* * * * Palestine The murder of Mr. J.
L. Starkey, head of the Marston- Wellcome Archaeological Research Expedition in Palestine, by a party of armed Arabs near Hebron on Tuesday, was a particularly brutal and senseless crime. The Arabs cannot hope to attain their ends by such methods. Indeed they add an impossible difficulty to an already complicated situation, for it seems that no solution can be applied until terrorism has been abandoned. Yet it is doubtful whether, by its latest pronouncement, the British Government has done anything to ease the position. Though the declaration that the Government is not committed to the partition . scheme of the Palestine Commission is more pleasing to the Arabs than the Jews, the prospect of further and indefinite delay cannot but be exasperating to both sides ; and, as an Arab paper has said, there can be little purpose in prose- cuting still further enquiries in a small country about which by now, everything that is likely or useful to be known is known. It is precisely this sense of exasperation which is likely to lead to an increase of terrorism ; for terrorism may easily seem the only method of forcing to a decision a Government which shows itself only too clearly to be in doubt. The Commission's partition scheme was by no means perfect ; but the Commission was right if it con- sidered even an imperfect solution better than prolonged delay and indecision ; their cost is the loss of such lives as Mr. Starkey's.
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