Great Britain will proclaim martial law in Palestine within a week by an order in council to end 22-week-old disorders, it was reported today following a meeting of the Cabinet which considered the situation.
Added confirmation of the report was given by the Morning Post, which said the draft of the order, approved at yesterday’s cabinet session, grants High Commissioner Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope full emergency powers, including authority to proclaim martial law, unless the Arabs unconditionally and their general strike and terrorism.
Great Britain and the East, which mirrors Colonial Office policy, will state in an editorial tomorrow that a system of cantons in Palestine is one of the proposals which will be considered by the Royal Commission in its investigation of disorders in the Holy Land.
Reports that the oil pipeline section of Palestine would be converted into a crown colony are ridiculed as a “fatuous suggestion.” The editorial states that under a canton scheme the areas reserved for British rule would not have a colonial, but a mandatory status.
The editorial stresses that order must be restored before the commission proceeds with its inquiry.
The idea of dividing Palestine into cantons, along the general lines of the Swiss federal system, was revived early this year when it appeared that Arabs and Jews could not cooperate in the representative legislative council proposed by the Palestine Government.
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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.
