The Waikato Times. With which Is Incorporated The Waikato Argus. MONDAY, MAY 19, 1930. PALESTINE.

Waikato Times, Volume 107, Issue 18023, 19 May 1930, Page 6

The Waikato Times. With which Is Incorporated The Waikato Argus. MONDAY, MAY 19, 1930. PALESTINE.

The report 'Of the' commission appointed to investigate affairs in Palestine is to be considered by the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations. The report is unexpectedly comprehensive. The commission was appointed to hold a magnified coroner’s inquest, and, like a coroner’s court, they were empowered to make recommendations arising out of this limited inquiry. They took a too generous view of their duties. The form of Government, the functions of the Jewish Agency, immigration, and land purchase arc matters which one would have thought lay well outside their terms of reference, hut they were all matters on which they have thought fit to proffer advice, make suggestions, or draw inferences. They have, of course, paid particular attention to those specific subjects which lie within the narrower/ construction of their function, and here they have done excellent work. They recommended, for instance, a more stringent press law to be sternly enforced wherever 1 incitement to rioting occurs, a reform which no student of events in Palestine world hesitate to endorse. Then they stated quite clearly that in their opinio'n it would he folly to reduce the small British garrison, and suggested that the Government should consult its advisers as to the most suitable form of garrison. They wisely urged that Ihe promised inquiiy into recent events at the Wailing Wall should be expedited as far as possible. This recommendation has already been given effect to, and three continental Europeans of undoubted attainments appointed a commission. A competent police officer has been appointed, and an expert detailed to confer with the High Commissioner, and report on land settlement, immigration, and development. The much-disputed Belfour declaration itself needs to be more clearly and closely defined than it was in the Mandate or in the White Paper of 1922. Such a precise statement would necessarily have to be preceded by a ihorough inquiry in Palestine by an authority of high standing. This was a step urged in December by General Smuts, Mr Lloyd George, and Lord Balfour—the three men in the War. Cabinet who in 1917 made themselves the sponsors for a Jewish National Home in Palestine. It was perhaps Lord Balfour’s last public act; it should not be his least fruitful. The suggestion was for a Commission which would investigate the whole working' of the Mandate, for “’he work to which Britain set her hand at the close of the war is not proceeding’ satisfactorily.” The Shaw Commission, they urged, should be supplemented by a wider body as soon as it had reported.

Perhaps the mast significant of all the findings of the Commission was the last j-eason they assigned ,-for the outbreaks—“the belief, due largely to a feeling of uncertainty as to policy, that the decisions of the Palestine Government would be influenced by political considerations.” The task to which Britain is committed in Palestine is at best one of the utmost delicacy. It is to plant settlers drawn from most of the countries of Europe and from America, of many different levels of civilisation, in a country already inhabited by people who would prefer to be left without the immigrants. It is a problem which Britain is bound to solve without injustice to the present population, while her task is made more difficult by the fact that the country is sacred ground to three of the chief religions of the world. Many even of the .factors in the problem are beyond her control. The number of immigrants which Palestine can absorb depends partly on the economic situation of the countries from which they are drawn, for the development of Palestine depends on the influx of capital attracted not so much by profit as by an ideal. Thus the economic crisis in Palestine coincided with an economic crisis in Poland, which in turn coincided with a Ger-man-Polish tariff war —an event quite beyond British control. It is in the solution of the economic problem that the hope for Palestine largely lies. Jewish culture and Jewish capital have already done much to improve the condition of the country, as, for instance, in the fight against malaria. Gradually by raising the standard of life the Jews may hope to leconcilo trio Arabs to the experiment. It is the only hope. Quite cloarly, then, the key problems of immigration and lands purchase re-

quire expert study and control and more detailed examination than I hoy have yet received. Equally plainly, success depends on the administration of Palestine being-in the hands of mop who, firm in their pursuit of justice for the Arab, are yet pledged to and believe in the experiment. Above all, the suspicion .that the Administration can be bullied into concessions or deflected by political cajolery must he banished once for all.