No greater guarantee can be found for the development and enrichment of Palestine than the fact that all the Jews in the world desire its prosperity and are willing to apply the gehius of their race to further that object, the Earl of Lytton, former Viceroy of India, who is Chairman of the Palestine Potash Company (Novomeysky Dead Sea Consession) said when he delivered the Cust Foundation Lecture at Nottingham University this week, with Lord Brownlow in the chair.
The plea of economy is easily disposed of, Lord Lytton went on. It is in the best interests of Palestine are we to shirk our responsibilities because they involve us in some expenditure? Many British lives were sacrificed to free the Arabs from the rule of the Turks. We also promised to help the Jews to found their home in Palestine, and in fulfilment of that promise have accepted responsibilities for providing machinery by which it could be accomplished. Because that has cost us a few millions, are we to go back on our promise and abandon the trust confided to us by the League of National? I do not know any supporter of the Balfour Declaration who would ever suggest that.
The only way to justify the expenditure already incurred is to go forward faithfully and courageously with our policy until we have reaped the fruits, Lord Lytton declared. If we are to retire now we shall lose all the advantages of our past expenditure. If we are to remain, little more will be required of us in the way of financial sacrifice. The only course consistent with honour is to work for the Mandate policy.
New industries are being established and new wealth created in Palestine, Lord Lytton said. There is the provision of electric power, the building of new railways connecting the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean, which would transform the country into a rich industrial area, and a highway of trade between Russia and the East. All those things could only be brought about by the aid of Jewish capital, enterprise and industry. The interests of the Arabs are indentical with the Jews in making Palestine a rich country and in the creation of a free self-governing Palestinian nation. Neither could achieve its object without the other.
A purely Jewish Palestine, Lord Lytton concluded, could not support itself, and in the creation of a Palestine nation which Jews, Arabs and Christians are content to defend lies the only hope of Palestine.
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