The Dispossession of the Peasantry (ص 145)

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The Dispossession of the Peasantry (ص 145)

المحتوى

129
2939
bankrupt.
The Johnson-Crosbie committee concluded that “to provide the minimum
cost of living for a family,”
an owner-cultivator needs 75 dunums, and a tenant
130 dunums. Another estimate by the joint Palestine Survey Commission put the
minimum at 160 dunums with a “safer” minimum of 240 dunums*' for cereal dry
farming. For orange growing in the coastal areas, 10-20 dunums was sufficient for
both Arab and Jewish farmers. As Simpson points out, the variations in minimum
requirements reflect the quality of land, not only between irrigated and nonirrigated
lands, but also within the latter.** It should be added that the minimum land
required to support a family increases in response to lower prices.
The Johnson-Crosbie Report offers a rather simple explanation for the
indebtedness of the peasants after WWI: the fall in prices and the inability of the
peasants to act fast enough to “adjust [their] outlook or [their] standard of living to
meet the changed circumstances.”* There is no doubt that the fall in prices
played an important role in increasing the debt of the peasants after the war.
However, the increased indebtedness cannot only be sought in the fall in prices per
se, but more importantly, on the peasant’s increased dependence on and
**Hope-Simpson Report, 69.
“Johnson-Crosbie Report, 22.
“1 As reproduced in Hope-Simpson Report, 61.
“Hope-Simpson Report, 69.
“Johnson-Crosbie Report, 42.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

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The Dispossession of the Peasantry

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المنشئ

Riyad Mousa

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