Uncle Arthur in Rebuttal

Taking its own good time, the League of Nations Mandates Commission published its report last week on the Arab-Jew riots in Palestine year ago. The report roundly flayed the British Government for inaction.

Charges: 1) The riots should have been foreseen but were not. 2) Arab outbreaks were precipitated by frustrated Arab political aspirations, for which the British were responsible. 3) British troops and police were insufficient to maintain order in Palestine. 4) Arab interests in the face of Jewish colonization were not safeguarded.

Jews were prompt to approve the Mandates Commission's findings. On behalf of the Zionist Organization of America, Robert Szold cabled Sir Eric Drummond, secretary general of the League: "To the Jews' of America the commission's restatement of the objects of the Palestine mandate and its emphatic finding that the mandatory [Britain] has positive and constructive obligations to devote itself actively to the establishment of a Jewish National Home, is a message of hope and encouragement."

Quite as promptly came pat answers to the charges from British Foreign Secretary "Uncle Arthur" Henderson: 1) Although fully informed of conditions in Palestine through annual reports, the League's Mandates Commission itself did not foresee the Wailing Wall riots. 2) The Arab outbreak was not incited by resentment against the British for failure to fulfill their aspirations, for there was not one attack upon any representative of British authority. 3) When the outbreak came the British Were attempting to arbitrate the Wailing Wall question, a policy still regarded by Britain as the only possible method of settling the point. 4) The Palestine Government is not possessed of unlimited funds for agricultural developments and other expenditures which the Commission recommends.

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