Table 3: showing Palestinian Arab and Zionist/Jewish Per Capita Consumption of Textile in Palestine in Palestine before 1948 (Nakba), British Mandate: A Survey of Palestine: Volume II - Page 846. Chapter XIX: Food And Clothing : Section 4

CHAPTER XIX.

65. The above figures call, however, for two adjustments:(a) Palestine, as all Middle East countries, imported considerable quantities of second-hand clothing, mainly from the U.S.A. In the year 1938 imports of this clothing amounted to 211 tons, while exports under this item were 14 tons, leaving 107 tons for local consumption. This quantity is estimated to have consisted of about 150 tons of woollen clothing, the remainder having been shoes, etc. If we assume that these were consumed by the Arab population (who appear to have been the main buyers of second-band clothing) a further quota of about 0.158 kg. per capita has to be added to Arab consumption, bringing the per capita for woollen goods to 0.412 kg.

(b) Jewish immigrants before the war imported considerable quantities of wearing apparel and household textiles as immigrants' effects. Such immigrants consequently, for a certain period, do not appear, or appear only at a much reduced rate, as consumers of textile supplies available on the market. Although no data are available it is thought reasonable to assume that a pre-war immigrant, on the average, did not purchase textiles during the two years following his arrival in the country. Allowance has been made for this in the calculation by allocating the total Jewish consumption not to 410,000 but only to 371,000 Jewish residents, the population figure recorded in mid-year 1936.

On the basis of the above assumption we arrive at the following estimate of per capita consumption of textiles in Palestine :-

Table 3.

ARAB AND JEWISH PER CAPITA CONSUMPTION OF TEXTILES IN PALESTINE.

Products Per capita.
Arab Jewish
Kgs. % Kgs. %
Cotton goods 2.843 78.32 4.826 71.41
Woollen goods, new 0.254} 11.35 0.800 11.84
Woollen goods, second-hand 0.158
Silk and rayon goods 0.334 9.20 1.047 15.49
Linen goods etc. 0.041 1.13 0.085 1.26
Total 3.630 100% 6.758 100%

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