Fear Critical Attitude to Mandatory After Agency Consummation

The consummation of the extended Jewish Agency for Palestine will bring about an increase of criticism against Great Britain as the Mandatory, particularly on the part of American Jews, is the opinion expressed in an editorial appearing in the “Near East and India,” British magazine, said to be in close touch with the colonial office.

This tendency, the paper declares, is already discernible, before the convening of the World Zionist Congress. It has manifested itself in the bitter charges, it alleges, which are being levelled against Sir Robert Chancellor, the present High Commissioner. Hailed first as a practical administrator who would give fresh impetus to the rebuilding of the Jewish Homeland, he is now the object of censure. He is blamed, the paper states, for the curtailment of the autonomy of Tel Aviv, the land conflict, the transfer of the Jewish colonies, of Infyat, to an administrative unit which is Arabic, the stricter enforcement of the certificate system, and the attempts to minimize the rights of the Hebrew language.

Discarding this criticism, the editorial declares that the measures were undertaken merely to tighten administrative efficiency. It states, however, that the criticism is symptomatic.

After lauding the Palestine officials, who it says, have performed their work admirably and require neither apology nor defense, it states that it is quaint that the nationalist press should insist upon attacking them as anti-Semitic in a land which is wholly people by Semites.

Referring to the forthcoming World Zionist Congress, the editorial points out that whereas the Palestine Survey Commission recommended a minimum budget of a million pounds, the Zionist Congress will be asked to ratify a budget of three-quarters of a million pounds for the next two years.