News Brief

A Government communique has just been issued here stating that the High Commissioner does not intend to make any statement on political questions.

The High Commissioner expressed his views at the Conference of Mayors held this week, the statement says, and nothing more will follow.

The Conference of Mayors summoned by the High Commissioner a few days ago, prompted the Arab press to print reports suggesting that constitutional changes were to be made in Palestine shortly. The fact that the High Commissioner in acknowledging a memorandum submitted to him recently by Ragheb Bey Nashashibi, the Mayor of Jerusalem, urging the establishment of representative Government, “for the benefit of the country and in accordance with the provisions of the Mandate”, had said that he is “greatly interested in the proposal”, was made the basis of speculation on the subject in the Arab papers.

The late High Commissioner, Sir John Chancellor, when he left Palestine in June 1929, to spend his vacation in England, promised the Palestine Arab Executive that he #o would discuss the subject of constitutional changes in Palestine with the Colonial Secretary, but when he returned in September after the 1929 disturbances, he issued a proclamation in which he said that “in accordance with the undertaking I gave the Arab Executive before I left Palestine, in June, I initiated discussions with the Secretary of State (Lord Passfield) when in England on the subject of constitutional changes in Palestine, but in view of recent events I shall suspend these discussions with his Majesty’s Government,”

In October 1930, a few days before the issue of the Passfield White Paper, the Arab press in Palestine forecast that the new British statement of Palestine policy would include a proposal for setting up a Legislative Council consisting of 24 nominated members, 16 Moslems, 4 Christian Arabs, and 4 Jews. The Government would also hold a new census in 1932 (as has been done), the Arab press forecast, and elections to the new Legislative Assembly would be held on the basis of the results of this census, each community returning a proportionate number of Deputies.

The new Legislative Council, the Passfield White Paper said, will be on the lines indicated in the statement of policy issued in 1922. It will consist of the High Commissioner and 22 members, of whom ten will be official members and 12 unofficial members. Unofficial members of the Council will normally be elected by primary and secondary elections. It is, however, in the view of His Majesty’s Government, so important to avoid the repetition of the deadlock which occurred in 1923 that steps will be devised to ensure the appointment of the requisite number of unofficial members to the Council in the event of one or more members failing to be elected on account of the non-co-operation of any section of the population or for any other reason. The High Commissioner will continue to have the necessary power to ensure that the Mandatory shall be enabled to carry out its obligations to the League of Nations, including any legislation urgently required, as well as the maintenance of order. When difference arises as to the fulfilment by the Government of Palestine of the terms of the Mandate, a petition to the League of Nations is admissible under Article 85 of the Order-in-Council of 1922.

It was pointed out in some Zionist quarters when the Prime Minister’s letter of authoritative interpretation of the Passfield White Paper was issued in February 1931, that some of the important issues raised by the White Paper, such as the proposed establishment of a Legislative Council, the status of the Jewish Agency, and the creation of a Development Fund were not mentioned in the Prime Minister’s letter, and must, therefore, be presumed to retain the spirit and intention given them by the White Paper without any re-interpretation.