RULE IN PALESTINE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 260, 1 October 1936, Page 9

RULE IN PALESTINE.

EXTENSION OF POWERS. FRESH ORDER-IN-COUNCIL. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, Sept. 29. The Order-in-Council relating to martial law in Palestine, which was made at a Privy Council held at Balmoral Castle on Saturday, is published in the London Gazette to-night. The order, which amends the 1931 order under which emergency regulations have been made by the High Commissioner during recent months, enables the High Commissioner to delegate power to the General Officer Commanding the forces in Palestine —this command has just been taken up by Lieutenant-General J. D. Dill—to make regulations securing public safety and the defence of Palestine. The order will be brought into force in Palestine by proclamation of the High Commissioner, but a further proclamation will be required for the delegation of power to the General Officer Commanding, who will thus be able to make regulations as and when lie considers necessary on such subjects as censorship, arrest, detention, exclusion and deportation, control of harbours, ports and aerodromes, transportation by land, air or water, trading appropriation, control forfeiture and dispo sition of property, infliction of communal fines, and forfeiture and destruction of property as punitive measures. These regulations will not be open to challenge in any court of law. Moreover, the power conferred will include the setting up of military courts for the trial of offences against these regulations, from the decisions of which there shall, if the General Officer Commanding thinks fit, be no appeal. A new Order-in-Council relating to defence and public safety in Palestine had been generally anticipated since the issue on September 7 of a.n official statement in which it was made clear that the Government, after a caretul review of "tfi© whole sit/U&tion } had S3.t~ isfied itself, in view of the continuance of the campaign of violence and threats of violence by which Arab leaders have been attempting to influence policy, that more effective action must be taken to bring the disorders to an end and in which the dispatch of reinforcements to I alestme was announced. . , The proclamation of martial lav would not in itself have conferred greater powers over the civil population than are already possessed, whereas the present order puts the authorities in possession of clearly defined and unchallenged powers.