128
March 1930
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
«VU SÇ I O 0 5 - Recent Progress in Palestine B y R ev . A rthur W. P ayne
f v EFORE the recent riots in Palestine, the outlook j§^ for Zionism was never more rosy. Even so p*. sober a body as the National Geographic Society o f Washington, D. C., America, in a characteristic expression described Palestine as i a country “ on the make.” I ndustrial C onquest Since the spies of Joshua’s day went up to survey the Land of Promise, still more since the journey of Nehemiah to Jerusalem to survey that city, nothing has
pace. Indeed, from Dan in the north to Beersheba in the south, a little more than the length of Palestine, is a pleasant day’s motor tour. In 1928, sixty-three thousand tourists, mostly American, British and German, or of the Latin races, including Jews of course, came to Palestine. Ninety-two special trains were run for them. One million pounds sterling came into the Palestine Railway exchequer. We learn of the first all-Jewish city, after two thou sand years, in Tel-Aviv (The Hill of Spring) with forty to fifty thousand Hebrew inhabitants. “ It is the first He brew city since the destruction of the Temple.” Where
been more striking than the survey of the Holy Land, made recently by leading n o t a b l e s in Jewry. Progress is de scribed in such terms as, “ Today the Jordan River has been crossed again by the dam of a power project,” - referring to the Rutenberg Electric Lighting and P o w e r Supply Scheme w h i c h has engaged hundreds of Jewish young people. It is said “ crusaders from Europe once more in vade the land, fighting the mosquitoes which in fected sixty-four per cent of the new. settlers with malaria.” The medical w o r k d o n e by t h e Women’s Hebrew Ha- dassah movement, a n d
Richard the Lionhearted ruled in Haifa there is a Norman castle—at least it looks like a Norman castle—but it is an elec tric power house. Prog ress reaches even to the little town of Bethlehem, where a new hospital is under construction, and beautiful wide m o t o r roads have been opened on one side of the city. Industrial conquest in the Holy Land relies on a triple program already under way; the Haifa Harbor, t h e J o r d a n River and the Dead Sea salts. First, the five-mil- lion-dollar Haifa Har bor development w i l l give Palestine its only deep-water p o r t . Sec ondly, on the railroad
other Zionist organizations, is a great feature o f the return of the Jews to the land of their forefathers. The “ land of milk and honey” flows “with oranges and Port land cement.” There is a prospect of three million cases of oranges being exported this year, and the Nesher Cement Works, near Haifa, are working in shifts day and night, to meet the calls they are now getting. “ Nazareth is a town famous throughout Palestine as the home of a new water system,” and Jews are settling there after millenniums of absence through the fanaticism of the so- called Christians. “Within the walls of Jerusalem rises a new temple, a $2,000,000 museum of archeology presented by an American philanthropist.” Here again we are reminded that the time is come to favor and have mercy upon Zion. “ For thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favour the dust thereof. When Jehovah shall build up Zion, he shall appear in his glory” (Psalm 102:13, 14, 16). * Jehu chauffeurs drive furiously over the hills of Jez- reel—not to wreak vengeance on Jezebel, but to transport some of the fifty thousand tourists using the Bible as a guidebook. Motor cars on the modern Jezreel road make the chariot-speed record of the original Jehu (2 Kings 9:20 ), patron saint of taxi drivers, seem a mere snail’s
running inland from Haifa to the Jordan River, now come supplies for the hydro-electric development, the first in Asia Minor, it is declared, which will turn the one- hundred-sixty-five-foot drop between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea into seventy million kilowatt hours per year to light up Palestine. At present there is a market for only twenty million kilowatt hours, “ but wait and see,” say the Zionists. Thirdly, it has been estab lished that the salts of the Dead Sea contain potash in a form usable for world trade. The chemical extraction problem has been solved. The Jordan development will supply power. Extension of the Haifa Railroad will sup ply transportation from the thirteen-hundred-foot sub sea level at the Dead Sea to the new Haifa port, where all except the biggest liners can dock. Jewish capital and brains, and British aid move toward the goal. Lord Lytton is the appointed chairman, and a Scotchman and a Jew are the leading spirits. Surely a good business combination. T he S trife B etween A rab and J ew With regard to the strife between Arab and Jew, it is well to remember what the present British Prime Min ister, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, has declared: “ The Arab population do not, and cannot, use and develop the re-
Made with FlippingBook Online newsletter