The Dispossession of the Peasantry (ص 142)

غرض

عنوان

The Dispossession of the Peasantry (ص 142)

المحتوى

126
Arab agriculture. Although peasant indebtedness also existed in the Ottoman
period, there are quantitative and, more importantly, qualitative differences that
distinguish it from the Mandate period. These differences account for the major
factors that forced some small peasants to sell their lands or parts of it during the
Mandate period.
There are no figures for debt during the Ottoman period, but British official
reports acknowledge that before WWI “the sums involved were much smaller”*
than during the Mandate period.
However, the same reports point out that, “During the War [WWI] and for
a few years after it, prices were very high. The farmer as a rule seems to have
cleared off his debts and to have become comparatively prosperous, [and] his
standard of living improved accordingly.”*?
Before I discuss and analyze the major factors that account for the
development of debt after the WWI years, I present data on its magnitude. The
extent of the seriousness of the debt problem can best be illustrated by juxtaposing
the amount of average debt per family with that of its income. This is based on the
survey of 104 villages (“26 percent of the total Arab farming community, holding
10 percent of the total cultivable area”**) as prepared and reported by the
**Johnson-Crosbie Report, 42; also see Memoranda for Palestine Royal
Commission, Memo nos. 13, 14, and 15, 41-50, as reported in George Hakim,
“Monetary and Banking System,” in Himadeh, 497.
*3Johnson-Crosbie Report, 42.
“Survey I, 364.
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The Dispossession of the Peasantry

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المنشئ

Riyad Mousa

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