The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27, 1930. THE PALESTINE MANDATE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 202, 27 August 1930, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27, 1930. THE PALESTINE MANDATE.

For tlic cause that lacks assistant, For the wrong that needs resistanoe, For the future in the distance, A.nd the good that we can do.

The report of the Mandates Commission on the disturbances that occurred twelve months ago in Palestine has now been published, but it has reached us •in such a fragmentary and inadequate form that it is practically impossible to grasp its full significance or to criticise it effectively. According to the cabled summary the Mandates Commission decided that last year's trouble was due not to "a sudden explosion of popular passion" but to the dissatisfaction of the Arabs with the conditions imposed by the Mandate and its British administrators. It further criticises the British authorities for their failure to anticipate this outbreak and the inadequacy of the forces available for its suppression, and it reaches the conclusion that the Mandate "has not given satisfaction" either to the Arabs or the Jews.

The problem set before Britain in Palestine is to discover some way of establishing a national home for the Jews without wounding the racial and religious susceptibilities of the Arabs or infringing upon their rights and interests. This is an extremely delicate and difficult task, and the British Government, put upon its defence, has attempted to justify its policy in Palestine in a memorandum which even if it fails to exonerate the Mandatory Power completely, should help the world to understand the magnitude of its responsibility. For the Arabs regard the Jews as interlopers who are robbing them of their country, and the Mandate enjoins on Britain the necessity for "safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine." We can hardly wonder either that •the Arabs have rejected the attempt "to associate Arabs and Jews in a form of representative Government" or that they have shown no appreciation of the well-meant efforts of the British authorities to effect some sort of compromise between conflicting Arab and Jewish claims. i

So far as the Jews are concerned, /their side of the case has been placed officially before the Mandates Commission in the form of a memorandum criticising the report issued by the Shaw Commission which w ! as set up by Mr. Mac Donald to investigate the disturbances arising out of the Wailing Wall incident last year. The Shaw Commission found that the Wailing Wall incident played only a subordinate part in the trouble and that the underlying and fundamental cause of last year's rioting and bloodshed was "the Arab feeling of animosity and hostility toward the Jews." The Jewish memorandum maintains, on the other hand, 1 that there was no sign of any widespread antagonism between Arabs and Jews till the Wailing Wall dispute was exploited by Moslem fanaticism. The Shawreport largely exonerated the Arabs, and held that "no serious complaint can be made against the Government." But the Jewish memorandum condemned the Grand Mufti, for inciting the Arabs to attack the Jews and insisted that the British authorities ought not to have disbanded or disarmed the Jewish police, and that they ought to-have had stronger forces available to meet such a crisis and should have used them more decisively when it arose.

However, while tlie British memorandum to the Mandates Commission attempts to defend the mandatory power against criticism in detail, it insists as emphatically as the Jews could desire , that the policy defined in the Mandate must be carriecl into effect, and it at least implies that the object aimed at can be attained without any injury to «thc Arabs. It may be well at this point to recall a statement made recently in an American newspaper by Mr. Lloyd George, who characterises as "mischievous nonsense" the talk of the Jews "displacing the Arabs." He holds that the population of Palestine could be multiplied ten times over with no small advantage to the Arabs Avho have already benefited greatly through the influx of so many thousands of industrious and intelligent Jews'. The Balfour policy, accepted by Britain and endoi'sed by all the Great PoAvers, is not a visionary scheme but a thoroughly practicable project, l and it is satisfactory to be assured that Britain, though her administration of Palestine seems to have been weakened in some respects by her natural desire to conciliate the Arabs, is still firmly resolved to carry that policy into effect in strict accordance with both the. letter and the spirit of the Mandate. ~