Cantonization Plan Seen Replacing Partition

Possibilities of establishment of separate States in Palestine are decreasing rapidly and the alternative cantonization proposal may gain favor, according to a report from the jerusalem correspondent of Great Britain and the East, influential periodical.

“It would be premature to prophecy at this juncture, but there seems to be a definite feeling among intelligent observers in Palestine that the chances for introduction of a scheme for the division of the country into separate States are growing perceptibly smaller and that an obvious alternative which may gain favor later on is the cantonization plan,” the correspondent states. “The cantonization proposal, it is argued, has all the advantages and few of the drawbacks of an out-and-out Partition, about which the most objectionable feature to its numerous critics is the finality of its effect.

“It might not be indiscreet, moreover, to suggest that some of the administrators on the spot are not averse from considering favorably the attraction of a scheme of cantons, each enjoying local self-government, but responsible to and possibly represented in the Federal authority, the development of which would not be circumscribed by the rigidity of Partition.”

In an editorial, the periodical warns against the belief that all the terrorism in Palestine is due to outside sources.

“All informed observers recognize,” the paper states, “that whatever stimulus may be given to the Palestine terrorists from outside, the root trouble is in Palestine itself. Those who ascribe all the unrest in Palestine to foreign agents are of the same type which ascribes all labor troubles to Bolshevist agents. In other words, they cannot distinguish between the pot and the stirrers of the pot.”