News Brief

Mr. H. St. John Philby, spaking yesterday at a meeting of the Near and Middle East Association, said that after exhausting every effort in his power to bring home to the British Government, through the ordinary official channels the unwisdom, if not the injustice, of delaying a fair settlement in Arabia, he was driven of his own free choice to adopt the only alternative, and dissociate himself from the policy that England was pursuing, by resigning from his post. His purpose was to obtain freedom to devote himself to a cause, which was not only just, but well-worthy of suppot.

###### France was in Syria as the result of committments into which England had entered, he said, and would remain there so long as England remained in Palestine and Mesopotamia. The French had no desire to remain in Syria any longer than England remained in the countries allocated to it. He believed that the Syrian patriots should concentrate upon demanding from the British Foreign Office the release of Palestine and Mesopotamia from the mandates.

He declared that England would save 20,000,000 pounds if she would get out of Mesopotamia, but that in Palestine she would come across a serious difficulty, since she was committed to a rich and powerful community which demanded its pound of flesh. If he were an Arabian patriot, he declared, he would hold out the olive branch to the Jews. He would give them the most unrestricted right of immigration into Palestine.

and all the Arabian lands on the basis of full equality with the other races, if only they would give up the wild dream of Zionist domination, which at any time might become a nighmare. He suggested that the League of Nations might assume a mandate for the sole purpose of seeing fair play for the Jews in Palestine.