DAHR, LEBANON — CRIST 413 



ernment not lend money to the small farmer for his seasonal needs? 

 This it would seem is within the scope of an agricultural bank, and 

 such a bank exists in the Lebanon. But there have been instances in 

 which an individual with "background," as the local idiom has it, has 

 borrowed a thousand or fifteen hundred dollars with which to imjDrove 

 a specified piece of rocky land, on which the bank takes a mortgage, but 

 has squandered the money on something else or invested elsewhere, and 

 when the bank has pressed for payment, the land, of no intrinsic worth 

 and still unimproved, is turned over for the mortgage — a manipula- 

 tion more profitable to the entrepreneur than to the taxpayer. At the 

 same time a man who is "land poor" and who needs a little money to 

 hire seasonal help, or repair terrace walls, or buy seed, or to tide him 

 over a period of poor harvests, meets with endless red tape and 

 ultimate refusal. 



The farmer has not only poor soil to contend with, but he can never 

 count on the weather. There is generally a cold, rainy season in 

 winter followed by a hot, dry season in summer — a typically Medi- 

 terranean climate. But the rainfall will vary from a scant 27.18 

 inches one year (1950-51), to almost double that, 45.70 inches, the next 

 (1951-52). The hot, dry wind from the desert will scorch a crop of 

 wheat or lentils in a few days. Too much rain will tumble a substan- 

 tially built retaining wall. 



Another brake on agricultural activities — permanent, and man- 

 made — is the immemorial tax collector. It seems incredible, but even 

 farmland so poor as this pays taxes — ranging from 50 cents to a 

 dollar an acre, depending on the appraised value. The value can be 

 "lowered" if one knows the right people and procedure, but this pro- 

 viso excludes the landowners of Dahr. Taxes are still farmed out as 

 they were in Roman, Byzantine, and Turkish days. That is, the tax 

 collector pays a large sum to the Government for the privilege of col- 

 lecting taxes in a certain area, and then he collects whatever the traffic 

 will bear, everything above what he has paid to the treasury repre- 

 senting his profit in the transaction. The people of Dahr are lucky 

 that they do not have to pay a landlord into the bargain. The recently 

 enacted tax on incomes of over a thousand dollars a year will not 

 affect anyone at Dahr. 



INDUSTRY 



When the Dahr people were asked why they did not engage in 

 spinning and weaving, they replied that theirs was a poor village. 

 Wlien they were told that people in the small village of Beino did 

 engage in those household industries, the reply was, "O, but that is 

 a rich village." Thus cause and effect are confused. Instead of 

 realizing that industry brings wealth, they feel that the community 

 must be wealthy in order to have industry. Of course, to establish 



