PALESTINE. (Hansard, 24 March 1936)

§ Captain STRICKLAND
As one who has taken a considerable interest in the growth and development of the Mandated Territory of Palestine, and who, unfortunately, by the force of circumstances was prevented from speaking after having waited several hours while the subject was under debate, I wish to state briefly my views with regard to the situation which has arisen, and which, in my judgment, need not have arisen in its present acute form had it not been through the unholy and eager haste of the Government and the Colonial Secretary in pushing on to that country a matter for which it is so little prepared. I refer to the matter of the Legislative Council. It is a British principle that we progress from one position to another in ever-growing 1167 strength in order to accomplish that which is best for the people over whom we have control. We in this country have developed our constitution through long centuries of progress, and it is in comparatively recent years that democracy has been entrusted with this great task in ever-increasing numbers of maintaining the health, wealth and happiness of our people.
In so far as we have been able to control the development of self-government in our various Dominions and Colonies, it has always been based upon the principle of not rushing full self-government on to the people until they were fully prepared to accept that great responsibility. Where we have parted from that principle and endeavoured to foist a constitution upon a country, it has almost inevitably resulted in abject failure. In the matter of Palestine, as the mandatory Power we are pledged to develop the country, so that the time may come when the people of Palestine may be able and fit to govern themselves. It would not be the wish of this country to maintain its hold upon Palestine or to enforce its will one moment longer than was absolutely necessary for the full development of that country. When we have tried, as we did in Cyprus and in other places, to hasten that day before the people were ready, we have usually found that we have had to take other steps in an attempt to regain the position which we have lost. We, the mandatory Power, were entrusted by the nations of the world with a specific object, but side by side with that specific object of development there comes the promise which this country, wisely or unwisely, undertook when it took upon itself the mandatory Power. That roughly divides itself into two parts.
First, and this is indisputable, we pledged ourselves to establish in Palestine a Jewish national home, and secondly, we undertook to develop the natural and national rights of the races which already inhabited that country. We are pledged to the development of self-governing institutions. What is the "self" of Palestine? We are aiming at the best means by which we can fulfil the pledge we have given of establishing in Palestine a Jewish national home and of protecting the rights of the people already there. The pledge of a Jewish national home was 1168 not made to the inhabitants of Palestine at the time, but was given definitely to world Jewry. It was a pledge definitely issued to the whole race of the Jews throughout the world, that we would use our best endeavours to try and establish in Palestine a home for the Jews. That was the pledge that was given, and it was apparently fully recognised. In a letter from the right hon. Gentleman the present Lord President of the Council to Dr. Weizmann in 1931, the right hon. Gentleman said: The Government recognise that the Mandate is an undertaking to the Jewish people, and not only to the Jewish population in Palestine. When we speak of a Jewish national home it means something wider and deeper than mere habitation. If you are to establish a home for Jews, it has to be placed where they can feel at rest, peace and security from the attacks of those who may be at enmity with them. It means something more than merely preventing the Jews from immigration into that country; it means the active encouragement of immigration and of those qualities which the Jews have already brought to Palestine. This is made all the more urgent because as we look round the world we see the intense, bitter and cruel persecution which is pressing these people, and to these people Palestine is the promise of a home backed by the British authority—a great picture, something which really rouses in them a sense of national pride and the spirit of Israel, and runs throughout the whole world as a new hope to thousands of Jews who have been living in misery and degradation for many years past. If the British pledged word is to be carried into effect the time is not yet ripe for the formation of a legislative council on the basis laid down in the White Paper.
The Jews have gone to Palestine and have paid for everything they have had. The Government have done precious little to help Jewish emigrants. There has been a niggardly policy in regard to the number of emigrants allowed to go into Palestine, and in the fixing of capital values in the case of many Jews who desire to get to their national home. It has not been in the true sense any fulfilment of the pledge. The Jews have had no free grants of land like the Arabs. Instead of having received the finest parts, 1169 the most fertile parts, of Palestine any one who has been there, as I have, will know that they have had the very worst of the land, which is all that they could get, swampy land, around which colony after colony has perished, but which they have been glad to have because it is part of their home-land. Where would Palestine be to-day but for the wonderful and marvellous Jewish organisation which has built it up? Is there any one who will argue that, had it not been for the Jews, electricity would be within the reach of all, or that the magnificent roads which are now being built would have been completed under Arab enterprise? There is the great enterprise at the Dead Sea, which employs many people now. Would these enterprises have been organised but for the Jews?
There is also the question of better housing. The Arabs are now housed, thanks to the efforts of the Jews, in a way of which the Arabs themselves would never have dreamed. Sandy deserts have been turned into fertile country. Mention has been made of the Beisan territory which has been given to the Arabs for all time. I was there two years ago and saw the same old dreary wastes and the same old dreary habitations, which the people have been living under for centuries past. Side by side on exactly similar land were the fertile orange groves and vineyards and plantations of the Jews. The Jews are building Palestine not merely for themselves but for the Arabs, amongst whom they live and work and with whom they would be upon perfectly friendly terms if they were left alone by outside political organisations.
It is also well to remember, in connection with the great budget surplus, that although the Jews are only 25 per cent. of the population they are paying between 65 and 70 per cent. of the taxation. It was the coming of the Jews which raised the standard of Arab living and their rate of wages far beyond what would otherwise have been possible. I am not going to belittle the enormous value that British backing has been to this effort, and no Jew would wish to depreciate the enormous value which the British administration has been in giving them a sense of security. But I cannot get out of my mind the mandate under which we took over this territory. It seems to me that the whole principle of the adminis- 1170 tration rests upon the mandate. I read in Arab newspapers a statement like this in the "Moslem Times," of 12th March, speaking of the Jews: They must realise that, after all, Jewish immigrants are all foreigners to the land. … Much has been made of the mandatory obligations and the British Government firmly hold that it is committed to the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jews.' There is no doubt it is so, no one can deny it for a single moment. But may we respectfully ask as to what exactly constitutes the authority behind this mandatory power? Is it necessarily right and moral simply because it was laid down a good many years ago under special circumstances? Is there no end to the number of Jewish immigrants and their increasing demands for all kinds of rights? The mandate is by no means a divine institution; it is a man-made document. When you are proposing to hand over the administration of this country, with proposals to reserve certain subjects, it must be remembered that this is the spirit which lies behind the Arab population, the official political Arab population of Palestine to-day. Not even the Mandate is safe with the pledge given by the British Government. It is only a manmade document, and is something which can be cast on one side. What sort of confidence does that give to the Jews? When you are going to give them a legislative council which will have a majority for the next five years of Arabs, one can easily see the great unrest and uneasiness of the Jews, who look with longing eyes to the day when they will be taken from the slums and ghettos of Europe and placed on the land of Palestine, with a new light in their eyes and a new spirit in their hearts. I should like to read another extract from the White Paper from Palestine issued in 1930: It is obvious that in order to establish effective self-government on a national scale, it is imperative first to introduce on a more solid basis a wide measure of local self-government in order to enable the inhabitants, and especially the more backward section of the population, to obtain practical experience of administrative methods and the business of government and to learn discrimination in the selection of representatives. That is only five years ago. That was the view of His Majesty's Government then, and since then the experiment has been tried of getting these people to take an intelligent interest in the local government of the country. I wish that it had been possible to give one example of 1171 where the spread of the municipal administration under Arab rule has proved a success. When the Government two years ago passed its extension of municipal government it found it necessary not to increase the electorate, which was then only 1.6 of the Arab population—excluding the city of Jerusalem, which has a Jewish majority—but to decrease the number of voters, although the population had increased tremendously. Yet in this proposal, which I hope will never receive the sanction of this House, it is proposed not only to give the franchise to every man of 25 years of age, whether illiterate or otherwise, but also to leave it to the local government authority as to whether they shall entrust the franchise to the women as well.
What is it that is behind the mind of His Majesty's Government and the High Commissioner of Palestine which has suddenly induced them to believe that in this short year or two it has been found possible not to entrust just the local government to a complete adult franchise, but the very government of the country itself? It may be said that there are safeguards in the White Paper, that the High Commissioner is going to retain the last word. How long do you think that he will be able to retain the last word when the elected representatives of the people demand revision of the Mandate, that immigration of Jews shall stop or that the Jews shall have no more land? I should like to ask why the Under-Secretary for the Colonies made this statement in another place—

§ Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER
The hon. Member must not quote speeches made in another place.

§ Captain STRICKLAND
It was stated in another place that the proposals—

§ Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER
We must not discuss statements made in another place in the same Session.

§ Captain STRICKLAND
I would like to ask then whether it is too late now to bring forward proposals not to bring into effect this particular White Paper? It might be said by the Secretary of State for the Colonies that we are too late to do this now, the reason being that the High Commissioner had already divulged these terms to the leaders of 1172 the Arabs and of the Jews, and that, therefore, we should be powerless to say Yes or No to these proposals. But if that is so, I submit that it was an entirely wrong way of going to work, because if this House is to be bound by the statement of the High Commissioner of any Colony or district, over which we have control, that is the end of the control by Parliament or our own Dominions. In all sincerity, knowing a little about this country, knowing something of the great development that has taken place, of the real fear which lies in the hearts of the Jews that the whole of the edifice which they have built up with such patient care is to come crashing to the ground in the next few months, I ask why it is that the Colonial Secretary told us that the time was overripe for introducing this Measure? We may have given a pledge—we certainly would give a pledge at any time—that as and when a country was able to govern itself we would be the very first to place that power in the hands of the people. Having made that pledge, it does not seem to me that within a year we are bound to bring in this legislative council. If this council were brought in in five years' time we should still fulfil the pledge given at Geneva that we would enable Palestine to govern itself as and when it was capable of doing that.
If it comes to a question of expressing pleasure or displeasure with the way the Government have brought forward these proposals I ask this House to pause seriously before it lends it name to these proposals, before it says "Yes, in spite of what we have told you about establishing your home we are going to leave you high and dry." Remember Ireland. We were going to give them self-government. Everything was going to be nice. We were going to retain the power in this country. Ireland would not be able to break away. Where is that power to-day? In Southern Ireland it has gone. If we part with this power which we held to-day, with the respect not only of the Jews but of the Arabs, we shall live to see the day when bitterness and strife will break out in Palestine, where now peace and good will are growing among the people. If only they are allowed to continue we shall get in increasing measure that spirit of friendliness and joint nationality which in the long run must accomplish far more than the break- 1173 ing of a whole system by the placing of the Jews in a permanent minority in their national home.