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Iraq Promises to Bar Agitation by Mufti

November 2, 1939
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The Iraq Government has given formal assurances that it will not allow the presence of the ex-Mufti of Jerusalem in Baghdad “to be used as the occasion for agitation by others,” Foreign Undersecretary Richard A. Butler told the House of Commons today.

The statement was made in reply to Tom Williams, Laborite, who asked whether assurance had been received that the ex-Mufti, who recently entered Iraq from Lebanon, would be prevented in Iraq from disseminating anti-Jewish and anti-British propaganda.

Kenneth Williams, editor of Great Britain and the East, Colonial Office mouthpiece declared in an article that it was premature to invest the ex-Mufti’s sudden departure from Lebanon to Iraq with any special significance. While the Iraqis have not been back-ward in supporting the Palestine Arab cause, he said, they will be able to put the question into perspective and realize the more important issues at stake today.

Commenting on the effect of the war on Palestine’s banking system, the outstanding financial weekly, The Economist, declares that it is not as old as those in western Europe, and therefore the High Commissioner’s measures had to be more stringent than in other parts of the Empire. Despite existing conditions, most of the weaker banks were able to negotiate the necessary credits to meet the demand for cash, the paper said.

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