Mandates Body Demands Britain Reply Fully to Palestine Queries

Refusal of the British representatives to supply the Mandates Commission with full information on the Palestine events precipitated a crisis at yesterday’s session of the League of Nations body, which is conducting private hearings on the Palestine and Transjordan mandates held by Great Britain.

A secret session of the commission with England’s accredited representative absent, by a majority vote decided to give Great Britain one of two alternatives:

1) Be prepared to give the commission further information on the Palestine situation at once.

2) Submit a proper report at a later date, such as during the next Assembly meeting, and send a representative who would be in a position to give proper replies to the commission.

If the mandatory power agreed to the latter alternative, the commission decided it would at this time consider only the purely technical and not the political sections of its 1935 report, postponing consideration of the entire report to the Autumn or for a special meeting.

Action followed open dissatisfaction voiced by members of the mandates body with the refusal of H.H. Trusted, Great Britain’s representative, to reply fully to important questions on the proposed legislative council for Palestine, Arab-Jewish relations and the role of police and soldiers in the present disturbed conditions.

It was learned that several members at yesterday’s session stated that if the mandatory power’s representative was not in a position to give more information there was no purpose in proceeding with the examination.

The opinion is understood to have prevailed that it was impossible to discuss important political problems connected with the report without reference to present developments, on which Mr. Trusted’s replies were considered uninformative and unsatisfactory.