Summary
A Jewish Agency witness in the Peel Commission Report whose evidence on the definition of cultivable land is quoted and examined at length in Chapter IX (Report of the Palestine Royal Commission, PDF p.246-248 / printed p.235-237).
Details
- Hexter declined to give an estimate of the cultivable area, saying an estimate of his might err in other directions and that in development possibilities one must go from place to place to see what can be done — in the clean portion of the passage, “one must go from one place to another literally to see what can be done” (PDF p.246 / printed p.235; the copy garbles “convinced” and “that” earlier in the sentence, so the sentence as a whole is not quoted).
- He condemned the Palestine Government’s definition of “cultivable land” because its fiscal-survey figures were falsified by the desire to evade the tax, were compiled by surveyors unable to classify cultivability, and omitted fallow lands; his seven-point statement of what the Government estimate excludes is quoted at PDF p.247 / printed p.236.
- His own definition, given in full at para. 51, holds that cultivability is not an inherent attribute of land but is determined by the interaction of the land’s physical properties and the economic factors of production applied to it (PDF p.248 / printed p.237).
- He claimed the cultivable area could only be ascertained by a “detailed spot analysis” and regarded the matter as of primary importance, since on the estimate depended the admission of Jewish settlers and Hope Simpson’s no-margin conclusion rested on the Government definition (PDF p.247-248 / printed p.236-237).
- He realised his definition made determination “an extremely complicated process” and a time-consuming one (the copy garbles the joining words at this point), though he had also impressed on the Commission that in their search for land they had not time and could not wait (PDF p.248 / printed p.237; the copy garbles “have” in that sentence, so it is not quoted).
Related pages
Report of the Palestine Royal Commission, Cultivable land, Jewish Agency, Economic capacity