A lively debate on Palestine developed in the House of Commons when Drummond Shiels, under-secretary for the Colonies, moved for a supplementary vote on the excess cost of additional services in connection with the recent Palestine disturbances. Shiels asked for $620,000.
Howard Bury, noted anti-Zionist, moved to reduce this sum by $500 as a protest because he strongly objected to the spending of so large an amount “in order to put an alien race into an alien land.” He declared that this sum was merely a beginning and that the expenditures next year might be more. Bury asked Shiels to consider the “repercussions on the countries around Palestine. For the present they are our allies but they can become potential enemies if the present policy regarding Palestine continues.”
Michael Marcus, Jewish M.P., protested against Bury’s remarks saying “that at least 13,000,000 people voted at the last election in favor of the present Palestine policy. It is necessary to insure that the defenseless Jewish people in Palestine be protected against further outrages by hooligans. A crime has been committed against the Jewish people in Palestine.” Speaking as a Jew, he said, he protested against it and hoped that the money allotted would go a long way to restore confidence in Palestine.
Supporting Shiel’s figures, James Rothschild said that if the estimate came before the House “there was certainly one person guilty of it, namely Howard Bury, because all through his career in the House of Commons he advocated an imaginary plan of one section of the population. He listened to every wind that was blown from the desert and excited feelings of discontent which gave rise to the disturbances. If there had been more police in Palestine the disturbances would not have occurred.”
Speaking on behalf of the Palestine
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.
