Besides these farm taxes, the people have suffered from a head tax of two dollars on every male member of the community from birth to death, from the salt tax, from taxes on imports, and on everything that a man eats, drinks, or wears.
Once freed from oppressive taxation and its farmers given a fair chance, there is no doubt that Palestine will produce many times what it has done under Turkish rule.
CHAPTER XXI
THE COLONIES AND THEIR DEVELOPMENT
Jews in the Holy Land are bringing to life again the Palestine of the past. They are proving that their ancient “land of milk and honey” can be made to bloom and prosper. Gathered together in colonies, they are introducing modern farming methods and showing what can be done under proper conditions.
The trim Jewish villages built by the colonists are a refreshing sight in contrast to the dirty Arab settlements and their more or less desolate surroundings. The energy and alertness of many of the settlers are also noticeable as compared with the natives who have been content for centuries to do no more than their fathers have done before them and in the same ways.
At first most of the Jews came to Palestine only for the sake of ending their days in the land of their fathers. They were a sort of resident pilgrims. Others came to get away from oppression and persecution. Gradually the success of the farm colonies attracted the attention of Jews all over the world, and regularly organized movements for planting Jewish settlements in the Holy Land sprang up. More and more colonists began to come because they wanted to get on the land and saw in Palestine chances of greater freedom and success in life than in the crowded streets and small shops of European cities. Colonies were set up under all sorts of schemes and plans, and while there have been some failures, many have been quite successful.
When groups of colonists first come out they frequently live in tents, and even before they build permanent houses set to work starting nurseries, planting trees, draining swamps, picking up stones, and otherwise preparing the land for cultivation. Millions and millions of stones have been picked up from the rock-strewn hillsides of Palestine, piled into baskets, and then carried off and laid up to form terraces to keep the soil from being washed away or to make walls like those so often seen on New England farms.
There is a tree here called the “Jews’ tree,” because the colonists have planted so many of them on their lands. This is the eucalyptus, first brought to Palestine by the Jewish settlers. As this tree absorbs a great deal of moisture it is a good one to plant in swampy land, and, as has been found in other countries, by helping to drain the marshes it is a factor in keeping down malaria. Besides giving shade in this land of glaring sun, it furnishes wood for orange boxes and may in time be grown to such an extent as to increase the scanty fuel supply.
Some of these farm colonies are in Galilee, some in Judea, and a very large one is not far from the seaport of Jaffa.