Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. TUESDAY, AUGUST 18, 1936. THE PALESTINE PROBLEM.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 262, 18 August 1936, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. TUESDAY, AUGUST 18, 1936. THE PALESTINE PROBLEM.

‘ The disorder in Palestine is becoming worse, if the number of deaths is accepted as a criterion, because last week is reported to have been the most disastrous in respect to loss of life since the outbreak of trouble. The one; comforting fact is that the challengel to law and order is apparently confined to a section of the mandated territory, but the continuance of raids and am—bushes indicates that much sterner measures than those already employed will be required to restore tranquility. The source of the trouble is not to be found solely in racial differenceslror seven prosperous years after the establishment of the mandate the two races lived inharmony to the profit of both Jews and Arabs. With the introduction of the system of immigration of Jews, however, there appeared an economic factor that brought about dis,sension. Palestine is a small country, but in twelve years Jews to the numlber of 125,000 have been added to its population, and the Jewish percenltage among the people of Palestine is inow the highest in the world. The British Government, which has to hold the balance between Jews and Arabs, has been quite alive to the fact that any substantial enlargement of the immigration quota was likely to lead to trouble. On the one hand‘the Government is besieged by a vigorous Zionism, and on the (other by a somewhat embittered Arab population and an Arab executive that is not very amenable to reason. It is difficult to convince the Arabs that the balance of justice is being maintained, and that their interests are being adequately safeguarded. The land question is probably the most awkward of the problems arising in Palestine. Some time ago, the British Government published reports byl Mr Lewis French, formerly director of: development in Palestine, on the re-l settlement of Arabs displaced from‘ their land by Jews. “Leaving aside a few insignificant areas in the hills . . . . in reality there are at the present time," he said, “no cultivable lands at all which are ‘surplus' in the sense that they are not already subject to cultivation or occupancy by owners or tenants.” On the other hand, the effort to make in Palestine a national home for the Jews conferred on the Arab landlords (the effendi) rich gains from the remarkable rise in the price of tillable land, and the Arab farmlabourers (the fellaheen) reaped a cor—responding advance in wages. Nor was the advantage only. in agrarian development; it came in good roads that benefited the towns, in enhanced values of the towns themselves, _in noteworthy harbour works that served a seaborne trade largely lucrative to Arabs. Jewish money was expended in the reclamation of thousands of acres of swamp—wne—third being available to Arabs,—-with the incidental conquering of the plague of malaria. Further, the Arabs benefited by the establishment of their own schools, the amount expended on them being seven times as much as on Jewish schools, notwithstanding that J'eWs pay 60 per cent. of the country's taxation. The fact that racial and economic troubles are close—ly related intensifies the difficulty of discharging fully and fairly, without fear or favour, obligations under a mandate that carries with it a clear duty to both Arabs and Jews.