British Mandate: A Survey of Palestine: Volume II - Page 718

CHAPTER XVI.

will indeed have been apparent from figures given above). Figures for the total Moslem population are not available but in a sample recently taken it was found that roughly half the males between 7 and 14 years of age were literate. The proportion was less than one tenth in the ages 40 to 70, while all over 70 were illiterate.

(e) SOCIAL WELFARE.

191. In common with other sections of the community, the Arabs have benefited by the measures of social welfare introduced during the period of the mandatory administration. Apart from those measures falling within the spheres of public health and education and dealt with generally above, measures concerning conditions of employment may be specifically mentioned legislation governs the payment of workmen's compensation, the employment of women and children and certain conditions of work. A Department of Labour was set np by Government in 1942.

Under the joint stimulus of Government encouragement and emulation of the far-reaching Jewish effort in the same fields, welfare services have been established by the Arab communities in fourteen towns. Their primary object is to combat the malnutrition existing among the poorer classes. In 1944, they arranged for the feeding of over 11,000 children.

(f) URBAN CONDITIONS.

192. The foregoing sections of this note have applied to both the urban and the rural sections of the Arab community. It is generally impracticable, having regard to the widely differing manner of life within the Arab urban population itself, to demonstrate the improvement which has taken place in their standards of living since the Occupation except by the method hitherto employed in this note, i.e. by reference to improvement in their environment. This has already been covered in perhaps the most important aspects; it remains to deal with the factors affecting, particularly, town-life.

193. There are few details of urban conditions in the early reports of this administration. Observations from "Lord Samuel's report of 1920/21 (op. cit.) are, however, revealing:

"A Town Planning Ordinance has been enacted in order to prevent the continuance of the chaotic methods of building new streets and quarters which had hitherto prevailed in Palestine ......... Jerusalem before the occupation had been wholly dependent for water upon rain-water stored in cisterns".

As is more fully explained in section 1 of chapter XVIII, town planning measures have continued and have been extended. There were 22 municipalities at the time of the Occupation in which local

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