PALESTINE MANDATE

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20888, 21 August 1939, Page 6

PALESTINE MANDATE

While a substantial improvement has taken place in the condition of affairs in Palestine, a new element has entered into the situation which may lend interest to the meeting of the League of Nations Council next month. The League’s Permanent Mandates Commission by a majority vote has differed from the British policy announced in the White Paper in May. “From the first,” the Commission says,

“one fact has forced itself to the notice of the Commission—that the White Paper policy was not in accordance with the interpretation which, in the agreement with the mandatory Power and the Council, the Commission has always placed on the Palestine mandate.”

The Commission admits, however, that the mandate might be open to more than one interpretation, and so it proposes to submit to the League Council the minutes of the Commission’s meetings, and the Council will decide whether the British administration in Palestine is in conformity with the mandate. Britain does not accept the Commission’s observations. It says the Commission apparently disregarded what it considered to be political implications in the Palestine situation, but that - itain in administering the mandate could not disregard political considerations. Britain will invite the League Council to give due weight to the general situation in Palestine which the new British policy is designed to meet.

In this most difficult of all mandate problems the way is not yet clear, but violence between Arabs and Jews has subsided, and in the absence »>f any proposals offering a reasonable prospect of better results it will be unfortunate if anything is done again to inflame the passions of the two laces. Illegal immigration of Jews is at the moment a serious difficulty, but it is not surprising that such persistent attempts at smuggling are continuing when shiploads of destitute refugee Jews are wandering about the world.