The Royal Commission will submit to the Cabinet in the third week of June its report on Palestine, the House of Commons was told today by Colonial Secretary William Ormsby-Gore.
For the first time, Commons was informed by the Colonial Secretary that it will have the “usual opportunity” to discuss both the report and the Government’s “conclusions.” a previous statement by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin had created considerable doubt as to whether Commons would be given the opportunity to debate the report before any final decisions had been taken on it by the Government.
Mr. Ormsby-Gore said he hoped it would be possible for the Government to reach its conclusions “without delay” and make them public simultaneously with the report.
Replying to Geoffrey Mander, Liberal, who demanded that the Government take no decisions before the report is discussed in Commons, the Colonial Secretary declared:
“The Government has clearly the responsibility to give the lead to Commons in any discussion of the report.”
Meanwhile, discussion of the Commission’s possible recommendations for solution of Arab-Jewish difficulties which led to the serious disorders of 1936 has been resumed in the British press.
The Daily Mail today revived reports that the Commission still is considering partition of the Holy Land, with creation of a Jewish State as a British Dominion with League of Nations membership as one of the probable proposals.
According to the Rothermere paper members of the Commission are convinced that the only way to end the friction is for Great Britain to ask the League to terminate the present mandate (in effect since 1922) and for the League to agree to partitioning the country.
Division of the Holy Land, it was stated, would follow this general plan: A line to be drawn from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea (which are linked by the Jordan River); territory east of this line to be formed into an Arab State under the sovereignty of the Emir Abdullah, ruler of Transjordan; and the Jewish State to be created from the coastwise districts.
In this plan, as in the others previously reported under consideration by the Commission, Haifa would become an international port. Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth, because of their religious associations, would be placed under British mandate. Great Britain would be responsible for defence and internal order of the new Jewish State.
According to the Daily Mail, no final decision has been reached yet and definite recommendations are not expected for at least another fortnight.
The Commission has not yet produced plans to safe guard minorities in the proposed states, the Mail declares, nor have problems connected with customs, transport, immigration and public service yet been solved.
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.
