Summary
The cooperative movement Simpson surveys in Chapter VII of his 1930 report: 173 working societies, all of them Jewish, which he presents as the only means by which the indebted fellah can obtain cheaper credit, and whose extension to the Arab population, and admission of Arab members to Jewish societies, he urges (Palestine: Report on Immigration, Land Settlement and Development, lines 1879-1947).
Details
- Of 249 registered societies only 173 are known to be working: 39 agricultural, 52 credit, 27 industrial producers, 34 land purchase and building, 14 Kvotzoth and 7 miscellaneous. Data collected for 134 of them at end-May 1930, submitted by Harry Viteles of the Central Bank of Cooperative Institutions, give 33,436 members, £334,827 of owned capital, £711,445 in members’ deposits and savings, and £294,411 of indebtedness to banks and other creditors; the societies work largely on their members’ money (lines 1881-1911).
- The societies charge their members 10 to 13 per cent on loans and advances, which Simpson reads as an indication of the still higher rates charged by the moneylender and of the uselessness of the legal limit of 9 per cent; Viteles remarks that this interest is out of proportion to the earning capacity of the population, particularly the farmers (lines 1913-1917).
- The agricultural societies make the settler’s purchases, sell his products, insure his cattle and advance on his crops. The Pardess orange growers’ society shipped over 470,000 cases, about 40 per cent of the total orange crop of Jewish growers; 90 per cent of Palestine’s wine is manufactured and sold by a cooperative society; the Histadrut’s Hamashbir wholesale society and its Thnuva successors sold over £96,000 of milk, dairy, egg, poultry and vegetable produce in the year ending 30 September, and its Yakhin society had completed £49,000 of grove work by the close of 1929 (line 1919).
- There is no Arab cooperative society at work in Palestine, and no efforts have yet been made to popularise the idea among the Arab population, whose need Simpson calls desperately urgent. Against the view that the Arab will not cooperate he cites three fellahin near Wilhelma jointly hiring a tractor outfit and five cultivators near Ramleh pooling their teams for deep ploughing, and concludes: “There is nothing but cooperation that will save him from his present depression.” (lines 1927-1931)
- On existing debts, Simpson endorses Strickland’s memorandum: no loans at low interest to pay off old debts at once, but limitation of loans in the earlier years to agricultural and ordinary needs, a list of each member’s debts after three years, and special repayment loans to a few selected members in each year — the policy the Jewish credit societies also apply to a new member (lines 1933-1943).
- Simpson urges Jewish societies to encourage Arab membership, the Pardess society above all, since the price of oranges abroad is said to be based on the cases of least merit, and concludes that nothing is more fatal for the peace of Palestine than emphasis on the difference rather than the common interests of its two constituents (line 1947).
Related pages
Palestine: Report on Immigration, Land Settlement and Development, Histadrut, Lot viable