SOCIAL REVOLUTION

Evening Star, Issue 26041, 4 March 1947, Page 8

SOCIAL REVOLUTION

NEW FARMING CLASS IN EGYPT SALE OF LAND TO PEASANTS Behind the announcement that Egypt will have a new middle class of agricultural small holders if a plan proposed by the Egyptian Finance Minister is carried out, lies an experiment new in the history of Egypt, states a Reuter despatch. , The Finance Minister, Maitre Abdul Rahman Bialy Bey, known as one of the country’s foremost • social reformers, proposes to sell 1,500,uUU acres of State-owned land to peasants on easy terms and to supply them ■with livestock and seeds at prices which will enable them to obtain a profitable return for their outlay. A new class of small, land owners thus would be established. Such .a ; class, he believes, would make for social stability and safeguard against the infiltration of “ destructive doctrines ’ into Egypt. . In a land as'socially backward as Egypt, this plan is regarded as almost revolutionary in that it tends to create a class that has never before existed in the Nile Valley. The maldistribution of wealth with its inherent sociological plagues has made of Egypt a land of paradoxes. Even the layman is struck by the contrast between the fabulous wealth in the Egyptian city and the conditions of dire want on its outskirts, on the . farms, and in the fields. He is struck * also by the fact that in a country considered a winter resort, drawing people from all over the world, the Egyptians themselves face a considerable health problem. • POPULATION EXPANDS. The sociologist has been wondering 1 how, in a country which is among those having the highest infant mor- * tality rate in the world—2oo per 1,000 —the population increases by roughly : one seventh every year. Fundamen- ‘ tally, the reasons for these- abnormal conditions lie in the soil of the country. Egypt’s total area is about 400,000 square miles’'of which only 3 per cent, support the population. The average density of the population therefore is around 1,100 persons a square mile, while in some districts it •caches 1,800 a square mile. Since Egypt draws its wealth from its rich “ black land,’’ land ownership is an important factor in the country’s standard of living. In 1940, there were, roughly, 2,500,000 landowners, who owned an average of 2.3 acres each. But most of the land is in fact owned by large landowners—and ac- ■ cording'to the same statistics, 5 per cent, of the total owners own over 35 per cent, of the total arable land. The fellah, who forms 60 per cent, of the employed population of the country, toiling on the land of these rich farmers, lives on a bare subsistence level, earning a few piastres (a piastre is the equivalent of roughly three cents a day) hardly enough to keep him and his large family alive. Malnutrition and its resultant problems, therefore are widespread. The diet is deficient and unbalanced. UPPER CLASS PROBLEM.

“ We cannot force education upon the fellah because owing to his poverty and physical debility he cannot be bothered with education. If, on the other hand, the standard of living is raised artificially, he is ignorant of the benefits of civilisation,” one sociologist stated.

“ The only solution lies in the hands of the upper class who, in their turn, constitute a fourth problem which, if conquered and. abolished, will abolish the threefold nightmare in the shortest time. It is nothing but their indifference, towards the poor classes which is responsible for this state of affairs.” He welcomed the Egyptian Finance Minisfer’s move, hoping it would usher in a new era of social improvernen' not only in Egypt but throughout the Middle East, where similar social conditions exist.