Palestine The Times of Friday, December 20th, published an important
letter from Lord Balfour, Mr. Lloyd George and General Smuts—members of the War Cabinet responsible for the Balfour Declaration in regard to Palestine—urging that the present Commission which is inquiring into the recent outbreak should be succeeded by a Commission with much wider terms of reference. They suggest that the Commission should investigate the whole working of the Mandate. They acknowledge that the pledge to give the Jews a National Home in Palestine was " unequivocal " but as the present situation affects them with deep anxiety they consider that " some readjustment of the administrative machine " may be required. They add that such a Commission would be an advertisement to the world, that Great Britain has not weakened in the task to which her honour is pledged. There was good cause for this letter. The relations of Jew and Arab seem at present to be settling down to a sullen strife which expresses itself in manifold reprisals, agrarian, commercial and personal. * * *
Previous page
