The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. TUESDAY, APRIL 15, 1930.

Hokitika Guardian, 15 April 1930, Page 4

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. TUESDAY, APRIL 15, 1930.

THE PALESTINE REPORT. Tnk Commission, sot up to investigate tlie disturbances which ocurred In Palestine in August last year submitted its report to Parliament, and its lindings must on the whole give satisfaction to the Zionists and their supporters. For the Commission has concluded, from the evidence put before it that the outbreaks were due to unprovoked attacks by the Arabs upon Lhe Jews, and that “the few attacks made by Jews upon Arabs were mostly of a retaliatory nature.” There is no proof that the Grand Mufti or any Moslem official organised these disturlsii.ucps. Rut the verdict is one of “guilty” against the Arabs, so far as the main count in the indictment is concerned; and this involves the

virtual exoneration of the Jews. Having settled the question of responsibility for the disorder the Commission goes on to consider the position of the British and native authorities in Palestine in regard to these “regrettable incidents.” These outbreaks were not in any sense “a revolt against British authority,” and the Commissioners ‘ have no serious criticism to make” in regard ,to the action taken by the Palestine- Government either before or during the disturbances. Apparently this means that the authorities end the best that might have been expected of them, under very difficult circumstances. But it should bo observed that “the inadequacy of the military fores and poli e,” and also “the belief among the Arabs that the Palestine Government’s decisions could he influenced by political considerations,” are included among the “immeuiate causes” of these tragic occurrences, and these charges certainly reflect upon the administration. But even more importance may he attached to “the reduction of the garrisons in Palestine and Transjordania,” which, in the opinion of the Commission “has been carried too far.” In this connection, says an exchange, we may refer to some comments on the situation in the-Aliddle East made by Mr AATnston Churchill in September last. He pointed out that the British police force organised in 1921 was disbanded in 1924 on the score of economy. But lie laid more stress upon the fact that the dismissal of Lord Lloyd, the British High Commissioner in Egypt, and the proposed withdrawal of the British troops from Cairo and Alexandria, had inevitably reacted upotl' the situation in Palestine, “I have no doubt,” wrote Mr Churchill, “that the declaration that the British garrisons would evacuate Egypt, and the marked censure and humiliation of a competent and fearless administrator like Lord Lloyd, was taken as a signal by the discontented factions among the Arabs that the hour to strike'had come.” That there is discontent among the Arabs in Syria and Palestine is a fact so ob- ■ ious that it needs no proof. The Arabs cherish strong racial and religious prejudices, they ob.je t to the intrusion of foreigners, and the advent of the Jews in Palestine is bitterly resented because it breaks, rudely into their ambitious dreams of a great Aloslem empire of the Middle East. As the Commission has urged, every effort should be made to convince the Arabs that Zionism is not an alien tyranny, and that the rights of the Arabs will he adequately safeguarded, and to impress upon them the benefits and advantages that Palestine has already received through the Jewish settlement. As Air Churchill has said, though the legitimate rights and claims of the Arabs should be treated as sacred, there is nothing in them “incompatible with the building up of a- Jewish National Home.” The Commission’s Report questions the possibility of domiciling any very large number of Jews in Palestine. Yet the populaton is not one-fifth of what it was under the Roman Empire, and already the Jews have conferred upon the country and its people gifts of incalculable value—“more wealth, more trade, more civilisation, new sources of revenue, more employment, a higher rate of wages, larger cultivated areas, a better water supply—in a word, the fruits of reason and modern science” But the policy of the Balfour Note is also directly beneficial to Britain As the “Sunday Times” said in December last, “if there were no Zionism it would be necessary for us to invent it, by reason of our position in the Middle East, our difficulties in Egypt, and the supreme importance of the Suez Canal.” Jn this case at least “the path of duty is also the path of natioivi! interest,” and this report is valuable largely because it indicates the means by which Britain may pursue her declared policy in Palestine with honour and success.