234 ^ Short History of the Middle East
his tenants. It is hardly necessary to point out that the blame for
this disastrous state of affairs rests not with the individual landlord
but with an age-old social system in which a sense of responsibility
for the well-being of the land and its workers did not develop. . . .
There can be no question whatever of the urgent necessity of
attempting to graft on to the system this sense of responsibility, for
history shows that if the problem of the absentee landlord is allowed
to drift, it is liable to be solved by an agrarian revolution. . . .
Throughout the Middle East the peasant-proprietor is in the grip
of the money-lender. Although they own their land, they have
not the means to improve it and "are no better off than the small
tenants of the large landlord who hold only an annual lease/1
Owing to the resultant lack of enterprise of the fellahin and the
primitiveness of thek equipment, in some countries a considerable
proportion of the land which is capable of cultivation by the most
modern methods is left uncultivated. It is estimated that in Egypt,
Palestine, and Transjordan over 70 per cent, of the cultivable land
is already utilized, while in the mountainous Lebanon the rate of
utilization is so high that the only outlet for an increasing popula-
tion has for some decades been emigration. On the other hand, in
Syria and Iraq there are vast areas cultivated centuries ago which
might once more be brought under crops by modern methods of
irrigation. It is estimated that in Iraq irrigated cultivation could be
extended to three and a half times its present area.2 While Egypt
and Lebanon are already seriously over-populated, and the rapid
natural increase in Palestine threatens over-population in another
generation, Syria and Iraq have only three and four million inhabi-
tants respectively, or considerably fewer than they supported in
antiquity; and an extension of irrigation would undoubtedly
permit a corresponding increase in their population.
'The whole area, with the exception of the Jews in Palestine, is
included in the groups of population which derive at least 70 per
cent, of the energy of their diet from cereals and roots. A consider-
able part of the population probably belongs to the group so
deriving 80 per cent, of its calories. That is to say, the area is in-
cluded among the worst-nourished parts of the world. It is poss-
ible to make certain broad statements which are true of populations
in general which fall into this category. Malnutrition is wide-
1 Keen, op. cit., 13 f.
2 Times, 25 June 1947.