INDEPENDENT STATE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 40, 17 February 1939, Page 9

INDEPENDENT STATE

THE ARAB CLAIM

POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVE

SHOWN

(British OfflqiaJ Wireless, j

(Received February 17, 1 p.m.)

RUGBY, February 16.

■ Discussing at the Palestine Conference the demand for an independent Arab State, the Secretary for the Colonies (Mr. Malcolm Mac Donald) advanced certain general suggestions which it was made clear were not in any way to be regarded as proposals but were designed to show in the light of existing facts, what might be an alternative to the Arab claims.

The Palestine Arabs represented that the existence of an independent Arab State would not be incompatible with the security of the Jewish minority.

A meeting yesterday of the Government Palestine delegation agreed that a committee of the conference should be set up to consider in greater detail some of the points raised regarding the series'of letters exchanged, in 1915 by Sir Henry McMahon, first British High Commissioner for Egypt, and Sheriff Hussein of Mecca.

There was also a meeting today of the Jewish and United Kingdom representatives, and it is hoped that it will be possible very shortly to deal with the discussipns together with some of the detailed aspects of the Palestine problem, such as immigration, land sales, and constitutional matters as they interest the Jews.