I'M THE EDITOR or THE " SPECTATOR.") SIS —I should
like to make a few remarks on the article on " The Situation in Palestine " in your issue of February 7bh. Owing to the deepness and narrowness of the gorge through which the Jordan runs, only a very limited area could be irrigated from that river, and the only railway touching the Jordan Valley is the Haifa-Deraa narrow gauge, which runs through Semakh.at the south end of the Sea of Galilee. The restoration of terrace cultivation would be a very slow job, as a very great number of the hillsides are now practically denuded of soil. Lieutenant-Colonel Patterson's proposal for the acquirement of the land is most unjust to the present occupiers, who have, at any rate, as much claim to it, sentimentally, as the Jews, but his ideas are not as impracticable as those given me by a well-known English Jew when I was in Palestine. He informed me that the Jews were not suited to manual agricultural labour, and that the Jews who settled in Palestine would buy the land from the inhabitants and then hire those inhabitants to work for them.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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