DEVELOPMENT OF ISRAEL

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26886, 12 November 1952, Page 12

DEVELOPMENT OF ISRAEL

Account By Visiting Tax Official

STUDY OF CITY FINANCE IN DUNEDIN

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON. November 10.

New Zealand was one of nine countries selected by the United Nations as an example of good municipal organisation, Mr Nathan Shmuely, of Israel, said today. Mr Shmuely is manager of the Taxes Collection Office of Ramatgan, a municipality about six miles from Tel Aviv. He arrived in Wellington by flying-boat from Sydney, and will spend four months in Dunedin, which has about the same population as Ramatgan, to study methods of municipal finance. The rapid increase in population in Israel had brought with it many problems, said Mr Shmuely. In 1948, there were only 600,000 people in the country, but now there were nearly 2,000,000. Towns and cities were mushrooming up where before there had been villages.

This inevitably meant that Israel was suffering from a lack of experienced local government officers, he said. Nine fellowships had been granted to the country by the United Nations, so that officials could study methods in other countries, and then pass on what they had learned to others.

The young State of Israel was flourishing, Mr Shmuely said. Much of the friction between Arab and Jew had disappeared. “Inside Israel there is no enmity" between the two races,” he said. “Ottyef Arab countries want to stir up trouble for their own ends.”

Arabs in Israel now had their own local councils to look after their affairs, said Mr Shmuely. There had been no exodus of Arabs from the country districts when the State was established. Those who had fled from the towns and cities now wanted to return.

Mr Shmuely, who speaks five languages, was born in Poland, but has lived m Israel for the last 28 years.