Expressing support for the project to settle Jews in Transjordan where their progressive methods may develop the country, Lord Harry Snell informed a representative of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that in his opinion both Western and Eastern Palestine should be regarded as an economic whole within which no boundaries should exist.
The fact that Transjordan is under a separate government creates some complications, but greater difficulties than these have been amicably overcome in the past, Lord Snell stated.
Lord Snell, who as Mr. Harry Snell, was a member of the Shaw Inquiry Commission set up to investigate the Palestine disturbances of 1929, is widely known as the author of the minority report of the Commission, which differed in many respects from the majority report and was regarded as fairer, to the Jews than was the majority report.
Lord Snell’s views on Transjordan were in reply to the interviewer’s queries. The interviewer asked Lord Snell’s views regarding the present development in Transjordan where Emir Abdullah’s willingness to lease his personal estate for Jewish settlement had been interrupted by the agitation of Arab politicians; whether he did not regard it as desirable that Transjordan should play a part in the solution of the Palestinian land problem and that the Jews should be given an opportunity to introduce there the progressive factors already brought by them into Western Palestine.
Lord Snell said that he had had an opportunity during 1929 of seeing Transjordan when the Inquiry Commission paid a visit to the Emir Abdullah at his capital in Amman. On that occasion he had formed the impression that Transjordan was a much more fertile land, better watered and more sparsely populated than Western Palestine. He then went on to reveal that although he had made no specific mention of Transjordan in his report, he had really intended to do so, and was only debarred by the fear that Arab agitators might use his remarks that it was intended to transfer the Arabs from Western to Eastern Palestine as a basis for false political agitation. In his minority report he had declared that if it were true, as alleged, that many Arabs had been dispossessed of their land through government failure to do its duty, such Arabs could be settled by re-establishing them on the land. Moreover, such a settlement should be developed as a model of modern agriculture to serve as an example to the Arabs in that area. He had in-
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
