A Tour of Our National Factories — Président...

Président... Président...
Every day, as I went my way, these words rang in my ears, bursting from the throats of the boys in the streets...

Président, ya khawaja... Président — the best chocolate...

And I knew that Président was a chocolate, and a good one at that; but that was not enough.

Then it happened that circumstances arranged for me an opportunity to make the acquaintance of 'Président' face to face...

I got into a motorcar that carried me off to 'al-Louaizeh' in Jamhour, a stone's throw from Beirut... to 'Président.'

And there I was, in the chocolate, candy, and caramel factory of Messrs. Barraj and Saydani & Co., a soft, light fragrance filling my nostrils, and the roar of many motors in my ears...

A sweet word of welcome for 'The Woman's Voice'... and I enter... and we go round... and round, from floor to floor, and going round with us are the factory's two directors, Mr. Mahmoud Othman al-Barraj and Mr. Ahmad Mukhtar al-Saydani. Here is a ground floor serving as a storehouse for the sacks of cocoa and the cases of powdered milk; and here is another floor humming loud with machines — from the sugar mills to the cocoa mills, to the kneading machines, to the molding machines... And there is a machine unique of its kind, with an automatic refrigerator, which draws in the trays and the molds, and the bars come out firm and appetizing, where the brisk, clean girls catch them up and make them ready for wrapping...

Great machines in numbers... ovens that hold some three tons of paste... And here is a third floor where machines work at shelling the cocoa beans and cooking the sugar, and a biscuit-making machine, likewise unique in this country; the owners of the factory hope soon to offer excellent kinds of biscuits, to rival the finest kinds of biscuits in the world.

And we go round... my head now spinning from the multitude of these machines — for I had supposed that making chocolates and candies needed nothing like all these things, and here I find that this good morsel we eat has gone round dozens of times through dozens of machines, to become, afterward, this delicious, elegant piece...

And I listened to Mr. Barraj, explaining to us how chocolate is made and the hopes he pins on this industry for the future.

Whoever listens to this man speaking with such faith and such drive cannot doubt that there is a will here, and that there is science, experience, and knowledge, and that behind it all lie great designs for a great work, of which all this is only the beginnings.

Mr. Barraj said to me, as we entered the factory office after more than two hours had passed: No doubt you want to question me!! What would you ask, then? The government's attitude toward us!! It is its attitude toward every project... it ignores our very existence... We wished to raise the chocolate industry from its lowly estate — and here you see.

And I had indeed seen a factory clean through and through, and workers who bore plainly the marks of cleanliness, cheerfulness, and life.

And Mr. Barraj went on telling me about this project which he loves, and about the founding of the factory, and about his partners in the work; and one of the factory's directors, Mr. Ahmad Mukhtar Saydani, handed me a paper bearing the names of the partners as registered with the Beirut commercial court — and behold, the names were purely Arab in every letter, belonging to merchants well known in the country.

Mr. Saydani said: On the day we thought of establishing this factory, the first thing that moved us to it was a patriotic idea... The markets of Beirut were flooded with every sort of chocolate imported from Palestine, and it was all shoddy Jewish merchandise; so we put our trust in God and founded this factory of ours in Beirut in 1943, and a year ago we moved it to al-Louaizeh. We are determined to make this industry a banner of Lebanese enterprise; the markets of the Arab world are open, our production will grow day after day, and never again will our markets be drowned in such cheap merchandise, carrying disease... Chocolate has become a necessary element in the life of man, above all in the life of the child, and we are working in earnest to introduce the nutritive elements needed so that its benefit may be doubled.

And Mr. Barraj's talk poured forth in a stream, for he loves his factory and takes pride in his goods... and he loves his homeland, and believes that light industry is the best thing to push Lebanon along the road of true independence, and he holds that Lebanon can adopt many of these light industries.

And I came out of the 'Président' factory certain that on the day my country commands will and sincerity, on that day this country will achieve its true independence. And the national 'Président' factory is a step toward that independence.