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The request for an authoritative commission to consider the whole working of the Palestine Mandate made in a joint letter to the London “Times” by Lord Balfour, David Lloyd George and General Jan Smuts, will be difficult to refuse, declares the “Manchester Guardian” today, for, says the “Guardian,” “it is abundantly clear that in 1917 we did not fully appreciate the complexity of the problem.”
Pointing out that the most serious difficulty is the question of colonizing an already occupied country, the “Guardian” says that the “constant Arab suspicion in connection with land purchase is exercising a most disquieting influence. Such suspicions may be unavoidable but perhaps something might be done to lessen them if the whole matter was brought under a more direct state control.
“Then there is the question of Jewish immigration and the rate at which Palestine can absorb it. In recent tendency for the number of emigrants to approach, and even on occasion to exceed the number of new arrivals. This symptom of ill health can only be cured by a thoroughly expert diagnosis which will take into account the flow of capital, the type of settler and the prevailing market conditions.
“The Palestine government has done much to probe this problem but more remains to be done. Many feel that in its broad lines that is a matter for the Mandatory power itself rather than for its representatives. These are some of the questions which would form a legitimate field for the contemplated inquiry. If it is to be effective it should be limited to economic and social questions for under the peculiar Palestine conditions there can be little doubt that the form of government will have to remain in its essence a benevolent despotism for a considerable period.”
The London “Daily Mail”, picking out a sentence from the joint letter, “we view with deep anxiety the pres- (Continued on Page 7)
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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.
