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Show SPIRIT OP PROGRESS TOUCHES HOLY 10 Syria's Military Governor Points Out Improvements Since War Began. Special Cable to The Tribune. BERLIN, Aug. 7. Palestine ia undergoing under-going a great transformation In the matter mat-ter of railway communication. Improved highways and better sanitary condition?. This Is evident from a letter to the Frankfurter Zeitung from its correpon- ! dent In Jaffa, the seaport of Jerusalem, 1 who has been interviewing DJemal Pasha, I the military governor of Syria. Tins work has all been undertaken since Turkey Tur-key went to war and is largely In preparation prepa-ration for extensive military operations against Egypt. Already, according to Djemal Pasha, the Suez canal has been mined and one ship sunk. "Immediately after my arrival in Syria." Sy-ria." said Djemal, who Is one of the leaders of the dominant "Young Turk" party, "my fiist work was to take measures mea-sures to Improve and extend the roads. Many battalions of workmen wre organized or-ganized for the purpose of building important im-portant new roads and putting into repair re-pair old ones that had become useless. Formerly you could not no further south in a carriage than Hebron, hut already I can ride in my automobile through Hebron and Beersheba out into the desert." des-ert." 'Here the correspondent remarks that he spent a whole day last year riding horseback from Hebron to Beersheba, where the distance can now be covered by automobile in one hour. "Within a short time." Djemal went on, "we have built over 100 kilometers of railway and have connected Jersua-lem Jersua-lem with the Hejaz railway (the road that runs south from Aleppo and Damascus, Da-mascus, over the plateau to the east of the Jordan, and on southward to Mecca). Mec-ca). You doubtless know how anxious the English were to prevent the building build-ing of this connection. They refused to give the French, their own allies, the right to carry this road through Ram-leh, Ram-leh, because they were determined under any and all circumstances to prevent a land connection with Syria aiH Anatolia Ana-tolia to Egypt. Now we want to carry these roads still further, and I hope that ' we shall eoon be able to transport our i troops by rail to the Suez canal. After jour troops enter Egypt, an event which I I confidently expect, these railways will he connected with the Egyptian system of roads." The correspondent thinks that this railway rail-way building will prove of epoch-making importance for the development of Palestine. Pal-estine. Djemal went on to show what the Turkish Turk-ish troops have already accomplished In preparing for the conquest of Egypt. "We have pushed forward our frontier, which formerly ran In a straight line from Tel-el -Raff a on the Mediterranean to Akaba (on the gulf of that name) up close to tiie Suez canal, and we arc trying by all possible means to open up this conquered territory. We have dug numerous wells there, which will supply sup-ply our troops with water, and we have taken all steps necessary to enable our troops to stay there and also to go forward. for-ward. This means altfo that we have opened up this wilderness for pettlernTit by a fixed population. As the English, In disregard of all existing treaties that guarantee the neutrality of the Surz canal, have built fortifications to the east of It and have thus drawn the canal into the sphere or hostilities, we were no longer able to regard the cannl as neutral territory. We therefore put mines at various places In It, and thpse have already caused the sinking of one ship." Sunltary conditions, said Djemal. -were satlsfnf tory, in spite of the mobilization mobiliza-tion of troops. The fleht against epidemic epi-demic dlsr.-tscs had been facilitated, he f-Fifd. by the Interna t mm I health office established fit Jerusalem some years ago ; by Nathan Stmus of New York and a j number of Herman philanthropists. ! |