Chamberlain Balks at Committing Government on Geneva Body’s Policy Decision

Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain today declined to commit the Government in advance to accept the Permanent Mandates Commission’s findings on the new British policy on Palestine. In a statement in the House of Commons, Mr. Chamberlain also refused to promise to give Commons a chance to discuss the Commission’s observations, if unfavorable to the Government, before its report was taken up by the League Council. The Mandates Commission sessions open in Geneva tomorrow.

At the same time, Colonial Secretary Malcolm MacDonald refused to agree to defer land restriction legislation pending the Mandates Commission’s consideration of the White Paper. He reiterated that the Council’s approval was only required for an amendment to the Mandate, which the White Paper, according to the Government’s contention, does not involve.

The Times reported from Geneva that the British delegation to the Mandates Commission hearings will consist of Colonial Secretary MacDonald, Sir Henry Grattan Bushe, legal adviser to the Dominions and Colonial offices; Sydney Moody, Deputy Chief Secretary of the Palestine Government; A. S. Kirkbride, British Resident in Transjordan, and H.F. Downie of the Colonial Office.

Laborite Philip Noel Baker last night characterized the White Paper as “the greatest act of injustice in the modern history of Great Britain.” He spoke at a Jewish National Fund dinner at which Lady Reading presided. Expressing the belief that the policy would not succeed and would instead greatly harm the British cause, Mr. Noel Baker urged Jewry to demand its withdrawal “imperiously, insistently.”