to three-quarters of its inhabitants. On the other hand, there has been some accession in northern Syria of Armenian refugees, of whom some 40,000 are stated to have been drafted into the Aleppo vilayet. These may relieve the scarcity of labour which has hampered the textile industry of Aleppo. It is possible, too, that war conditions may to some extent break down the Mussulman prejudice against female labour. The mortality among beasts of draught and burden-a serious matter for both agriculture and trade-has been noted above, p. 68.
(b) Labour Conditions
According to a law of 1916, all labourers in factories having a capital of £T 100 or over, and workers enough to make 750 working days a year, must be Turkish subjects. Another recent enactment enables the State to demand labour at will. Four days' work annually (or a money payment in lieu of work) for road-making was previously incumbent on male subjects between the ages of 18 and 60.
As noted below (p. 99), peasant proprietorship has declined, and no small proportion of the fellahin are now insecure metayer tenants of large landholders. A certain number also work for a daily wage. In Palestine, for instance, on the land of the Jewish colonists, both Jews and Arabs find employment, commonly earning from one to two francs a day. This may be regarded as an average wage for agricultural labour. in the Lebanon, to take another example, during the olive-gathering season, 6 or 7 piastres are paid for men, and about half that amount for women and children; but lower rates are found elsewhere, and payment is sometimes made in kind at the rate of about 1/13 (7-8 per cent.) of the quantity gathered. In other industries also wages are low judged by European standards, grown men, unless specially skilled, seldom earning more than about two francs a
