Resettlement of displaced Palestinian Arab cultivators before 1948 (Nakba), British Mandate: A Survey of Palestine: Volume I - Page 295. Section 8: Administrative Problems Regarding to State Holdings : (c)

CHAPTER VIII.

(c) The re-settlement of displaced Arab cultivators.

141. Sir John Hope Simpson, in chapter II of his Report of 1930, recommended that the development of the land could best be ensured by the appointment of a Development Commission invested with the necessary powers. As a result of this recommendation, Mr. Lewis French, C.I.E., C.B.E. was deputed by His Majesty's Government in 1931 to investigate and report on the problems pertaining to development and land settlement in Palestine.

142. Mr. French was appointed Director of Development with

the following duties :-

(i) To prepare a register of "landless Arabs".

(ii) To draw up a scheme for re-settling such Arabs.

(iii) To ascertain what State and other lands could be made available for close settlement by Jews with reference to the obligation imposed upon the Mandatory by Article 6 of the Mandate.

(iv) To report on the improvement and intensive development of land in the hills in order to secure to the fellaheen a better standard of living without, save in exceptional cases, having recourse to transfer.

(v) To report on the feasibility and advisability of providing credits for Arab cultivators and Jewish settlers, and, if so, the best methods of achieving this purpose.

(vi) To put forward proposals for draining, irrigating and otherwise reclaiming land not at present cultivated or cultivated only to a limited extent.

Mr. French presented a report in December, 1931, and a supplementary report in April, 1932.

143. The Arab Executive and the Jewish Agency were both invited to nominate one member each to assist Mr. French in an advisory capacity, but no progress was made with these appointments. Before Mr. French reached the country, the Arab Executive had made it plain that they would have nothing to do with the development scheme. They declined to enter into any discussions on the subject unless Government assented to their condition that such a scheme should not be has ed on the principles embodied in the letter addressed by the Prime Minister to Dr. Weizmann". The Jews, on their part, took no effective steps to appoint a representative.
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* Mr. J. Ramsay McDonald's letter of the 13th February, 1931.

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