Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1926-02-28
BY JOHN T.. BALDERSTON,
Special Correspondent of The Star and North
American Newspaper Alliance.


Special Correspondent of The Star and North
American Newspaper Alliance.
NO. III.
JERUSALEM, February 4-The flu
ture prosperity of Palestine will be
built on solid foundation of educa-
tional. agricultural and industrial
progress. During the past five years
investments and donations from
abroad amounting to $50 100000 have
come into this little country of less
than a million people, most of them
formerly living in abject poverty.
Such an outpouring of outside invest
ments cannot but benefit the native
population as well as the Jewish i'm
migrants, and to this fact, perhaps
more than any other. is due the amaz-
ing spectacle of a British administra-
ton that rules peacefully, with practi-
Cally no troops, state entirely sur
rounded by hostile tribes on two of its
frontiers, with a disseminated and
grumbline Egypt on the third.
Education, in a country which had
practically no schools in 1917, is be
coming universal. Financially the
Palestine state is all but self support
ing, and the currency, which is
Egyptian. rests on the gold standard.
There was one automobile in Palestine
in 1917; at the beginning of this year
there were 1000, and the number has
doubled within recent months. The
British have introduced tobacco grow
ing, prohibited by the Turks.
Before the war there were few
narrow gauge railways; there is now
main broad gauge line to Egypt
across the desert. the service on which
is efficient and prompt. with sleeping
' and dining cars. New roads serving
vii "a
have been constructed. Gambling and
lotteries have been abolished, branches
of the =. p. {. \. in larger towns are
active in curbing that cruelty to ami
mails which is 50 prevalent in the
East.
No BiIlboards in Sight.
one feature of the Palestine land.
scape deserves a paragraph to itself
There is not a billboard in the whole
place. BY law. advertisements are re,
stricted to public notice boards ana
railway stations.
The real problem here is aEriCul-
ture. Fears have been expressed
that Jewish immigrants would not
work on the land, even were 1t I'M
possible 70 absorb them in industry.
The government is awake to the dan
ger. Most Of Palestine is a ueeleSS
country: the department of agricul-
tllfe mas planted nearly I'VE ilIltl'l
timber and fruit trees during the past
three years.
About half of Palestine, comprising
5000 square miles. is suitable for ag-
riculture And of this only per
cent is owned at present by Jews.
Here is a passage from the report
issued last month by Sir Herbert
Samuel, the late high commissioner,
that gives a picture of how the land
IS being transformed. and how Jews
who formerly dwelt in ghettos are
bringing about that transformations
There are now about 100 Jewish
agricultural villages in Palestine, scat
tered from the Syrian frontier in the
north to the neighborhood of GAIA
in the south The principal groups
are in the Maritime Plain and in the
Valley of ESdraelon. fertile and well
,watered areas. There are several
in Upper and Lower Gallilee. but few
in Samaria, the hills of Judea or
south. Most of the existing colonies
are growing in population and new
ones are founded as land is purchased.
Valley Transformed.
THE most striking result in this
sphere that has been achieved dur
ing the last few years has been in
the Valley of Esdraelon. This is
belt of rich. deep soil which stretches
for 40 miles from the sea at the Bay
of Acre eastward down into the Jor-