That the dismissal of Lord Lloyd as High Commissioner of Egypt may have had something to do with the rising of the Arabs in Palestine was intimated by Winston Churchill, former chancellor of the exchequer, during the House of Commons debate on Egypt. He repeated his view that the dismissal of Lord Lloyd by the Labor government “advertised our impending retreat to every subversive force in Egypt and Palestine, for I believe that the dismissal of Lloyd was the direct precursor of the massacres in Palestine. I don’t mean that the Palestine Arabs rose because they were angry at Lloyd’s departure, but because they attributed the sudden striking down of the hand that had ruled Egypt and given it four years of steady government to an inherent weakness in the British government, and they thought that the moment was ripe.”
During the debate, E. Thurtle and Secretary George Lansbury repudiated the suggestion that the “lamentable massacre in Palestine” may be attributed to the dismissal of Lord Lloyd, which he regards as a most wanton misrepresentation of the facts. D. Hopkin said that the British position in Egypt is entirely changed owing to the fact that “we have Palestine.” He pointed out that the Suez Canal may be attacked from the north, south and east, but the fact that “we can put in (Continued on Page 4)
Sir Henry Page recalled that the present Palestine government, at great post, quite rightly very speedily sent to Palestine troops, warships and aeroplanes, but the action was taken after the events. Bloodshed in Egypt was avoided after the situation had calmed, while in Palestine much blood flowed before the protection was sent, and great suffering resulted. Sir Henry recalled that he had heard “Lloyd plained for taking that precaution which cost Britain almost nothing. In Egypt we often failed to get our own way with a weak policy, and murder and assassination of British officials were frequent. Under the strrong policy of Lloyd, we did not fail to get our way in important matters without ever firing a shot.”
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