England Criticizes Mandates Body’s Report on Palestine

The observations of the British government to the report of the Mandates Commission on the Palestine question which sharply criticized Great Britain, is an extremely outspoken and pungent document not only defending the British actions but actually going so far as to counter the criticism of the Mandates Commission with criticism of its own, it is learned. The observations of Great Britain, which constitute a reply to the Commission’s report, and the report itself are now in the hands of the League of Nations’ printer and will be made public in the next few days.

The delay in releasing the Commission’s report is due to the fact that Great Britain had asked that the report and the British government’s observations on it should appear simultaneously. The British observations were only received by the secretariat of the League of Nations three days ago.

While the report of the Mandates Commission in advance summaries is said to have blamed the British government more strongly than is usual in dealing with mandatory powers and to have taken issue with the findings of the Palestine Inquiry Commission, which reported that there was nothing anti-British in the riots of last Summer, the observations of the British government are said to uphold the report of the Shaw Commission.

Although the Mandates Commission is said to hold that the inadequacy of British military forces and police was one of the chief causes for the spread of the riots, the reply of the British government is reported to be repeating the arguments of the Shaw Commission that the riots of 1921 occurred when the British garison was adequate, hence it is no indication that larger military forces could have prevented the distutrbances of 1929.