ARAB STRIKERS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 110, 11 May 1936, Page 7

ARAB STRIKERS

DEMANDS IN PALESTINE JEWISH MIGRATION CESSATION ASKED NATIONAL GOVERNMENT WANTED [By Iclcgraph Press Association t.'.pyi.-hj JERUSALEM, May b. 1113 Arab committee announces that Arabs will ceasg to pay taxes ou May 15 unless Britain nxets cue demands for the stoppage oi JewiJa migration and. ths constitution of a national Government. Accoiding tu Julius Brunnthal in the Contemporary Review the embers oi Jewioli-Arab conflict have been smouldering ready to burst into flame should an economic crisis come to the land. Despite the fact Liat the country has become more prosperous because of Hie influx of Jewish capital and that Aia'n wagvs have risen to live times the standaid in' Egypt and twice the level in Syrl.., despite higher prices for Arab products bold in tne markets of the Jewish lowiG and the fact that the price of land has doubled, and despite iight'Ciiiitg of the taxes on the Arabs

and better health services, the con fli n remains. The .Arab nationalists resent the change of Palestine from an Arab to a Jewish laud. Twenty years ago the Jewish population of the country was not 1U per cent; to-uay it is JU per cent. In another decade, if immigration is uninterrupted, Jews will be half the total population, i uither, they have obtained possession of the best lanu, t'hey have taken the mineral wealth oi the Dean bea and thy water power of the Jordan for themselves, and have begun a process of social diil'crei.tialioii which rs resulting in change of the character of the country. Fo.eigii domination is resented, Arab poverty is preferred to Jewish prospeuty. The fellaheen are being driven from the soil and the number of the landless now runs into tens of thousands. Sir John Hope Simpson, estimates them at 29 per cent, of the- fellaheen class. Tnis phenomenon has followed on the westernisation of the country, the bringing of its products into competition with the otirer agricultural lands, a:id the ending of the policy of sellsufficiency, with the result that the Arab peasant sank into debt during the collapse of his wheat prices, anti debt in a country where the village money-lender charges 30 to 50 per cent, interest for three months meant loss of his possessions. The seriousness of the agricultural situation has Jed to increased tension between the races. FEAR OF TROUBLE TROOPS RUSHED FROM EGYI'T Received May 9, 9.30 am. CAIRO, May 8. Fearing further disorders by the Arab population, the British have rushed troops Ly au from Cairo to Palestine