Britain’s Royal Commission opened its investigation today into the six-month disorders in Palestine with a broadcast public session and prepared to begin a week’s tour of the principal trouble centers tomorrow.
Lord Peal, head of the commission, deploring the Arabs’ decision to boycott the inquiry, said “it will be most unfortunate if we are compelled to arrive at conclusions and decisions without their advice.”
Replying for the six-man commission to an opening speech of welcome by High Commissioner Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope, Lord Peel said it was determined to study the problems impartially and had heard no evidence before leaving London to avoid preconceived ideas.
“It would be deplorable indeed,” said the former Secretary of State for India, “if strife, fears and dissension are to be the portion of the Holy Land, which forwarded in the past the message of peace and good-will to all the world.”
Emphasizing the commission’s independence, he said it took no responsibility for past or present Government policy and appealed to “all loving Palestine and holding her future dear to join the Royal Commission and share its labors.”
Two hundred representatives of all elements of the population except the Arabs were on hand in the Government House assembly room as High Commissioner Wauchope appealed to the population to cooperate in the inquiry.
Terming the day a historical landmark for the Holy Land, he stressed the difficulties facing the commission and expressed confidence in its “wisdom, experience and authority to succeed and to point the way to a just and equitable solution.”
The only Arabs present were Government officials as a result of the Arab Supreme Committee’s decision to boycott the sessions in protest against failure to suspend Jewish immigration. The diplomatic corps and representatives of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the Jewish National Council attended.
The Jerusalem municipality was not represented on the ground that Mayor Hussein Khalidi was “ill.” Daniel Auster, Jewish vice-mayor, attended as an “individual” under a decision that the invitation to Mayor Khalidi was personal.
The commission, which will seek to discover the causes of the disorders that took 314 lives and caused $15,000,000 property damage, includes, besides Lord Peel: Sir Horace Rumbold, Sir Laurie Hammond, Sir Morris Carter, Sir Harold Morris and Prof. Reginald Coupland.
Under the terms of reference given it by Parliament, the commission will investigate the underlying causes of the disorders, inquiring into the manner in which the League of Nations mandate is being implemented, ascertaining whether Arabs or Jews have legitimate grievances in relation to the manner in which the mandate is being implemented and recommending measures to remove the cause of the grievances.
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