The next supplementary estimate furnished an opportunity for a debate
on Palestine. The cost of sending troors is to be repaid out of Palestinian resources, but falls in the first place on the British Exchequer. Sir Percy Harris, speaking with great moderation, thought that the High Commissioner had perhaps shown excessive patience and that, if the police had been properly armed and equipped in advance, such larke reinforcements would not have been necessary. The most significant intervention came from Lord Winterton. He expressed the view, now held in many quarters, that the one-sidedness of former debates in the House of Commons had been one of the primary causes of Arab unrest. Speaking with an intimate knowledge of the country—" I am one of the few members who has fought over every inch of it "- he warned the House that the potential gravity of the situation in Palestine today, making allowances for the geographical difference of the two countries, is exactly equal to that of Ireland in 1919.
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