The Catholic News Service in the United States, (under the control of the National Catholic Welfare Council) continues to report the situation in Palestine, giving preponderance to the presentation of the Arab side.
The last issue of the news service quotes Captain Gordon Canning, who “having visited a great number of important visited a great number of important towns in Palestine, has cabled to Ramsay MacDonald, British Prime Minister, as follows:
” ‘I feel it my duty to bring to your notice the united appeal by Palestine Arabs supported by all Arabs for the recognition of England’s 1915 pledges. Moslem and Christian prelates, effendies, bedouins and peasants have sat on my right and left crying for England’s justice, renowned in the East for many years. Arab officers who fought beside British troops appeal for recognition of Palestine rights for which they fought and for which many Arabs died. Arab women fervently support their men’s claims. I must add that for an Englishman, proud of his nation and its prestige, the present situation brings shame’s scarlet mantle rising to my brow. England’s decision in the next few months is a vital one for the Empire. The goodwill of the Arabic-speaking world is in the balance. Hope can keep these for a while, after that, only force of arms.
” ‘In protesting against the further immigration of Jews, the Arabs point out that the political atmosphere of Palestine is far from clear, that the economic situation is deplorable, and that the whole country has asked that immigration be restricted to keep pace with the country’s economic capacity.’
“This demand,” says the Catholic News Service, “is repeated by the First Arab Economic Congress at Haifa, which has just cabled to the Colonial Office and the League of Nations as follows:
” ‘Having carefully discussed the economic depression now prevailing in Palestine, we find it a result of the Government’s unheeding attitude to the Arab national requests submitted by the Arab Executive in respect of the establishment of a National Representative Government and the checking of the Zionist immigration which brought misery to the country by importing undesirable poor laborers, which made the Government impose exorbitant taxes on the population without their concurrence and to adopt a very high budget which is expended mostly on foreign immigrants. The Congress believe that the Balfour Declaration is the source of this lamentable condition and unanimously request the local Government, the Colonial Office and the League of Nations to comply with the demands of the Arab Executive mentioned above, especially the restriction of immigration until such time as the Palestine Parliament shall discuss the economic and political affairs’.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
