Palestine Development Plan Will Not Be Changed Under New High Commissioner It is Asserted: Plan is C

The Palestine Development Scheme is one of the most important things that have happened to Palestine since the War. The appointment of a new High Commissioner to Palestine cannot, therefore, be expected to affect the lines of policy already laid down. In this connection continuity is anticipated as between Sir John Chancellor, who proceeds on leave next September, and Lieut.-General A. G. Wauchope, who succeeds him in Jerusalem next November.

This is the opinion expressed to-day in an editorial in the “Near East and India”, regarded as a semi-official organ of the Colonial Office.

There appears to exist misconception, the “Near East and India” says, in regard to the Development Scheme for Palestine, which the Mandatory Power, after it has received the report of Mr. French, Director of Development, is to put into execution. It is commonly assumed that so much is to be spent on the Arabs and so much on the Jews. But nothing is to be spent on the Arabs, and nothing on the Jews qua Jews: all is to be spent on Palestine. If the case of dispossessed Arabs is to be considered, or that of Jewish settlers requiring credit, it will be in virtue of their rank as Palestinians, the part they play, not in their particular community, but in the country as a whole. If only Jews and Arabs could be made to see this distinction, the prospects of the country would be considerably brighter. But whether that consummation be reached soon or late, the British officialsresponsible for the development of Palestine will go forward with their policy, conscious that they are on the right and only just lines.

It is now accepted by all impartial observers that the British Government at last is on the right road in Palestine. The problem is being probed to its fundamentals, and the line of future development clearly indicated. It has taken some years to discover the correct policy, but now that that discovery has been made, there can, it seems to us, be no departing from it, the paper asserts.