all. And if we aspire to build a sound state, let us lay out the sound plan for it, instead of leaving circumstances to plan for us and to carry it out in our stead!
Have the responsible men thought in a practical way of the frightful danger of the day when this seepage into the capital is complete, when all of Lebanon comes to be in Beirut, when its lands lie waste, its trade stagnates, its industry is paralyzed, and its city — the only one — becomes dunghills where people pile up one on top of another, with no organization enforced over their lives, no law held in awe, and no chance for them to enjoy the least of human rights, which is to rise, in their living, above the level of the animal!
Have the responsible men thought of projects that address the greater design of this nation, so that Tripoli and Zahle and Sidon, for example, may flourish — and the villages too — and draw people and their interests to them, instead of the country shrinking and heaping up until the whole of it is in Beirut, and it becomes — not in blessing or in admiration, but in mockery and reproach — "the Republic of Beirut"...
The jury committee formed by the Ministry of National Education has handed down its verdict in the artistic competition for the masters of the art of drawing and painting in Lebanon. The first prize went to the two paintings submitted by Sheikh Cesar Gemayel and Mr. Moustafa Farroukh; the first depicts a Lebanese girl and the second the palace of Beiteddine, and each of the two received 600 liras. The second prize went to Messrs. Abd al-Wahhab Adada and Khalil al-Ashqar, whose paintings depict views of the mountains of Lebanon, and 400 liras were allotted to each of them.
At eight-thirty on Saturday, February 9, 1946, the members of the Torch delegation — Messrs. Hikmat Khidr, Salim Salam, Samir Naim, Adel Khalaf, Anis al-Daouk, and François Ghosn, led by the delegation's honorary president, Deputy Saeb Bey Salam — had the honor of being received by His Excellency the exalted President of the Lebanese Republic at his palace, bearing the Torch of Lebanon, a gift to His Majesty the exalted King of Egypt on his happy birthday. His Excellency the President of the Republic graciously kindled the flame of the torch at a ceremony attended by the ministers, the deputies, the members of the diplomatic corps, and men of the press, while a detachment of the Republican Guard, with the gendarmerie band, rendered the torch its salute. His Excellency delivered a speech in which he furnished the members of the mission with his precious counsel, and handed them a special letter to His Majesty King Farouk. Deputy Saeb Bey Salam replied with brief remarks, and Mr. Hikmat Khidr followed with a word in which he said that the delegation would prove worthy of the good opinion His Excellency and the country held of it. Present for the Egyptian side was the chargé d'affaires of the Egyptian Legation, the Honorable Hussein Karara Bey.
As the hour of nine drew near, the delegation took leave of His Excellency to depart; its members boarded an automobile over which fluttered the two flags, the Lebanese and the Egyptian, and set their course toward Palestine amid the cheers of the well-wishers and the vast crowds that had massed before the presidential palace to see the delegation off. The delegation's car was escorted by a number of motorcycles and by the chargé d'affaires of the
Egyptian Legation and some of his aides; and the delegation's honorary president would have it no other way than to be the last to bid farewell. When the delegation's car reached the Forest of Beirut, its members alighted and shook hands with their well-wishers one last time before leaving the country, then continued on to Jerusalem, arriving at six o'clock and putting up at the King David Hotel, where a great crowd of our Palestinian brothers hastened to meet them, headed by the Honorable consul of Lebanon, Mr. Abd al-Ghani Ayyad.
On the morning of the next day we left Jerusalem in the early morning, heading for Ismailia, and at noon we reached the post of Abu Uwayqila, where the commander of the post received us, offered us tea and coffee, and asked us to wait for the guard that the Honorable governor of the Canal had dispatched to escort us. Only a few minutes passed before Yuzbashi Muhammad Hasan Uthman, commander of the al-Arish military station, arrived and informed us that the guard would come shortly. And so we had scarcely finished our tea and coffee when two jeeps arrived carrying armed soldiers, who placed themselves at our disposal. We boarded the car and headed for Ismailia, reaching it at a quarter past four, in accordance with the agreed program. Waiting for us on the western bank of the Canal were Liwa Ibrahim al-Dasuqi Pasha, commander of the Canal zone; Deputy Dr. Suleiman Abd; the police inspector, Bikbashi Muhammad Farid Bey, and his assistant, Sagh Ibrahim al-Dib Bey,
and the members of the Egyptian University mission, Messrs. Muhammad Ahmad Bannuna, director of college affairs at Fuad University, Dr.