“manchester Guardian” Calls Report’s Advice Bad; Says Commission Took Too Generous View of Duties

The Palestine Inquiry Commission has taken a too generous view of its duties in suggesting that the government’s declaration of policy should be largely concerned with safe-guarding the rights of the non-Jewish communities, and with the exception of Harry Snell, the advice it gives on a matter not referred to it, will to many seem bad, points out the liberal “Manchester Guardian,” in discussing the Inquiry Commission’s report.

“After all,” says the “Guardian,” “the outrages were directed by Arabs against Jews and not by Jews against Arabs…. The form of government, the functions of the Jewish agency, immigration and land purchase are matters which one would have thought lay well outside their terms of reference, but they are all matters on which the Commission thought it fit to proffer advice, to make suggestions, and draw inferences.

“The Commission’s first recommendation that the British Government issue a clear statement of policy will meet with general approval. Premier MacDonald promised to make a statement on Thursday when no doubt he will take the opportunity to affirm once more that the Balfour Declaration with its promise of a National Home for the Jews in Palestine is still the policy of His Majesty’s Government.

“But a reaffirmation of the Balfour Declaration is only the first step. The Declaration itself needs to be more clearly and closely defined than it was in the Mandate or in the White paper of 1922, such a precise statement necessarily to be preceded by a thorough inquiry in Palestine by an authority of high standing. This was the step urged last December by General Smuts, Lloyd George, and Lord Balfour. It was perhaps Lord Balfour’s last public act. It should not be his least fruitful.

“The document which is now before us, by prejudging many of the issues, has made such an investigation far more difficult than it would otherwise have been. It hasn’t made it any less necessary. Let us hope that when the Premier speaks on Thursday, he will be able to couple a reaffirmation of the Balfour Declaration with a promise of a thorough inquiry.

“The task to which we are committed in Palestine is at best one of the utmost delicacy. It is to plant settlers, drawn from most of the countries of Europe and America, of many different levels of civilization, in a country already inhabited by people who would prefer to be left without immigrants. Many of the factors in the problem are even beyond our control.

“The number of immigrants which Palestine can absorb depends partly on the economic situation of the country from which they are drawn for the development of Palestine depends on the influx of capital, attracted not so much by profit as by an ideal. This economic crisis in Palestine coincided with an economic crisis in Poland, which in turn coincided with the German-Polish tariff war, an event quite beyond our control.

“It is in the solution of the economic problem that hope for Palestine largely lies. Gradually, by raising the standard of life, the Jews may hope to reconcile the Arabs to the experiment. It is only a hope. Quite clearly then, the key problems of immigration and land purchase require expert study and control and more detailed examination than they have yet received. Plainly success depends on the Administration in Palestine being in the hands of men who are firm in the pursuit of justice for the Arab, but who are yet pledged to and believe in the experiment.”