Commons Backs White Paper, 268 to 179, Ending 2-day Debate

Climaxing a two-day debate, Parliament today approved the Government’s White Paper proposing to set up at the end of ten years an independent Palestine state in which the Jews would be a one-third minority.

The vote in the House of commons was 268 to 179. Previously the House had rejected a Laborite motion for postponement of approval pending a ruling on the Palestine policy by the League of Nations Mandates commission. The vote on the motion was 285 to 185.

The House of Lords, after a similar Laborite motion had been withdrawn, approved the Government policy without a division of votes.

The new Palestine policy was roughly handled during yesterday’s debate. Only one speaker supported colonial Secretary Malcolm MacDonald’s lengthy defense of the policy, which was attacked by Conservative, Labor and Liberal speakers as a surrender to terrorism and a repudiation of pledges to the Jews. Three pro-Arab spokesmen also joined in the attack on the policy, which the colonial Secretary sought to justify as the only possible course to and the uncertainty in Palestine and settle the question of the Holy Land’s future.

With the arguments on all sides well known in advance, the House itself showed little interest in the debate and the attendance was slight after Mr. MacDonald’s opening statement. On the opposition side, chief interest was centered in the speeches of ex-Colonial Secretary Leopold S. Amery (Conservative), James de Rothschild (Liberal) and Col. Josiah Wedgwood (Laborite), which strongly assailed the Government policy.

Mr. de Rothschild was especially effective when he bitterly attacked Mr. MacDonald’s assertion that the Jewish national home would be safeguarded by treaties after the proposed state was established. He asked what guarantees there were that a Government which would not fulfill the mandate obligations would enforce treaties, adding that minority protection treaties were not worth the paper they were written on. Mr. Amery warned that the exiled ex-Mufti of Jerusalem would dominate the new administration.

Although the member attendance at the debate was not impressive, the galleries were packed with Zionists and sympathizers. Dr. Chaim Weizmann, president of the Jewish Agency and Sir Ronald Storrs, former Governor of Jerusalem, followed the debate closely from the diplomatic gallery.