British Periodical Sees Zionist Cause Hurt if Council is Deferred

Great Britain and the Near East, semi-official organ of the British Colonial office, contends in its current issue that postponement of the Palestine Legislative Council would be fatal to the Zionist cause.

The editorial attacks Jewish hostility to the council and declares that were the council postponed “the whole case of the Government — that is impartial between Arab and Jew — would fall to the ground. And that indeed would be fatal to the Zionist cause.”

The Zionists ignore, says the editorial, “that for some time it has been the professed will and desire of the Mandatory Power to bring into being a legislative council and that such a council cannot be indefinitely postponed.

“It is an old and not wholly true saying that when an Oriental asks for justice, what he really means is preference; but the Zionists by their present attitude are scarcely helping to disprove the saying.”

The journal lauds as “refreshing” the statement of Moshe Smilansky, Palestine farm leader, that if peace is not made with the Arabs in this generation there will be little chance for understanding in the next.

“Patently,” it continues, “it is no part of statesmanship to grant privileges under the threat of force. Patently it is the duty of Government to choose the exact time for the granting of privilege. But to assert in effect that Palestine will never be ripe for an additional measure of self-government until such time as the Zionists are in a majority in the landis the most unstat-esmanlike course of all; and to suppose that the British Government would act upon such interested counsel would be, indeed, to despair of its bona fides. Threats of non-cooperation by a minority can scarcely be expected to impress an administration whose basic principles are reputed to be fair play and no discrimination.”