DOUBLE DUTT OF BRITAIN

Taranaki Daily News, 23 October 1930, Page 9

DOUBLE DUTT OF BRITAIN

PALESTINE ADMINISTRATION

POLICY OF THE GOVERNMENT

LEADER OF JEWS RESIGNS

PROBLEMS OF SETTLEMENT

British Wireless. Wby, Oct. 21. The statement of the Governments policy in Palestine, published simultaneously with the report of Sir John Hope Simpson on immigration, land settlement and development in Palestine, will, it is recognised, disappoint the more extreme elements among both Jews and Arabs. Dr. Weizmann, president of the Jewish Agency and Zionist Organisation, who resigned as a result of the statemen, contends that the statement ellects a profound change in the policy of 1922 and differs 'in material points from Sir John's report and moves a long way towards delaying the rights and sterilising the hopes of the Jewish people in regard to a national home in Palestine.

Regret is expressed in Palestine at Dr. Weizmann’s decision and hopes are entertained that calm thought will modify his passionate judgment. The Daily Herald points out that the Government is bound by the mandate and by its own pledges both to secure the establishment of a Jewish national home and to safeguard the rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine. That is a double undertaking and one part of it riiust not bring with it a violation of the other. The establishment of Jews in Palestine cannot imply the expulsion of Arabs or the subordination of Arabs. The Times says that with regard to the Jewish protest the statement, when studied impartially, does not more than affirm the necessity of limiting Jewish immigration to the absorptive capacity of the country where unemployment is increasing and where there is not enough laud, after the habitation of the area already in Jewish hands, for the original inhabitants. The Manchester Guardian criticises the policy insofar, as it involves the arrested development of the establishment of a Jewish national home and deplores the resignation of Dr. Weizmann, to which it pays a warm tribute. The bold experiments which are promised in the constitutional field a’re, however, welcomed, and the newspaper points out that the methods of election to the Legislative Council will safeguard the two minority groups; Jews and Christians. Meanwhile the scheme seems to give the Arabs all they can reasonably ask for, particularly as on those matters of land and immigration the British Government, whose servants, are the nominated members, will hold views extremely favourable to the Arabs.