Government Had No Desire to Stop Development of National Home Says “manchester Guardian”: May Have B

Those who had lived and worked in Palestine were convinced that there was plenty of room for Jewish expansion without prejudice to Arab interests, thanks to the possibilities of intensive agriculture, the “Manchester Guardian” writes in an editorial on Dr. Weizmann’s visit to Manchester. Unfortunately, various Government experts who recently visited Palestine for short periods were of a different opinion and converted Lord Passfield to their point of view. Consequently the Government’s policy outlined in the White Paper was found to provide for a slowing up of further Jewish development schemes, a slowing up which Dr. Weizmann contended would amount to an abandonment.

There can be no doubt, the “Manchester Guardian” says, that the Government only came reluctantly to this conclusion in the face of what appeared to them unanswerable argument. Mr. MacDonald and his colleagues had no desire to stop the establishment of the National Home, but they were of opinion that the economic circumstances of Palestine meant that it would have to be on a more modest scale than Zionists had hoped. They shared the Jewish outlook on everything except on the amount of land available for building operations; but that is a difference not of principle but of ascertainable fact. They may have been wrongly informed, and Mr. MacDonald’s letter to Dr. Weizmann interpreting the White Paper suggests that they are realising that this is in fact the case. At any rate the Government now seem to take a more favourable view of the possibilities of Jewish colonisation, and Dr. Weizmann last night expressed the hope that Zionism was now at the end of the very difficult period arising out of the White Paper and the disturbances of 1929. Let us hope, the “Manchester Guardian” concludes, that he is right.