CAN'T SUCCEED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 207, 2 September 1938, Page 8

CAN'T SUCCEED.

BRITAIN'S POLICY. PALESTINE PARTITION. alternative scheme given. In my opinion Britain's present policy of partition in Palestine will never solve the problems inherent in the government of that country." said Professor S. Ralph Harlow. Professor of Religion and Biblical Literature at Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts. who. with his wife, arrived bv the Monterey to-day. Profes-or Harlow lived lor many years in the Kast. From I!MJ to he was a missionary and head of the department of religion and sociology at the International College, .Smyrna, Turkey; and he travelled a good deal in Palestine, both during the Turkish regime and after the war.

"So." he continued, "that policy, though admittedly well-intentioned in "a situation where all policies would be difficult, will not succeed, and I am afraid that if British bayonets were removed there would be one of the most terrible massacres in history. The Arabs would simply swarm in and slaughter the Jews." Dr. Magnus' Plan. He said that the one plan which he thought might succeed was that enunciated to him by Dr. Judah Magnus, president of the Hebrew University in Palestine, one of the most brilliant and cultured men he had met. The plan, however, he was afraid would be acceptable neither to the Arabs nor to the more hot-headed of the younger Jews. The plan was for a national and unified State, with two Houses of Parliament. The Lower would be elected on a population basis, in which, because of their greater numbers, the Arabs would have a majority. The Upper House would be something like the American Senate, where Jews. Arabs and British would be represented equally. There would also be a. British Governor-General.

Both languages, Jewish and Arabic, should be deemed official, and all intercourse should be conducted in both. Professor Harlow said the Dr. Magnus' scheme followed the plan in vogue in the Swiss cantons. Mussolini's Activities. Dr. Magnus, he said, believed the two nations living side by eide in the same country, could never be a success. The hatred between the two groups was another important factor against success, he added. Professor Harlow reiterated his earlier remark about British protection. "If Britain became involved elsewhere and had to remove the protective troops, then God help the Jews," he said. It was well-known, too, that Mussolini had been behind a good deal of the trouble there. He had provided wireless sets free to the Arabs and had imported Arabs to broadcast from his wireless station in the south of Italy. What the Jews had done in Palestine was nothing short of marvellous, he continued. They had made a wilderness into a garden. They had bought the land at fair prices from the Arabs. "And," he said, "it might be added that the land had been bought from Arabs who did not live on it—the old curse of absentee landlordism." The future was hard to foresee. It was one of the, world's problems.