructions to Land Commission.

" The Government of Palestine, while desirous to promote in every possible way the closer settlement of the country, is at the same time anxious that the interests of the present tenants and occupants of land, whether Government property or private property, should be properly protected. It will be necessary on the one hand to take steps to prevent the eviction of tenants by the landlords on a sale

MAP OF Tyre PALESTINE INDICATING DISTRIBUTION AND

115 of the land, and on the other to secure for those who have exercised customary rights of cultivation and grazing, without full legal title, a sufficient area for the maintenance of their families … 1,

The deliberations of the Advisory Council were followed in due course by the promulgation of an Ordinance, known as the Land Transfer Ordinance of 1921, from which the following sections are taken :-

"Secton 5 (1). Any person wishing to make a disposition of immovable property must first obtain the consent of the Government. Section 8 (1). The consent of the Government to a disposition shall be given by the Director of Lands to the Registrar of the District or Sub-dietrzet who shall be satisfied only that the transferor has title, provided that in the case of agricultural land which is leased, he shall also be satisfied that any tenant in occupation will retain sufficient land in the District or elsewhere for the maintenance of himself and his family."

The second of these sub-sections reproduces in a modified form a provision from an Ordinance passed in the previous year; it remained in force until the 31st of July, 1929, when it was repealed by the Protection of Cultivators Ordinance to which reference is made hereafter, The Ordinances of 1920 and 1921 were designed to avert the danger which appears now to be imminent, namely, that large numbers of Arab tenants and cultivators for whom no alternative land is available would be deprived of their holdings. These Ordinances failed to achieve the objects which those who framed them had in view and the Director of Lands offered the following explanation of their failure to do so. When asked as to the number of cases in which the provisions of Section 8 (1) of the 1921 Ordinance had been applied and sufficient land had been retained by tenants over whose heads an estate was being sold, he replied that he did not think that there was any case and that the Ordinance had in fact proved unworkable. This he explained in the following terms -

" A vendor would Dome along and make a contract for sale end purchase with the Jews. We would know nothing of this until 4, 5, or 6 months later when the transaction would come to the office. We than instructed the District Officer to report on the tenants. He would go out to the village and in some cases he would find that the whole population had already evacuated the village, They had taken certain sums of money and had gone, and we could not afford them any protection whatever. In other cases it was found that a large percentage of the population had already gone before the transaction came to us, and we could not find out who the tenants were, they had no written contracts, end we did not know what compensation they were getting and that was a main for the introduction of the Ordinance of 1929, so that we would be able to supervise their compensation to be settled by en organized body; a Board under the Ordinance. " The object of this Ordinance (i.e. the Ordinance of 1921) was to retain the cultivator on the land but he had gone immediately the contract of sale and purchase was made. He was getting a certain sum of money, and away he went, and when the transaction came to us we found no tenants in the village."

116At the beginning of 1927 Lord Plumer appointed a Committee under the Chairmanship of the Attorney-General and with the present Commissioner of Lands as one of its members to consider (1) whether legislation for the protection of tenants, from evictions would be effective and beneficial ; (2) if such legislation is considered effective and beneficial to report what form it should take. The following is an extract from the communiqué in which the Government brought to the notice of the people of Palestine the substance of the recommendations of this Commission:-

It has been generally recognized that the present law for the protection of agricultural tenants from eviction is inadequate. The Transfer of Land Ordinance, 1920, which was issued at the beginning of the Civil Administration, contains a provision designed to secure the protection of such tenants when land is transferred by the landlord. The provision, as amended in 1921, is to the effect that the consent of the Government to a disposition of agricultural land which is leased shall be given only after the Director of Lands is satisfied that any tenant in occupation will retain sufficient land in the district or elsewhere for the maintenance of himself and his family. In a number of the larger land transactions which have taken place an attempt has been made to give effect to this change, but experience has shown that where existing tenants of land which has been transferred are given a lease by the purchasers, they do not normally stay on the land, but dispose of their rights in a short period to the purchasers, and in most cases they have elected to contract out of their rights of receiving land in consideration of money compensation.

" Save where land is transferred by the landlord while the tenants are still in occupation, the tenants have no legal protection from eviction, however long they may have cultivated the land on which they are living. Written contracts of tenancy are rare and there is no customary provision as to notice of eviction.

" The Committee reoommended that legislation should be introduced on the lines of that in force in England and elsewhere:- [al To protect agricultural tenants from sudden eviction by requiring a due period of notice save in cases where the tenant fails to pay the rent or misuses the land, and (b) to secure the tenant compensation for improvements which he has carried out during his tenancy and which are not exhausted: (c) to secure further compensation for a tenant of long standing who is required by the landlord to leave his holding."

As a result of these recommendations there was enacted on the 31st of July last an Ordinance, entitled the Protection of Cultivators Ordinance, which repealed the provision in the Ordinance of 1921 whereby certain Government officials were required to satisfy themselves that tenants in occupation retain sufficient land for the maintenance of themselves and their families. The Ordinance of 1929 provided for the payment to certain classes of tenants of compensation for disturbance or for improvements on their receiving a valid notice to quit the holding of which they had been in occupation. It further provided for the constitution of Boards to decide disputes as to whether or not compensation for disturbance or compensation for

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improvement was payable and as to the amount of any such compensation. In the case of tenants who had cultivated their holdings for a period of five years and more the landlord who terminated the tenancy was required to pay as additional compensation a sum equal to the average annual rent paid by the tenant during the five years preceding the termination of the tenancy.

It is a matter of some surprise to us that so long a time was allowed to elapse before an effort was made to amend legislation which had proved to be ineffective for the purpose for which it was passed. The Ordinance of 1929 gives rights to a tenant who is dispossessed which are very different from the rights which, by the Ordinance of 1921, it was contemplated should be given to such persons. The new law does nothing to secure to those dispossessed "a sufficient area for the maintenance of their families." In other words it is unlikely that this law will have the effect of diminishing the numbers of those rendered landless or divorced from the soil in consequence of the purchase over their heads of the holdings on the cultivation of which they now rely for their subsistence.

It is necessary here to refer to two large sales of land which were brought to our notice on frequent occasions as illustrating the failure of the Palestine Government to prevent the creation of a large landless class. These sales of land were cited by the Arabs in support of their contention that the fears which they expressed were justified.

Between 1921 and 1925 various Jewish land organizations made large purchases by auction of areas in the Vale of Esdraelon. The area in question amounted to rather more than 200,000 dunoms. Twenty-two villages were included in the sales and the purchase price was £726.000. The lands in question were purchased from the Sursocks who, we were informed, are a large and wealthy family of Christian Arabs established in Beirut.

At the time of the sales the cultivators had no written agreement with the landlord to whom they paid annually one-fifth of the produce of the land. After the sales, the Arab cultivators, having received compensation, left all these villages with the exception of Mahloul. Those who remained in this village were given 2,000 dunoms of land by the Sursock family and were offered by the purchasers a further area of 3,000 dunoms on a six years' lease at a rent of six per cent, on the purchase price paid for that land with the option to purchase at the same price. Consent was in due course given by the Government to the purchases and the transfer was recorded in the Government registers. According to Dr. Ruppin, who, as we have already stated gave expert evidence on behalf of the Palestine Zionist Executive, the number of tenants who had to leave the land purchased by the Jewish organizations was between seven and eight hundred but, he added, nearly all of them remained in the same district and found other land which they could cultivate. According to Mr. Farah, who gave expert evidence on behalf of the Arab Executive, the total number of Arab families who were displaced in consequence of these transactions was about 1,746 and the number of families affected, on the basis of five per family, was about 8,730. Dr. Ruppin stated that these persons were moved to neighbouring villages of which he gave us a list but Mr. Farah told us that a large number emigrated to America, that others are employed for the time being as stone cutters and lime burners in connection with the construction of new buildings, but that they have no other occupation to which they can turn when these are completed. Others, Mr. Farah stated, are "scattered all over"; they cannot live there because "nothing was left to live on." He added that, so long as the villages were inhabited by Arab peasants, the Beduin, who through the winter months live in the hilly land around, were accustomed to come down after harvest and pasture their flocks on the lands which have now been scald. When the villages were transferred the Beduin, like the peasants, were "cut off." Dr. Ruppin stated that the Jewish land companies although not legally obliged to pay compensation to the tenants dispossessed in consequence of these sales, in fact paid more than £30,000 and that such compensation was paid in order to facilitate the acquisition of land or leases elsewhere by those who through the sales had to remove from the Esdraelon Valley.

We think that the Jewish companies are not open to any criticism in respect of these transactions. In paying compensation, as they undoubtedly did, to many of the cultivators of lands which they purchased in the Plain of Esdraelon, those companies were making a payment which at the time of the transactions the law of Palestine did not require. Moreover, they were acting with the knowledge of the Government.

The second case to which we will refer is the recent purchase of land known as the Wadi el Hawareth. We do so because the sale of this land was made the subject of many protests addressed to us during our stay in Palestine and because this transaction serves to illuatrate the extremely difficult position in which the Government of Palestine are liable to be placed. The lands in question which belonged to Arabs were mortgaged in 1822 to a French subject. Between 1882 and 1923 there were two transfers of the mortgage without the consent of the mortgagor. After litigation in the course of which the validity of the mortgage was disputed judgment was given in favour of the heirs of the mortgagee and an order for sale was duly made,

The area offered for sale was 30,820 dunoms and the Jewish National Fund purchased the property for £41,000. The land

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was registered in its name on the 27th of May, 1929; the persons occupying the lands which have been sold number about 1,200 and own between two and three thousand head of stock, About a third of the land is used for grazing purposes; among the crops grown on the remainuig areas are melons and the tithes paid in the year 1928 indicate that the crop was worth at least £7,000.

Among the persons now occupying the land are actual cultivators who received in August, 1928, notice to quit expiring on the 1st October, 1929. On the 30th of November, 1929, an order of eviction was made against a large proportion of the occupiers. At the time when we left Palestine we understood that the police had not executed the order of eviction and that the reason for their failure to do so was that they did not know of any locality to which they could move the present occupants and their flocks. We were informed that this action on the part of the police might at any time result in proceedings for contempt at the instance of the purchasers who are not disposed to abandon any of the rights which they possessed under the orders of the Courts or to postpone the enforcement of those rights. The purchasers have, however, offered to put approximately 5,000 dunoms of land in the Beisan area at the disposal of the occupiers for a period of three years on the condition that they are paid one-fifth of the produce of that land. We were informed that this land is irrigable but that the present occupants of the Wadi el Hawareth land know nothing of irrigation and that furthermore the Beisan lands contain no grazing area. When we left Palestine no state or other land had been discovered to which the persona to be evicted could be transferred.

If, by some fortunate circumstance, it were found possible to place a certain number of these people in villages adjacent to the lands which they now occupy, this remedy would not, we were informed, meet the needs of those among them who are graziers and for whom there is no other land in the district on which they could graze their flocks. Even if some suitable place could be found for the graziers and some other available land for the cultivators, it seems likely that the tribe will lose its identity as a tribe and become a scattered community.

These then are the instances which were put before us as justifying the state of extreme apprehension which was said to exist not only in the minds of those threatened with eviction but among occupiers of the soil in other parts of Palestine who fear lest the fate of those who live in the Wadi el Hawareth may also be theirs.

It is noteworthy that both the Sursock and the Wadi el Hawareth lands were the property of absentee landlords and in their absence were being cultivated by persona who paid as rent a percentage of the produce yielded by their holdings. The sale of lands over the heads of occupant tenants and the

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consequent dispossession of those tenants with or without compensation are not peculiar to Palestine but the position there is complicated by two factors which can seldom obtain elsewhere. In the first place the dispossessed tenant in Palestine is unlikely to be able to find alternative land to which he can remove. Secondly, in some cases, the cultivators who were or may be dispossessed have a strong moral claim to be allowed to continue in occupation of their present holding. Under the Turkish regime, especially in the latter half of the eighteenth century, persons of the peasant classes in some parts of the Ottoman Empire, including the territory now known as Palestine, found that by admitting the over-lordship of the Sultan or of some member of the Turkish aristocracy, they could obtain protection, against extortion and other material benefits which counterbalanced the tribute demanded by their over-lord as a return for his protection. Accordingly many peasant cultivators at that time either willingly entered into an arrangement of this character or, finding that it was imposed upon them, submitted to it. By these means persons of importance and position in the Ottoman Empire acquired the legal title to large tracts of land which for generations and to some cases for centuries had been in the undisturbed and undisputed occupation of peasants who, though by the new arrangement they surrendered their prescriptive rights over the land which they cultivated, had undoubtedly a strong moral claim to be allowed to continue in occupation of those lands.

Having discussed in detail the two land transactions of which frequent mention was made in the course of our enquiry, we will now proceed to set out the salient facts, as they appeared in evidence given before us, of the land problem in Palestine.

Excluding the Beduin who occupy the desert area to the southeast of Palestine, the Arab rural population of that country is approximately 460,000. Taking an average of five persona per family there are, therefore, 92,000 families in Palestine dependent upon the soil for their subsistence. The available land in non-Jewish ownership, including State domain which falls under that description, is approximately 10,100,000 dunoms or an average of 109 dunoms per family. Now the area of land required to support the average family must vary with the fertility of the soil. From evidence given before us it would appear that where the land is used for the purpose of growing cereals the area which will Provide a living for an Arab family varies from 100 to 150 dunoms. No other figures were put forward from the Arab side, but Dr. Ruppin informed us that "the average area of a Jewish colonist in the old wheat growing colonies in Lower Galilee is 250 dunoms, in the Zionist settlement in the Plain of Esdraelon with dairy farming it is 100 dunoms, and in the coastal plain, where orange growing is the principal occupation, it is from ten to twenty dunoms."

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From the figures given by the experts who were appointed by the Joint Palestine Survey Commission and who visited Palestine in 1928, it would seem that the average Jewish holding of land in the Zionist colonies is today 180 dunoms. These gentlemen found that few of the Jewish colonists were able to make a satisfactory living on their present holding. The experts were of opinion that in many distriets the area of the average holding should be increased and we gather from their reports that, in their view, the area required varies from 160 dunoms per family in good soil suitable for dairy farming to 320 dunoms in the less productive of the cereal growing districts.

Be that as it may, the position seems to be that, taking Palestine as a whole, the country cannot support a larger agricultural population than it at present carries unless methods of farming undergo a radical change. It is no doubt true that the effects of agricultural research, capital expenditure, and credit facilities offer in certain districts considerable opportunities for more intensive methods of cultivation and that ultimately it may be possible for the land of Palestine to support a larger agricultural population. We were told that experiments had shown that in the Valley of Esdraelon the introduction of more intensive methods depends largely upon the presence of water in much larger quantities than have so far been found available. For the present at all events it must be assumed that this part of the country is at least as closely populated as its productivity warrants.

In the coastal plain the prospects of intensive cultivation are much better. We were informed by Dr. Ituppin that " the productivity of one dunom of land under irrigation is estimated in Palestine as five times that of ururrigated land; in the coastal zone alone out of an area of 1,175,000 dunoms of light irrigable soil not more than 100,000 alumnus are actually under irrigation."

It is, however, doubtful whether water is available for irrigating a large portion of the coastal plain. That the presence of water in sufficient quantities, and not the amount of land available, is the condition which limits the possibilities of intensive cultivation in this area is clearly stated by flue of the experts who reported to the Joint Palestine Survey Commission.

We propose to refer to other aspects of the problem of introducing a system of more intensive cultivation in the coastal plain but before doing so we would cite the evidence of Mr. Smilansky as showing the benefits which such a system, if practicable, might bring.

Mr. Smilansky told us that Rehovoth, which to-day supports a population of 2,500 persons, was 88 years ago a waste area occupied by about a dozen Arabs. This extraordinary improvement has been effected by the introduction of machinery for

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providing an ample water supply and by utilizing water so obtained for the growing of various kinds of fruit. There can be little doubt that, given capital, initiative, and an adequate water supply, developments of a similar character can be effected elsewhere in the coastal plain.

On the other hand it may be doubted whether it is possible, even if it would be wise, to introduce the moat intensive form of cultivation - namely, the growing of fruit and of market garden produce - over large areas unless this were done gradually and with regard to local requirements for the perishable produce and world requirements for the varieties of fruit which it was intended to grow. Up to the present the demand for the Jaffa orange and for other fruits grown in the coastal plain has kept pace with the supply, but the conversion of large tracts of land in that area to fruit plantations might lead to difficulties, if not to economic disaster, if the change were too suddenly introduced.

It must also be remembered that any form of intensive cultivation, wherever it may be adopted, requires capital expenditure to an amount which no ordinary cultivator can afford. In particular this is true of orange growing which, in addition to requiring a large initial outlay of capital, does not yield any return for some years after the planting of the trees. The cultivator must be assured of some means of support while he is waiting for the orange trees to mature and to bear fruit. It is, therefore, a matter for consideration whether the Government should not provide for the needs of the poorer people in this respect either by granting them loans or by reviving the Agricultural Bank or by some other means through which the peasant cultivator can be enabled to borrow money at a reasonable rate of interest for the development of his property. This is a problem which should be examined by the local Government; we would only remark that, since the object in view would be the improvement of methods of cultivation, some safeguard should be employed to ensure that loans made by the Government or through a bank are used expressly for such purposes. The reconstitution of the Agncultural Bank would have the further advantage that it would in some measure remove a grievance which was put forward. to us by the Arabs during our enquiry.

A third consideration is that even if intensive cultivation-whether for horticultural or agricultural purposes-is possible in the coastal plain it is important that the changes which it involves should be so introduced as to avoid the disturbance and disposseasion of the present agriculturalists unless, of course, alternative land elsewhere can be found for them. Perhaps the most striking feature of Mr. Smilanaky's evidence was his account of the way in which, through living in the midst of the Jewish newcomers to whom they had sold a part of their land, the Arabs of the district around Rehoviith learned to improve

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their methods of cultivation, succeeded in freeing themselves from debt and to-daq, by comparison with their former state, enjoy prosperity and a high standard of living. To those who in future may introduce intensive cultivation in the other parts of the Plain of Sharon we would commend a system of agricultwat co-operation with their Arab neighbours similar to that followed by Mr. Smilansky and his fellow-settlers in pre-war days. The advantages of such a system and the importance of providing alternative land are readily recognized by some Jewish leaders, such as Mr. Butenberg, who gave evidence in camera on this point.

A fourth and last, but most important, point is that, even with improved methods and intensive cultivation, the Government of Palestine, in deciding the rate at which newcomers are to be admitted to agriculture, should have regard to the certain natural increase of the present rural population. The British Administration has brought improved sanitary conditions and with them a lower death rate. The net excess of births over death's may be expected within the next thirty years to increase the population of the country by some 300,000 people of whom, in the absence of staple industries, most must look to the land to provide them with a living.

Having thus set out the four considerations which, in our view, must be taken into account, we would record the opinion that the possibility of intensive cultivation in-the coastal plain, and perhaps in other parts of Palestine, should be carefully investigated by the Government of that country or by experts appointed by the Government. If this survey be sufficiently comprehensive the field of possible development in the immediate future would be covered and for a period of years at least land policy could. be regulated in the light of facts ascertained by scientific investigation.

Any complete survey of the whole country must take a very considerable time. In the meantime the Palestine Government are confronted with the prospect of repetitions of the situation now existing at Wadi el Hawareth and of further calls upon the police to carry out evictions of large bodies of cultivators with no alternative land to which they can be moved or upon which they can settle. In the past, persons dispossessed have in many cases been absorbed in the neighbouring villages; we were, however, told that this process, though it may have been possible four or five years ago, is no longer possible to-day; the point of absorption has been reached. The plain facts of the case are, so we are advised, that there is no further land available which can be occupied by new immigrants without displacing the present population.

We are only concerned with the land problem in so far as an examination of it was necessary to enable us to estimate the

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extent to which the difficulties involved in it were either a contributory cause to the recent disturbances or are likely to be a cause of disturbances In the future. But for this purpose such an examination was clearly essential. We think that there can be no doubt that a continuation, or still more an acceleration, of a process which results in the creation of a large discontented and landless class is fraoght with serious danger to the country. If it be accepted that the conversion of large sections of those who are now cultivators of the soil into a landless class be as we think, not only undesirable in itself, but also a potential source of disturbance, it is clear that further protection of the position of the present cultivators and some restriction on the alienation of land are inevitable. The Protection of Cultivators Ordinance of 1929 does nothing to check the tendency to which we have referred, The mere provision of compensation in money may even encourage it. Whether the object in view can best be achieved by some adaptation of the Ordinance of 1921 or by the introduction in Palestine of legislation based upon the " Five Feddan Law " in force in Egypt or by restriction on the transfer of land now in Arab hands to others than Arabia or by some other means is a question which can only be decided after full examinartion and consideration by the advisers of the Palestine Government In view of the obligation placed upon the Mandatory by Article 6 of the Mandate to " encourage close settlement by Jews on the land " on the one hand and on the other to ensure " that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudices " the solution of the land problem is obviously a difficult and delicate task, but some solution is essential in the interests of the whole population irrespective of creed and, unless one be finind to deal with the situation that we have described, the question will remain a constant source of present discontent and s potential cause of future disturbance.