THE MANDATES

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 118, 14 November 1929, Page 17

THE MANDATES

ARABS AND PALESTINE DANGER IN NEAR EAST EQTHEKMERE'S VIEW (From "The Post's" Representative.) ' . LONDON, 20th September. . Under the signature of Yjscount Kotherniere, the "Daily Mail" makes a feature of-an. article headed "Hand Back the Mandates." Lorth Bothermere's attention, is mainly-directed'towards Palestine. : „ "The last British Government statistics," he writes, "give the population as consisting of 650,000 Arabs, 140,000 Jews, and 75,000 Christians. Huge aa the Arab majority is, it has no voice in the administration of its own affairs. It is, under the rule of a British High Commissioner, with a council noniinated'by himself. The Arabs .have never ceased, to denounce the injustice of this. They have sent delegations to liondon to protest against being deprived of political rights in a country which has been theirs for nearly two thousand years. How would, the-people of Wales, which is about the size of Palestine,' have liked their country to biß made a home for 100,000 Je\vs f rom Central and Eastern Europe, while they -themselves, without any share in the administration of their native land were placed under the rule of a foreign High Commission er'! "Even the British-Administration in Palestine has not.'a free hand. Pew people.in' this country realise that it' is. obliged- to work under the supervision of a group of international Jews known as the 'Jewish Agency.' That body, iWhich was set up by the League of Nations, has complete charge of edu-' cation,-finances, and public works It supervises '.public health and controls the selection- and' admission of immigrants. -Cases have arisen of its secret interference with the British Administration on behalf of Jewish interests." NO AFFAIR OF OURS. Later in his article Lord Eotheunere says: "Morally, we are under no obligation; to remain" in Palestine. Financially we incur heavy loss by doing so. Politically our futile effort to make Palestine an almshouse for the Jews exposes us to the dangerous hostility of all the 8,500,000 Arabs of the Middle East. : "We have paid a heavy price for the Jack in.our statesmen of that commonsense which made the Government of the United States flatty refuse the mandate for America. Our responsibilities within the British Empire are gigantic enough already. ,We are made to meddle with races which lie outside it. Palestine is no affair of ours. -. But we have another commitment in the Middle East, even greater, costlier and more dangerous than Palestine. When troubles like those fct Jerusalem break.out in Irak, as they surely will, it will require not a few warships, battalions, and, aircraft to settle them, but a complete expeditionary force. The last time these 2,800,000 Arabs rose against us- was in 1920, directly our mandate over them was proclaimed They destroyed a British military train the troops in it, and killed Britjsh officers all over the country We had nearly 60,000 troops in, Irak then and we had to send another 30,000 from India before the rebellion was subdued. The only British forces in ..the country now .are a few. aeroplanes .and..armoured pars.-'.'; :.]' .. :.v:-J-J:"By: •consenting lo the evacuation of Egypt>. "Mr. Kamsay Mac Donald has

raised the nationalist feeling of the Arabs to fever heat. Both logically and practically it is impossible for the Labour Government to insist upon maintaining Palestine and. Irak in tutelage after conceding full independence to ■the Egyptians. The . Arabs know this, and they will not relax their pressure, until Mr. Eamsay Mac Donald yields.

"If be 'remains obstinate, there will be great danger of this country drifting into a costly, unnecessary, and unpopular, war ; in ; the Middle East. The Labour.Premier. has. said that war can always be avoided if one will only 'negotiate,. .negotiate, "'negotiate.' To negotiate with .excited swarms of warlike Arabs who have justice on their side is: utterly impossible."

ANOTHER ASPECT,

Several interesting considerations are entirely omitted in Lord Rotherinere's article. What would result,if Italy or Germany took over the Mandate for Palestine? Or if no one took over the Mandate, what would the majority of undisciplined Arabs be about, or what would the, Turks be doing? , .

-At the League of Nations the Mandates have been the subject of controversy. Palestine and what were described as "temporary character mandates," notably Mandates B and C, and also the long-pending question of "sovereignty" as between the^ Mandates Commission and the South Afri-can-Government with reference to the South-west Africa Mandate, were exhaustively discussed by the Sixth Committee. '

All the speakers spoke in sympathetic terms .of the victims of the Palestine outbreak, and-expressed the hope that the proposed measures would lead to better administration of that territory; and thus avoid a renewal of the recent trouble. " . . ■ .-' '

An attemiit by the Italian and German members of the Committee to describe the mandates—notably the Tanganyika Mandate —as. "temporary" wa.s strenuously' opposed by the French and New-Zealand members. Sir James Parr said that to describe mandates as being of ,a'."tehiporary" character, would not help the mandatory in carrying out its trust. He did not believe that any Mandatory' Power would accept that definition, Mandates were bestowed by the Allied 'Associated Powers, and it was' for«;-the to supervise the work of'the mandatories.'

-\"We-are. all doing good work," added Sir, James Parr, ''and let us go on with if and avoid, using the most unfortunate expression 'temporary,' which puts into the.heads of natives the idea of the provisional; character'of the Mandate, thus impeding the work of the Mandatory Power."

Mrs. Swanwick (Great Britain) said that the -Mandate had been conferred by the Allied-and-Associated Powers, and not by.the League of Nations, and it would be only by their united decision (including that of the United States) that any change of mandate could be effected. Heir yon Schubert (Germany) observed that the arguments used by the representatives of ■ Great Britain raised some difficult juridical points.