NEW HAIFA HARBOUR

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 33, 2 November 1933, Page 11

NEW HAIFA HARBOUR

Finest in the Levant FORMAL OPENING (British Official Wlreleßn.) Rugby, October 31. The magnificent new harbour at Haifa, the first to be constructed in Palestine since Herod built the port of Caesarea in honour of his Imperial patron, Augustus Caesar, was formally opened to-day. It transforms an unprotected roadstead into the finest harbour in t]ae Levant.

Under British rule Palestine has regained its pre-eminence as a tradipg centre, and as a highway joining Western Asia with Northern Africa. Palestine is actually one of the most prosperous countries in the world to-day, and Haifa is the nerve centre of itg commercial development.

The opening of the harbour, which has cost about £1,250,000, and which encloses an area of 400 acres, was today the occasion for an exchange of wireless messages between the High Commissioner, Sir Arthur Wauchope, and the Colonial Secretary, Sir Philip Cunliffe Lister. The High Commissioner expressed his belief that the harbour would result in increased prosperity to Palestine, whose rapidly-expand-ing trade it was primarily designed to serve. He also referred to the fact that it would not have been built had not the British Government guaranteed a loan raised by the Palestine Government to provide the necessary capital. The Colonial Secretary, after Congratulating the Harbour Works Department and the consulting engineers, Messrs. Rendel, Palmer, and Fritton, mentioned that during the four years Of the harbour’s construction Arabs and Jews had worked together and about 70 per cent, of its cost had been spent in Palestine itself.