turn with a fresh scheme for a Legislative Council in his pocket. He had given a pledge before the League of Nations that he would introduce a Legislative Council as soon as the municipalities, where electoral government had already been set in motion, were in working order.
Unfortunately the first results of the reformed municipal elections, held in Jerusalem this autumn, were not of a kind to encourage a rapid advance. Allegations of corruption, petitions and counter-petitions still obscure the political air and none of the new members have taken their seats. Several old members have already resigned, and the late mayor is proceeding without a quorum. The High Commissioner has announced his intention of summoning the party leaders to discuss plans for the still unformulated Legislative Council when the municipalities are in better working order. It is admitted that no definite steps can be taken for another year or more.
So far, the project has few friends. The extreme Arab nationalists and their more moderate rivals accept the idea of a Legislative Council with misgivings. Each is doubtful of the strength of representation which may come into the hands of their respective parties.
The extremists’ policy has been to refuse co-operation with the Government and to protest from time to time by means of deputations, processions, riots and the press against the very principle of the Mandate. Can they change over and begin co-operation now without alienating their followers?
The more moderate Arab party, on the other hand, who might more logically desire the Legislative Council, have the practical objection before them that the recent municipal elections showed they were losing ground. Their strategy would lead them to welcome a Legislative Council, but tactically this is not quite their moment for enthusiasm.
As for the Jews, their interests and their policy have always been bound up with co-operation with the mandatory Power, except for a brief unhappy interlude when Lord Passfield’s blundering recoil from the Zionist experiment precipitated a break.
But tactical considerations would influence the present Zionist leaders to refuse any minority representation on a Legislative Council. In the past three years the Jewish population of Palestine has risen from 175,000 to 300,000, under the twofold influence of persecution abroad and of an importation of capital into Palestine which has produced there a phenomenon confined in other countries today to economic text-books—shortage of labor.
Members of the Jewish Agency claim, not without reason, that an Arab majority among the elected members of the Legislative Council would endeavor to stop further immigration, and interfere with their policy of intensive land settlement. Less reasonably, perhaps, they fear that a hostile majority on the Legislative Council could influence the Government to forego that portion of the Mandate which promised the Jews these essentials of a National Home.
The Arabs, for their part, feel that land settlement and immigration affect very intimately that part of the Mandate which promises them that “nothing should be done which may prejudice the . . . rights of existing non-Jewish communities.” How can they be restrained, then, from discussing these problems in a Legislative Council? Why should they accept less than a majority upon it?
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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.
