'A handbook of Syria (including Palestine). London: Naval Staff Intelligence Department, June 1919' [‎96r] (196/738)

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tively. In Hebron the Jewish community is not increasing,
in Safed and Tiberias it would appear to have been stationary
or decreasing for some years. The advance of the Jewish
population of Palestine has taken place in the new agricul
tural colonies (to the extent of 10,500) and in Jerusalem,
Jaffa, and Haifa. 1 The following table shows the increase in
the three towns last-named:
1839.
1875.
1881.
1891.
1904.
1914.
Jerusalem 5-7,000
13,000
13,920*
25,322*
41,000*
45,000
or 50,000
1880.
1895.
1905.
1910.
1914.
Jaffa
.
100
2,000*
5,500*
8,000
10,000
1892.
1895.
1908.
1914.
Haifa
. 450*
810
1,600*
3,000
Emigration
Syrian emigration is dated by some as far back as the
year 1860. In 1876 a missionary asserted that for the ten
preceding years the Syrian peasants had seen the fruits of
their labours taken away by organized robbers, whence all
who could get away left for Egypt and the large cities, so that
the country was getting depopulated. In that year certain
Syrian merchants are said to have ‘ discovered America ’ at
the centennial exhibition, and from that time there has been
a stream of emigration to Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, the
United States, the Pacific Islands, Singapore, Australia, New
Zealand, and the Transvaal. It was asserted by one well-
informed writer The lowest of the four classes into which East India Company civil servants were divided. A Writer’s duties originally consisted mostly of copying documents and book-keeping. that the emigration fever seized all classes ;
farmers, planters, mechanics, merchants, doctors, teachers,
preachers, young men and women, boys and girls, and even
old men and women were setting out in crowds for the El-
Dorado of the West. As a company of peasants would pay
high wages for an English-speaking boy or girl to go with
them as interpreter, there was a premium on the English 1
1 The figures of the following table marked * are taken from D. Trietsch,
Paldstina-Handbuch, 1912. He and others make the Jewish pre-war popu-
ation of Palestine (and of Jerusalem) much higher than is probable. Cf.
also p. 189.