PROGRESS IN PALESTINE.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 29, Issue 18, 6 March 1917, Page 6

PROGRESS IN PALESTINE.

The march of modern progress In Asiatic as well as European Turkey is remarkable. To-day ancient Damascus, a city more typically Eastern than Beirut or Constantinople has its electric street car system. The local council of elders, whicl seems to be an amazingly modernspirited body of men, has made provision out of the city treasury tc light the public streets with 1000 art lamps. Even the grand mosque if now lit by electricity. The natives have taken very kindly to electricity, and it is owing to their appreciation of its benefits that electric companies have been granted concessions tc supply Beirut, Aleppo, and Smyrna Jerusalem has just obtained a neu town clock and a new fire engine. Fires are of rare occurrence, owing to tbe solid construction of the bouses and the absence of timber. A chamber of commerce has also been established in the Holy City. A concession for a railway from a point near Jaffa to historic Gaza and thence to the Egyptian frontier has been applied for by an Italian capitalist. Other lines contemplated are from Haifa to Jaffa along the coast, and from Jerusalem to Es Salt and the Hedjaz line. This would be of great importance in af fording access to the sea to districts as yet almost devoid of«means ol communication.

A great triumph has just been achieved in Constantinople , itself Under Abdul Hamid’s regime thi telephone was rigidly excluded from Turkish dominions on political grounds. The new Government has just accepted a scheme submitted bj an American-Brltlsh-French group for the establishment of a telephone service in the Turkish capital.— Londo» Letter.