Concern lest the proposed legislative council for Palestine foster a dictatorship of one section of the country’s population over the other was expressed before a well-filled House of Commons where the project was formally debated today for the first time.
With members of all parties united in criticizing the Government’s policy on Palestine, the debate developed into a discussion of the Jewish position throughout the world.
Participants in the debate included Winston Churchill, Conservative leader, Sir Archibald Sinclair, Liberal whip and Colonel Josiah Wedgwood, Laborite and noted pro-Zionist. The Government’s policy was defended by Colonial Secretary J.H. Thomas.
Col. Wedgwood declared the “magnificent experiment” of a Jewish national home in Palestine would be jeopardized if control of the projected body, as now planned, were handed over to the Arabs.
Warning that the council would result in a dictatorship of one section of the population over another, Col. Wedgwood said:
“We never pledged ourselves to this particular scheme which would ruin the chances of developing a Palestine, in the future as in the past, supported by English justice, financed by Jewish capital and inspired by the desire of a great people for freedom.”
Sir Archibald pictured the “landless” Arabs” as a “political figment” whom Great Britain had repaid handsomely for their war services, creating three Arab kingdoms. He attacked the Government for failure to carry out provisions of the League mandate to encourage Jewish settlement and urged utilization of the Palestine treasury surplus for development projects and Jewish social services. Proposed increased in the capitalist category entrance requirements (from $5,000 to $10,000) were denounced by Sir Archibald.
Replying to the liberal leader, Mr. Thomas declared the Government had dropped the plan to increase the capitalist requirements and was considering public works projects financed from the surplus.
Both the League of Nations and the Arabs, Mr. Thomas stated, had been given pledges by the Government that it would proceed with the legislative council. He said the council (plans for which were outlined by High Commissioner Wauchope before Arab and Jewish leaders last December) had been approved by every Government since 1922, when the first council proposal was broached, and every party shared responsibility for the policy.
Mr. Thomas laid special emphasis on the fact that consideration of the mandate was beyond the purview of the proposed council; that the Jewish Agency for Palestine’s position with respect to immigration was safeguarded; and that every precaution against seditious utterances was provided for, the press being prohibited from publishing seditious remarks, even if made on the floor of the legislative body. In conclusion, Mr. Thomas made a strong plea for support of High Commissioner of Palestine, Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope, who has been entrusted with the task of establishing the assembly.
In one of the most impressive speeches of the debate, Mr. Churchill, himself a former Colonial Secretary, hauled Mr. Thomas over the coals. He declared that the Colonial Secretary, while speaking chiefly of the sanctity of pledges, failed to state what those pledges were. The pledges, Mr. Churchill pointed out, did not commit the Government as to the time and composition of the council.
Mr. Churchill, whose speech was frequently applauded, urged that the educational process of municipal government be continued a little longer before jumping into the legislative council. He complained of the tendency to rush into constitutional changes, contending that this harmed peoples more than helping them.
The general situation of Jews throughout the world was projected into the debate both by Mr. Churchill and Col. Wedgwood. Mr. Churchill, declaring that Jewish hopes were being focussed on Palestine, denounced the “horrible, cruel, scientific persecution of Jews,” through the “cold pogrom.”
“They’re subject to every form of human wickedness and vile tyranny,” he said. “When that’s the case, surely Commons will not permit their one door, their one hope, to be closed.”
Col. Wedgwood said that humanity was faced with two curses: the danger from dictators and the “awful fate of the Jews.”
“Humanity and civilization,” he said, “rebel, but seem powerless, Jews are being starved out and robbed. No one gives them shelter and we are faced with the problem of the outlawry of a whole race.
“The Jewish race,” he continued, “is becoming acclimatized to being classed as outcasts. As of old, when lepers carried bells to be used in warning off passersby, now 15 million civilized people are being driven to the same fate by a mankind which draws away the hem of its raiment so that it may not be contaminated.”
After picturing the plight of the German Jews, Col. Wedgwood pointed out that they constituted the smallest part of the entire Jewish community and that Nazi propaganda was covering the whole world. He charged the Nazis with stirring up a policy of hatred for those Jews who have been driven from Poland, where, he stated, the Jewish position was ten times worse than in Germany and where sooner or later a Jew would lose all chance to make an honest living.”
Those being driven from Poland, the labor leader said, have nowhere to go, or, at the very least, Palestine is their only hope.
After outlining the “miraculous progress” achieved by the Jews in Palestine, Col. Wedgwood contended that the country was able to support at least twice its present population.
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