"كتيّب سوريا (بما في ذلك فلسطين). لندن: إدارة استخبارات الأركان البحرية، يونيو ١٩١٩" [ظ‎‎٢‎٤‎٩] (٧٣٨/٥٠٣)

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492 SAMARIA (INCLUDING CARMEL)
the factories of Haifa more modern methods of production
have been introduced. The largest, owned by a Russian
Jewish Company, was producing in 1911 on an average about
200 tons of soap per annum, and the factory has since
been enlarged and its capacity doubled. In 1913 there
was also a factory under American direction, and a smaller
factory capable of producing 50 tons yearly, but the latter
appears to have been closed. The normal yearly output of
the soap-works of Nablus is 500-1,000 tons according to the
olive crop, and of those of Haifa, 300 tons. Vegetable fats
other than olive-oil now partly enter into the manufacture of
native soaps.
At Nablus there are a few presses for the extraction of oil
from sesame seed which, in Europe, is used in the manufacture
of margarine, but the bulk of the sesame crop is exported
as seed.
A small amount of cotton-ginning is done at Haifa. A large
factory for the manufacture of wine bottles was set up some
years ago at Tanturah, but it has been closed down for some
time. There is a large steam flour-mill at Jenin, and a small
German iron foundry at Haifa (1913). For the small industries
carried on in the Carmel area, see p. 509 f.
Trade
Though the port of Haifa is situated in Samaria, a large
part of the trade of this district, up to within recent years,
tended to gravitate to Jaffa, finding a ready outlet by com
paratively good roads centring on that port and favoured also
by the superior and more regular shipping facilities of Jaffa.
But, during the years just anterior to the outbreak of war,
the commercial development of Haifa was steady and con
tinuous ; the construction of the Haifa-Der‘a railway, opened
for traffic in 1906, made Haifa the natural port of the Hejaz
railway, and the town immediately showed signs of attracting
shipping as well as interior produce from Arabia and Damascus,
in consequence of which it gradually grew in importance at
the expence of ‘Akka and, to a certain extent, even of Beirut.