§ Debate resumed (according to Order) on the Motion, made by Lord Snell yesterday, That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty for Papers relating to the Palestine Royal Commission Report, and to the policy of His Majesty's Government in regard to the same.
THE MARQUESS OF READINGMy Lords, I am not unmindful of the warning given in the Report of the Commission and reiterated by Lord Lamington against the danger of over weighting the scales by too much support of the Jewish case and thereby alarming the Arab mind, and I should have refrained from following Lord Samuel and Lord Melchett if it had not been for two reasons; the first that I do not desire to be thought indifferent to the issues raised, and the second that I shall, if I may, a little later make a suggestion for the consideration of the noble Viscount the Secretary of State for Air. It is right that I should say at the outset that I have no connection with any Zionist association of any kind. My views are my own views, and mine alone is the responsibility for them, just as was Lord Samuel's in the advice which he expressed yesterday. It may be that for that reason I am able to approach this problem from a rather more objective angle than my noble friend Lord Melchett, whose ardour in this cause I know to be due not only to filial piety but to deep personal conviction. I think in general terms it is 798 true to say that while there were among Jews Zionists and anti-Zionists, there are now only Zionists and non-Zionists—a material distinction, because we have all, from whatever angle we view the situation, come to realise that in Palestine lies the only hope for the future of a great many suffering Jews to whose fate we cannot be indifferent without earning the obloquy not only of our own people but of the whole of civilised mankind.
It so happened that it was my privilege to be one of the counsel who went out from this country to present the Jewish Agency's case before the Shaw Commission in 1929, when I had the honour of sitting for some ten weeks in the literally and figuratively overheated atmosphere of Jerusalem at the feet of Lord Rushcliffe and Lord Snell, and I was then given an intensive course in the problems and personalities of Palestine which, so far as I can gather from reports in the Press, is to-day by no means out of date. At that time and at other times I have had to endeavour to construe the document in which the actual terms of the Mandate are inscribed, and I am bound to say that I have never been confronted with anything more confused, ambiguous, ill-drafted or obscure. I wish now that the same solution had occurred to me which has occurred to the members of the Commission, but, much though I might have desired to take that course, it never occurred to me to tear it into small pieces, which is the course which has now found favour with the Commission. I only pause to say that it does seem to me that they have, by so doing, gone completely outside the terms of reference on which they were appointed. The slightest examination of those terms of reference will, I think, make it abundantly clear that it was never contemplated that either their investigations or their recommendations should fall outside the four corners of the Mandate itself. However, that may be an academic discussion, because I at least know no procedure whereby you can obtain an enforceable declaration as to the actions of a Royal Commission being ultra vires.
The scheme of partition, which is the main subject of discussion in this present debate, has been welcomed neither by Jews nor by Arabs. The noble Earl whose name will always be associated with this great State Paper endeavoured both in the Report and in some degree in his speech yesterday to support that 799 attitude by the venerable but vulnerable argument that when you were endeavouring to settle a dispute between two parties, if you succeeded in displeasing both you had probably done substantial justice between them. That argument is open to the retort that it never allows for the fact that you may have done substantial injustice to both. I do not pretend for my own part to like this part of the Report, anyhow in its present form. It seems to confine the future Jewish National Home to the equivalent of Devonshire, and then summarily to remove the equivalents of Exeter, Plymouth, Devonport, and—if I may be allowed the analogy, since I believe that Acre is the main gaol of Palestine—Princetown also, from that very limited sphere. It provides Palestine with a long frontier which is dominated almost from end to end by a mountain range and is strategically incapable of defence. Above all it proceeds to create a new Jewish State. I do not object to that State because it is Jewish, but because it is new and because it is a new State to be established in one of the vital nerve-centres of the world, where it will inevitably be a fresh cause of international complications. Of all the dangerous places in which to set up an unsupported, inexperienced State, I wonder whether at the present moment you could find a more perilous spot than the eastern end of the Mediterranean.
The Government have pronounced in very general terms in favour of the partition aspect of the Report. Governments are powerful machines, and it may be that, whether they like it or not, the two other parties concerned in Palestine may have to suffer the imposition of this scheme upon them. It is in that connection that I desire to make a suggestion. This part of the Report obviously contains considerable gaps which must be filled. It gives the impression of having been devised at a late stage of the Commission's deliberations. There is further to be borne in mind that, so far as I know, none of the voluminous evidence heard before the Commission, anyhow in public, was ever directed to this particular aspect of the problem at all. And there are, in the scheme as outlined by the Commission, proposals some of which I trust will be deleted, and others revised. 800 I have not sufficient of what people who are not lawyers call the legal mind to possess a liking of precedent for its own sake, but if we are ever to act by experience rather by experiment, a good precedent has its uses, and I desire very briefly to expand and carry a stage further certain remarks that fell from the most reverend Primate in his speech yesterday, based upon his own authoritative experience in connection with the establishment of the Indian Constitution.
When that Constitution was under consideration there was first the Simon Report. Here there is the Peel Report. The next stage was the summoning of the Round-Table Conference. In the present juncture as regards Palestine that may be a counsel of perfection, which may fitly fall from the lips of the most reverend Primate but may not be feasible as a matter of practical politics, and it is possible that that stage will have to be omitted. The next stage was the sending out of a fact-finding Commission, whose business it was to investigate matters upon the spot. Then, and only then, there was presented to Parliament a White Paper in which were set out the plans of the Government, in so far as even at that stage they had crystallised, in order that Parliament might be in a position to express a view upon them. And it was at that stage that the then Secretary of State for India, Sir Samuel Hoare, said in another place, after referring to the complexity of the problem:
It would be altogether unfair, it would be almost criminal, to ask the House and indeed to ask Indian public opinion, to come to definite decisions after two or three days' debate, after a series of speeches however important …. The Government and I wish at the earliest moment to ask for the cooperation of Parliament in our difficult task, to put our proposals before them, and to ask the Committee of both Houses to give us the great value of their advice before we ask the House to come to a final decision.On the strength of that debate there was moved and passed in both Houses of Parliament a Resolution to the effect thatbefore Parliament is asked to take a decision upon the proposals contained in Command Paper 4268 it is expedient that a Joint Committee of Lords and Commons, with power to call into consultation representatives of Indian States and of British India, be appointed to consider the future government of India, and in particular to examine and report upon the proposals in the said Command Paper.801 I realise that the problem of Palestine is a problem on a very different territorial scale from the problem of India, but it has its own difficulties and complexities, and it is charged with possible repercussions far outside the limits of that small country itself. I suggest to the noble Viscount that it might well appeal to the Government to call in the aid of a Select Committee of both Houses of Parliament to give final shape to the proposals adumbrated by the Commission if, and when, it is decided to put the partition scheme into operation at all. I am not unmindful of the value in this particular problem both of speed and of finality, but I prefer justice delayed to injustice accelerated, and I am convinced it would be in a spirit of far greater confidence and cooperation that proposals sealed with the imprimatur of a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament would be accepted by both parties in Palestine. Let it be understood that I am not for one moment suggesting that the forthcoming reference to the Mandates Commission of the League of Nations should be postponed. I realise to the full that necessary steps must be set in train and must be carried to their conclusion, but you can obtain from the Mandates Commission an assent in principle which still leaves for future discussion, as I hope by a Joint Committee of both House of Parliament, the details of the scheme. You can present to the Mandates Commission the frame of the picture and leave it in due course to a Joint Committee to sketch in the picture itself.I do believe, if that course is followed, even at the cost of some delay, that it will be found that the delay has been worth while. I am not unmindful of the value to this country of Arab good will, but I trust your Lordships will not forget that in every country in which there are Jews there is a nucleus of almost passionate veneration for this country based upon the traditions of freedom, tolerance, and justice with which it is inspired, and I hope it may be that that good will too, coming though it may for the most part from poor and humble people, will not be regarded as a wholly negligible factor in a troubled and turbulent world.
§ LORD STRICKLANDMy Lords, the first step to abate controversy is to obtain a clear idea of what the law is. 802 In this debate there have been few references to the law of nations, and I rise to support partition by arguments derived from that law. I also wish to ask your Lordships to consider the fundamental change brought about in the legal position by the declaration yesterday of His Majesty's Government that the Mandate is impossible. There is no controversy in International Law regarding the proposition that a conquest by force of arms, followed by effective occupation, gives a title to the successful belligerents which takes the place of any previous sovereignty. In this Report there is one quotation which calls for reconsideration. It appears on page 147 and it is this:
… the British had conquered the country from the Turks and were entitled to do what they liked with it.The country was conquered from the Turks by the British and the Arabs, fighting against the Turks as co-belligerents. There were two principal co-belligerents: the Arabs were also Allies. The Jews were also Allies. Any co-ownership, even that of sovereignty, is detrimental to progress, and a partition was the natural consequence of that victory.There has been a step towards partition inasmuch as the Arab co-belligerents from the South and the Arabs who fought on the Eastern flank have received as their share of the partition already gold, munitions, territory, status, and separate sovereignty. They ought to be fully satisfied with the generosity of that partition. The Arabs of Palestine are somewhat different as a community from the other Arabs. To a great extent there is both Arab descent and also Phoenician ancestry. The Arabs of Palestine contributed but a small part in providing armed men, and the share to which they are entitled in the partition, on any basis co-ordinated to the achievement, is a small share. The Jews were Allies without being co-belligerents, and their share in the partition must come from the share of the British. That partition has been called for from the very beginning is too obvious when these elementary principles of the law of nations are considered. The Report purports to offer to the Jews the very, maximum that could possibly be offered by the British from the British share of the partition, and to my noble friends on this side w ho have expressed regret at the small size of the 803 Jewish allotment I would say: Please remember that you cannot get more than a pint out of a pint pot. There is no more to give, no more to come out of the British share, and the slice given to the Jews is great when their contribution to the conquest is considered.
All that the British are retaining from the partition is the custody of the Holy Places, a trusteeship for the trade routes, international property and trade interests on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, and the right to keep free the transit of shipping from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. The British nation is eminently indicated as the only stable custodian of the Holy Places, because the three outstandingly religious nations of the world to-day are the British, the Jews and the Mahomedans. The Jews and the Mahomedans do not, as part of their religion, preach religious toleration. With the British it is a principle because we are followers of a religion based on altruism, "Love your neighbour as yourself." But there is another duty that cannot be set aside—the protection, not for to-day or to-morrow but for as long as human wisdom can foresee and provide, of free access for shipping between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. One hundred years are but a day in the life of a nation, and the lease of the Suez Canal will expire in this generation. Plans are already in contemplation for a parallel canal, and that would run from Akaba through the Wied el Arab to the neighbourhood of Gaza. Now I put it to your Lordships that in this partition the desert, which is now useless, should be kept in reserve as part of the share of the partition that should be British. It is of no value economically at present, but the trouble that may arise in the future, if it be ignored, makes it important that we should retain it. Let us remember how we parted, now with surprise, with the Ionian Islands, with Heligoland, with Tangiers and with Zanzibar, not to mention other territories that might have been retained with foresight because perhaps of lack of imagination and little knowledge of geography.
Now I pass to the question of the Mandate. A Mandate is essentially a relation at law which is finished and extinguished when the Mandatory has 804 declared inability to fulfil it. It cannot subsist in law after that and, therefore, by the declaration made on behalf of His Majesty's Government yesterday, the legal position in Palestine becomes one that has to go back to where we all were just after the conquest. We have to think out what are the re-established relations of the co-belligerents, and the position as far as we are concerned is that we are there after a conquest. We have administered the country and occupied it effectively after a conquest by force of arms. We have made a partial partition with our strongest co-belligerents and Allies in the field, the Arabs from the south and the Arabs who fought on the flank, and we have still to come to terms with the Phoenicians and Arabs of Palestine and with the Jews who were Allies everywhere. We have to give to them from our share our very best. I do not see, once the Mandate has been declared impossible, what ground there is for approaching Geneva. The Arabs, who were co-belligerents and co-conquerors, were no parties to the Mandate. They protest against it, and they are now in a stronger position than ever to protest against any renewal of the Mandate. To go to Geneva now about the Mandate may, for want of anything better, be compared to divorced parties going to ask for a decree nisi. With the declaration made yesterday, the association is spent and finished, and any formal gesture of recognising that a third party has an overlordship when that third party was in the position of being at one time consulted, has no legal weight nor place within my conception of legal precedents or of the law of nations, based on the law of nature, apart of course from President Wilson's novel theories which have been tested experimentally and have not been very successful.
Now that which remains as the crucial point is the population question. It appears that the Arab population increases on a standard of from four and a half to five per family. With the Jews it is about one to one and a half per pair. Under those conditions it is obvious that the man-power of the Arabs which is now overwhelming will be more so in future and will be increasingly supported by other Arabs: so that the unknown factor is how far can that man-power of the Arabs in future be counterbalanced or 805 altered by migration. Unless the British assert their rights and maintain in possession of all the share which the Report of the Commission does not definitely assign to others, the Arabs may one day assert their aspirations. I say that the British share should be held as part of the partition of a conquest and as the sequel of any new conversations with a third party, called a mandating authority. Unless the whole of the British share is held as part of a conquest and is held in trust for the custody of the Holy Places, and for the freedom of transit between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, and to enable the Jews to enjoy to the fullest extent what we are giving them—which is the most we can give them—then future history may witness a new Exodus, and a new parallel of the first and second captivities of the Jewish population. Anyone with knowledge of Mediterranean mentality must see without doubt that the national aspirations and ambitions of those two races, Jews and Arabs, will never be extinguished except by the same methods by which they were dealt with in ancient history.
I now pass to say a few words with reference to what the noble Lord, Lord Snell, said about the non-success of Colonial Office administration, and I will try to be constructive. The noble Lord, Lord Snell, was perfectly justified in every word. He used language which might have surprised noble Lords on the Government Benches, but he did not go too far, because when it is reckoned that there are some lour dozen Dependencies under the Colonial Office and that there are only sixty minutes in an hour and eight hours in a working day, it becomes evident that ten minutes per Colony is a time measure of the responsibility exercised constitutionally by the Secretary of State. There is a Dominions Department, and as to that Department the less work it finds for itself the better it will be for the contentment of the Commonwealth. The noble Lord, Lord Snell, may, or may not, have included the Dominions Department in referring to the Colonial Office. At all events there would be good argument in favour of a transfer in the same building of Palestine Administration from one staff to the other. I speak with sympathy having entered as a civil servant some fifty years ago, and now enjoying two pensions, one for Crown Colony service and one for service in the self-governing 806 Dominion, so that I may be excused if I say that from my experience the only practical way of giving effect to the suggestion of my noble friend opposite, Lord Snell, of eliminating the Colonial Office, is to create a new and independent committee, or if necessary a new secretariat, to deal with this question of Palestine in a transition stage, and in particular for the reasons indicated in the Report, which is quite clear.
The Report is a magnificent Report, plain spoken, thoughtful, constructive. It suggests that an organisation such as the Colonial Office is, is built up to deal with Dependencies in the West Indies, with Colonies across tropical Africa, and with islands in the Pacific, and therefore should have a staff in which men are trained under those conditions which are not, pyschologically, the most suitable atmosphere in which to learn to deal with nations with a long history, with acute intelligence, with traditions and with national aspirations and education. That is quite apart from the fact that these Mediterranean nations may have to be dealt with by officials trained to do every job in the average of ten minutes a working clay. The Report points out that the Colonial Office should not go on dealing with Palestine for these reasons, and therefore the noble Lord, Lord Snell, is amply supported by the Report itself. Those who have criticised have heretofore been described for using words similar to the words of the noble Lord, Lord Snell, as being "voices crying in the wilderness," but since the publication Of the Report there is no longer a single voice. The Report of the Royal Commission has been accepted by His Majesty's Government.
There are a few more words I should like to address to my noble friend Lord Snell, who has spoken of the possibility of working Palestine as one unit of nations notwithstanding hostile and irreconcilable aspirations and with different languages and religions and habits. I would ask him how he would like to preside over a deliberative assembly and have points of order raised in three languages. I have had experience in an Assembly in which three different languages were spoken, sometimes with great rapidity, when points of order were raised in a manner absolutely unintelligible from one side or the other without the mastery of the niceties of 807 divers tongues. I am afraid my noble friend is entirely optimistic in his overgenerous hope that anybody could bring about the happy family development as an alternative to the proposals in this Report by a continuance of the Palestine State with three official languages, English, resurrected Hebrew and Arabic, which in Palestine sometimes approaches the Phoenician and sometimes does not. For these reasons this scheme of partition should be supported and the Colonial Department should turn over a new leaf, realising first and foremost that in the solution of these problems respect for the law, and a thorough effort to understand the law, is the first requisite of good government.
LORD STRABOLGIMy Lords, I am sure my noble friend Lord Snell would wish me to thank the noble Lord, Lord Strickland, for the kindly references he has made to his speech. The noble Lord will not expect me to follow him, even if I were competent to do so, into the very important questions of law which he has raised. It is a great pity that this debate could not have been brought to a conclusion yesterday, but the matter is very important and there are certain considerations which I think it right to put before your Lordships. In this debate we have had the case for the Jewish peoples throughout the world put with great force and clarity by the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, the noble Marquess, Lord Reading, and the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, and if he will allow me to say so, I think that every one of your Lordships must have been moved by Lord Melchett's speech. The case for the Arabs was put with great force and vigour and with his usual efficiency by the noble Marquess, Lord Dufferin. With the exception of the noble Lord who has just spoken, no one has put much emphasis on the British case, and I will endeavour to put that case as I see it.
§ VISCOUNT SAMUELI hope the noble Lord will allow me to disclaim having stated the Jewish case.
LORD STRABOLGIAt any rate the noble Viscount spoke with great knowledge of the Jewish case and he made a very reasonable plea for the justice of the Jewish case. I do not want to misrepresent him in any way, or to suggest 808 that he did not speak as a distinguished member of your Lordships' House and a citizen of the Empire. The first thing I want to do is to pay a tribute to the British troops—and as the noble Viscount, Lora Swinton, is present, I am sure he will be glad if I include the Royal Air Force—for the way in which last year they discharged a most difficult and delicate task. That task was accomplished with great success under the most appalling difficulties. I am going to make a suggestion which, if it is not directly germane to this particular debate, is nevertheless I think of some importance. I consider that these troops, who were on active service and in danger as their casualties showed, and who did their work extremely well under trying conditions, should have a medal. There should be a Palestinian medal. The private soldier particularly treasures a memento of that kind. The relatives of the men who were killed treasure these medals as heirlooms, and they mean a tremendous lot to the rank and file, who deserve them. I do not understand why the Government do not do this. I was talking to some friends of mine back from Italy the other day and they described the return of the so-called veterans from Abyssinia, of whom I suppose, as usually happens, nine out of ten had never heard a shot fired. These men were ablaze with medals and were proud of them and everybody else was proud of them. That is human nature. If you want recruits—you do not need them for the Air Force, I know, but you want men for the other forces—if you want recruits for the Army, you should think of these small matters. What is the cost? Two shillings a man, the cost, I suppose, of the rations that would have been given to the troops if they had staved an extra twenty-four hours. It is nothing in expense but it means a tremendous lot in sentiment.
The next thing which I want to say at once is that from the point of view of my Party, we support, and are doing so in another place now, the plea of the noble Marquess, Lord Reading, for a joint Select Committee. As the noble Lord, Lord Snell, said in his opening speech, why this rush and haste? Why this attempt almost to force this far-reaching programme through Parliament? The second thing is an answer to those who say there is no alternative to this partition, which, as I shall presently show, is 809 unworkable and will never be worked and is full of danger to the British Empire. I submit that there are two alternatives to this utterly unworkable scheme, and they are the following. I will make bold to prophesy, and we shall find it is true in years to come. We can throw up the Mandate and give over Palestine to the great sea of Arabian people and the great mass of Arab country and let the Jews make what terms they can. We can do that and say that it is too much for us to carry the burden. We withdrew from Mesopotamia in the same way and we were right to withdraw in that case. Or we can stay there in the country and carry out the Mandate, which we have never attempted to do, as my noble friend pointed out yesterday afternoon.
I believe, from what I am told on military authority, that the country could be held by a-comparatively modest force of five or six battalions, and the necessary air units, if it were made clear that we intended to honour our bond and to carry out our declared policy. That would be a much less dangerous policy than is adumbrated in the Report and apparently to be adopted as a policy by His Majesty's Government. And you can reinforce that garrison. There are hundreds of thousands of young Jews who are in the most terrible economic situation in Europe and who would be only too willing to come to the country, many of them with capital, many of them with professions, and build it up. Open wide the doors to immigration! That is how we populated our great American possessions in the past. They will form the garrison in the future. Many of them will come as trained soldiers; they will be armed and should be allowed to defend themselves. That is the alternative, and, I submit, the only possible alternative, in the interests of the British Empire.
What are the interests of the British Empire? I am not going to be in any way reluctant to state them. Quite apart from the Mandate or the National Home for the Jews, we have very solid interests in Palestine. When this Report was issued, His Majesty's Ambassador in Rome was sent to Signor Mussolini to request him not to criticise it too heavily through the radio station at Bari. It was unnecessary ! This is the finest thing to further the ambitions of the leader of the Italian nation that could possibly have been proposed. He would not criticise it. 810 He and his minions are already in touch with the Zionists, no doubt promising them all kinds of things, and I should not be at all surprised to hear that they were also working with the Arabs, as they have been in the past, and promising them all kinds of things as well.
§ LORD MELCHETTI do not wish to interrupt the noble Lord, but I should like to ask him where he got that information that the head of the Italian State has been in touch with the Zionist organisations since this Report appeared.
LORD STRABOLGII did not mean to say that he had been in touch personally, but through his representatives. I got that from a very high official in the Zionist organisation, and I will give the name privately to the noble Lord afterwards. But we know that Italian influence has been behind these troubles. My noble friend Lord Snell referred to it, and other noble Lords have mentioned it. Now, what are our interests in Palestine? In the first place, can we afford to run the risk of having some other great Power establish itself in the Levant in this area? Surely the answer is No. Secondly—I have to run through these things rapidly, but they must be mentioned—our presence in Palestine serves as an additional safeguard, in case of need, for the defence of the Suez Canal. Thirdly, Palestine is on the direct air route to India and there are very important air stations in the country. Fourthly, at Haifa is the end of the pipeline from the Mosul oil-fields, and that is of great importance strategically and economically. Furthermore, one day there will be a railway built from Haifa to Baghdad. There ought to be a railway there now; it should have been started years ago; the survey is all completed and the plans are ready. This railway will be of very great economic and military importance. Haifa itself will be the finest harbour in the Levant and is of great importance to the Royal Navy. Your Lordships know these things, but it is necessary to mention them in order to make clear what I am now going to argue. Therefore, from a military and Imperialist point of view, from the point of view of the interests of the British Empire in case they are threatened by a war, it is essential that we should be there and adequately control the whole of that area.
811 Now look at the map. Look at the proposed partition. I ask the noble Earl, the President of the Board of Education, as a soldier, how he would like to defend that little enclave, that salient up to Jerusalem, which we are bound to hold, as the most reverend Primate pointed out, because of the Holy Places and our responsibility there. From a military point of view this partition is indefensible. We are not going to clear out of Palestine, as the noble Marquess, Lord Dufferin, says. No, he says; we are going to maintain law and order, safeguard the Jewish State and prevent disturbances. The Jewish State, the part that runs along the seaboard, is a plain seven or eight miles wide in certain parts. The hills beyond are held by Arabs. In the old days the Jews used to hold the hills and the Philistines were on the plains. Now you reverse this situation. This land will be irredenta to the Arabs; they will always be looking jealously at it, and it will encourage them in murder, violence and revolt. They will not rest contented. They are not accepting partition, to begin with. There is no sign of any considerable body of Arabs accepting partition. When we are in trouble elsewhere, snipers and raiders will come down from the hills and the Jews will call for British protection. You are not going to allow the Jews to have a sufficient area for their defence. You are not allowing them to turn out in their thousands with their arms in their hands, to defend their own land and homes. We are responsible. Look at that plan, with this strip of land along the Levant Coast. It is an impossible situation.
Then take Nageb, the southern part. We have not had any specific answer about that. I will deal in one moment with the proposal that the noble Marquess made in his speech yesterday; but apparently that is to remain part of the Arab State. As we are at present advised, that is the hinterland of Akaba, a port of great importance on the Red Sea. I should very much like to ask the noble Viscount if military opinion has been consulted. I have failed to find any special reference to military opinion in the Report, and I do not find any strategical arguments at all. I am afraid that these matters have been overlooked. Not for the first time. I am not a militarist and 812 I have played my part in trying to bring about peace and peaceful policies; but I think sometimes the Government in their policies abroad, and particularly in Spain, should consider the future military situation. I wish in this case they had done so. Yesterday the noble Marquess told us that certain rectifications of the boundaries could take place if the Arabs and the Jews agreed to ask for them together.
LORD STRABOLGIThen three Parties have all to agree. I would ask the noble Marquess what would happen if, as is probable, the Jews and the Arabs both refuse to accept this partition. I certainly would refuse in the case of the Jews. I think you are going to arouse great dissatisfaction amongst them, and I do not think they will accept it. I know that the Palestinian Jewish Labour party will not accept, because we have had their resolutions before my Party. Nor do I think the Arabs will accept it. If neither accepts it, do you then force this partition upon them by force of arms? I pause for a reply. From the British point of view I submit, and I repeat again particularly from the military, naval and air point of view, that this scheme of partition is quite indefensible. I do not believe it is workable. It is uneconomical, and I do not think it will work on political or economic grounds. All that will happen if you attempt to force it through is that three or four years hence I expect we shall have to reconquer the country under far worse conditions than now and it may be a very bad day for our country if His Majesty's Government persist in the present proposals before Parliament.
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR AIR (VISCOUNT SWINTON)My Lords, we have had a very full, and if I may say so well informed, debate, and one feature particularly noticeable but not unexpected is that every speaker, whether he agreed or disagreed with the Report of the Commission, paid tribute to the Chairman and members of the Commission for the thoroughness of their study and their Report. They had the highest qualifications, and that they were unprejudiced goes without saying. The keenest critic has never suggested that they were 813 not an absolutely unprejudiced body. Their Report was unanimous and in the opinion of the Government, and I think of the majority of the people of this country, their Report was not only unanimous but wise and fair. I am sure that any one who heard Lord Peel's speech yesterday would realise how deep was the sympathy and understanding with which he judged this question.
Criticism of course there has been, but, if I may say so, there has been no constructive criticism at all in this debate. The noble Lord behind me (Lord Strickland) made some legal criticisms. I am not going to deal with them, but I do not think he will find any lawyer other than himself to support his particular contention. I am advised that it is thoroughly unsound. We took the trouble to ascertain what was our legal position before we entered into the matter, and I can assure the noble Lord that the legal position is exactly opposite to what the noble Lord said.
I was told before I came to this House that I should hear die-hard speeches here, but I do not think I ever heard a more die-hard speech anywhere than the speech delivered by Lord Snell. He said that nothing ever would make him change his mind once he had made it up; that circumstances might change but he was not going to change his mind. And then he said that the Royal Commission had despaired of the patient. I do not think that that was a fair account of what the Commission either thought or did. I would say with more truth that the Commission made a penetrating diagnosis of the patient, and on that diagnosis recommended what they thought was the best and most effective cure. He said that the Government in the past—successive Governments, including the noble Lord's own—had not encouraged co-operation in Palestine. Whatever can be said about successive Governments and Administrations in Palestine, that at least cannot be said. Everyone has tried to get co-operation and invited Jews and Arabs to serve on boards and councils with singularly little success. I think three efforts have been made to achieve a Legislative Assembly, and without result, because it has proved unhappily to be practically impossible to get that co-operation. Yet the noble Lord said: "Well, it can still be done. It can be done if you find some unknown agnostic who believes in 814 nothing himself, but who somehow will get from these people the faith which can move mountains."
Lastly, it was complained that it was outrageous that the Government should have pronounced an opinion upon this Report. Supposing the Government had pronounced no opinion, and that having received this Report the Government had met Parliament without expressing any view upon it: what would have been said then? It would have been said that the first duty of a Government is to make up its mind. I can imagine the criticism which would have been forthcoming if we had said we had no opinion about this matter. The Government did the thing which it was their bounden duty to do—namely, to make up their mind. We have made up our minds very definitely as to what we think is the wise and right course, and we have come to Parliament, and we shall go to the League giving the reason why we think that the broad principles of this Report are right and sound. Among all difficulties hardly anything is worse than uncertainty. I would add this, that I cannot imagine anything which could be more serious for that land than to have the Mandatory uncertain, shuffling, as to what was the right thing to do.
The noble Marquess, Lord Reading, in an interesting and moving speech, made a suggestion rather different from the most reverend Primate's, that we should have a Select Committee. It cannot be argued that we want a Select Committee to give Parliament the opportunity of expressing an opinion. Parliament has that opportunity to-day. As this business goes forward, Parliament will have its regular constitutional opportunities of expressing its views on the action which His Majesty's Government seek to take. It cannot be said there should be a Select Committee in order that Parliament may be able to express an opinion, and either support or reject the action we propose. If you had a Select Committee, it would be to conduct an inquiry—to do exactly that work which the Peel Commission has done so exhaustively and so admirably. Detailed inquiries, a boundary commission and so on—those matters of course require further investigation. But there is clear evidence in the Peel Report, admittedly the most exhaustive review that has been made on which to 815 take a decision, and what is necessary now is that we should all take a decision upon that evidence and upon those findings.
Then there was the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel. Incidentally he made the criticism that more money should have been spent on Arab education. I do not want to dispute that matter, but I would only say this in relation to what is the difficulty before us to-day, that is, the difficulty of getting co-operation. If there had been more Arab education it certainly would not have made for cooperation between Arabs and Jews. For four years I was responsible for Palestine in the Colonial Office, and what one had tried to do elsewhere seemed to be the sort of ideal solution: could you make English the lingua franca, as it is rapidly becoming, of the Empire? Of course, you cannot do this. You insist that Arab education should be in Arab hands, that it should be conducted in the Arab language, and the Jewish education in the Jewish language, and I think the noble Viscount himself admitted that schoolmasters in the Arab schools are the greatest teachers of Arab nationalism. Certainly an extension of that education would not have been a way to secure the co-operation between the two peoples.
§ VISCOUNT SAMUELIt was not I who said that.
§ VISCOUNT SWINTONWell, I do not think the noble Viscount would deny it. Then he went on to a very facile criticism of the proposals of the Commission. It is always easy to criticise any solution of a very difficult case, and his criticism was tolerated because we all understood, as he explained at the beginning, that he himself had a great plan to disclose, which would solve this problem and would make an equal appeal to both Arab and Jew. What was it? The first thing was that the Jews should voluntarily limit their immigration either to some fixed figure or to some proportionate figure. Does he suppose that any Arab would accept that proposal? Does he suppose that any Arab would accept it, or believe in it if it were made? Then the Arab and the Jew were to co-operate in a great Arab federation. As he knows from his experience, and I know from my four years at the Colonial Office, the difficulty was to get them to co-operate on a Board 816 of Works: are they likely to co-operate in an Arab Federation? Trans-Jordan, which he said was rightly, under the pledges, excluded from the National Home, was to be thrown open to Jewish immigration. Does he think any Arab would accept that?
Then, in place of self-government, which certainly the Arabs and, I believe, the Jews also, would desire to have, there was to be this extraordinary communal enterprise, where apparently in every village and town a Jewish organisation and an Arab organisation were to have control over their own nationals in relation to education, health and something else. In so far as such a thing is indeed a concrete proposal, it seems to me it would be partition of every town and village in Palestine. But on the great affairs neither was to have any power. A joint consultative body, which both sides—certainly the Arabs—have always refused to take part in, and this consultative body with no power, with mutual criticism within its ranks, and criticism, no doubt, of the Mandatory Government, but government remaining in the hands of the Mandatory Power ! What Arab or what Jew is going to accept that self-denying ordinance and New Model? He said himself, at the beginning of his speech, that he did not suppose one of them would accept it.
§ VISCOUNT SAMUELI did not say that.
§ VISCOUNT SWINTONI read the speech again. At any rate the noble Viscount was not very sanguine that either side would accept it. Well, if proposals are going to be put forward as great constructive proposals, and as an alternative to the Commission's proposals, we really ought to have something which there is some possible chance of somebody accepting, and some proposal which would work, and I venture to say that neither one nor the other is true of this proposal.
I turn to the realities of the situation and the Commission's recommendations, but first I want to answer specifically certain questions which were put. The noble Lord, Lord Melchett, in a very eloquent speech put one or two definite questions. He said in effect: "You talk about an independent State. Does 'indepenclent' mean independent?" The 817 answer is—Yes, emphatically it does. He put this question: "If you have an Arab State and a Jewish State, would they be able to control their Customs?" Answer—emphatically Yes. It is quite reasonable, I think, that the Royal Commission should have made recommendations as to a practical way of trying to unify Customs. Quite obviously you have a frontier which, from an administrative point of view, is not a convenient one to operate. A great deal can be done if you have common rates of duties, through transit, and all that sort of thing. That is obviously good sense and good business, but the right of the State to impose its own duties, to raise its own taxes—emphatically Yes. He said:" Would there be a right to make a port?" I appreciate that suggestion made in the Report of the Commission—I think a wise suggestion. It would be desirable if a new port is to be established that it should be a port which should serve both States. I think that is a practical suggestion. It would certainly, I think, be inherent in the existence of a separate and independent State that, if it desired to establish a port at its own expense and in its own territory it should have the right to do so, though it would probably be very good business to make a port in a convenient place which could serve both.
He asked me to be specific about Haifa. I am not going to. I think Haifa is a case where judgment must be suspended. After all, Haifa is not only the great port of Palestine. It is a great deal more than that. It is not only the exit of the pipe line. When we were considering the port of Haifa, there lay in our minds not only the great development that has come in Palestine, but also the great hinterland and the whole of the Middle East which that port is designed to serve. It is, I consider, very wise to reserve judgment upon that.
§ LORD MELCHETTCould the noble Viscount tell us anything about how or when or by whom judgment on Haifa will eventually be rendered?
§ VISCOUNT SWINTONUltimately it will have to be a judgment proposed and approved by His Majesty's Government.
§ LORD MELCHETTAnd the League of Nations?
§ VISCOUNT SWINTONNo doubt the League of Nations would express its view.
§ LORD MELCHETTI take it that Haifa is not included in the Jewish state?
§ VISCOUNT SWINTONOne cannot take from me anything more than I have said, and I was very careful to say—a perfectly honest statement—that on Haifa we thought it necessary to suspend judgment. That does not mean that judgment is going to be given either for the plaintiff or the defendant. It simply means judgment is suspended. It is a quite clear and honest answer. My noble friend Lord Lytton expressed anxiety about British interests—great companies with British capital. It is a natural anxiety, but is he not anxious to-day? Surely one's greatest anxiety must be if you are trying to operate in a country seething with discontent. You may maintain law and order, but you cannot prevent every act of sabotage, if such there might be. But leave that aside. The noble Earl knows from his conduct of this successful enterprise, as of others, how much depends upon there being sound, confident, secure conditions where you operate—an absence of malaise, a general willingness on the part of the people. These are the things which are necessary in order to make an enterprise succeed. I would say to him: "Are you not much more likely to obtain these conditions under a settlement which does resolve contending differences, does remove fundamental difficulties which are aggravating the country of Palestine at the present time?"
I do not see why there should be jeopardy for an enterprise because it falls inside one State or the other. Let my noble friend take the example of the State of Iraq, another Arab State. Enormous sums of British money were sunk in that country. Iraq passed from a Mandate to become a sovereign State, but I am not aware that there has been any failure. Not only has there been no anxiety to withdraw money from these enterprises, but actually more money has gone into developments, and more money is coming out from those developments. I would therefore suggest that, under self-government, whether the enterprise be in the Arab State or in the Jewish State, there would be a very reasonable sense of security for that business.
819 Then I was asked specifically by Lord Strabolgi whether strategic considerations had been wholly lost sight of. The answer is No. He put to me the question: Had they been considered? Certainly, and they were considered, appropriately, by our military advisers—I use that term in the largest sense—in all three Services. These proposals were advised upon by them and acceptable to them, provided of course—and this would be essential to secure—that there are proper provisions which would appropriately be made in the Treaties with the two countries. But they have laid stress, too, on this, and it is a consideration which even the layman can appreciate—the greatest security you can have is peace. If this is likely to bring peace, that is the greatest security which we can have in that land.
I turn now to the broad reasons why we support these proposals. They hold the field. I was interested to hear Lord Lugard, speaking yesterday with his experience as the British Representative for so long on the Mandates Commission, and with his wide administrative experience, endorsing partition as in his opinion the right and, to-day, the only way. These proposals are not recommended by the Commission or accepted by His Majesty's Government as an easy way of avoiding our responsibilities, but because we believe they are a wise and fair solution. We have not shirked—we shall not shirk—our responsibilities. Looking back over seventeen years, the Mandate has been discharged without fear or favour, with a single-minded endeavour to carry out its terms, to be scrupulously fair. Administrations have been criticised, but it is perhaps true to say they have been criticised by both sides, Arab and Jewish. Is it not perhaps fair to say that that criticism has come from both sides because the Mandatory has tried—and I think successfully—to hold the balance fairly? We accept the proposals because we think them fair and right. We shall certainly not shirk our duty to maintain law and order. Any disorder will be promptly and effectively suppressed.
§ VISCOUNT SWINTONOf course we will be. We are there now. But looking to the future, if we face it as realists, what are the alternatives? Quite clearly, Palestine can neither be wholly Jewish nor wholly Arab. There was the extraordinary suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, speaking, I suppose, for his Party, that the correct solution was an unlimited Jewish immigration armed to the teeth. Plainly that would be contrary to the Mandate, and I do not think it would be a happy augury of peace. It would be a clear breach of the Mandate.
§ VISCOUNT SWINTONBecause the immigration has to be limited, under the Mandate, by the consideration that it is not to prejudice the Arab population. If the noble Lord reads the Mandate he will see the dual duty set out clearly and he will see that his suggestion is perfectly plainly a breach of the Mandate. One alternative therefore is to continue the Mandate, in the hope that you will get co-operation leading to a co-operative State; but in the light of all that has happened, on the facts as so clearly and fairly found by the Commission, does anybody really believe that we are likely to get a co-operative State of that kind? Nor can it be argued that if the Administration had been other than it was that result would have been more likely to be achieved. The Commission come back again and again to the conclusion that all along there has been this fundamental incompatibility, and that the more the Mandate has been operated the more steadily it has grown. What then is the alternative? The alternative is partition, an Arab State and a Jewish State, the British Government to remain in charge, with the Mandate, of the Holy Places, and, in the area proposed, self-government for Arab and Jew in their respective territories.
As one who did try, and tried hard, to promote that co-operation and hoped it might succeed, may I say three things both to Arabs and to Jews? The first is this. Neither would have the opportunity which is there to-day but for Great Britain and British arms in the War. Let both compare what the position was in 1914. The Arabs then not an 821 Arab State, not an independent Arab acre in the world; to-day a great part of a continent under independent Arab rule. The fact of Arab nationalism and the demand that Arab nationalism makes for Palestine is due entirely to the possibility of the Arabs realising in Palestine an Arab State such as has been realised in Arabia and in Iraq, and that is due to British lives laid down in the War, to British efforts. And is not that equally true for the Jews? I think indeed they have very often recognised it. Before the War: the Jewish National Home, an idea, a dream, a dream in which they believed; Uganda refused thirty years ago because of the hope that they might come to Palestine. The fact that 300,000 Jews have now come to Palestine is due to British arms and British victory and British peace.
Let me say this second thing. Partition offers to both self-government and the control of their own affairs. The noble Lord, Lord Melchett, yesterday made an eloquent plea for Jewish immigration at a time when, he said, the Jewish race needed it most. There is understanding of that, there is sympathy with that, but will it not be better, more largely discharged, if the Jews have control of a Jewish State? They have not been satisfied with the immigration which the Mandatory has felt able to give from time to Time, although the Arabs have always said it was a great deal too much. The Commission have said that you have to take into account certainly the whole economic question. But now other questions have come up. Let us be realists in this, my Lords. British lives have been lost in this manner. We have to take into account many considerations. The Jews have shown, in the development of their territory there, how much can be done with a little. It is indeed a most remarkable thing to see, as you can there, not only the intense agricultural development but research work perhaps second to none in the world, and practice following on the research. Let all of that be looked at. It was said years ago that there was no room for any more population, yet intensive agriculture found a way, and not only intensive agriculture but great industry, and that industry has found its market not only in the development of Jewish agriculture but has found it through all those strange ways in which the trader large and small has penetrated both east and west.
822 I remember how intensely interested I was in seeing industries grow up. I was told by a rather short-sighted critic: "What is the good of having these industries in Palestine, there will never be a population to buy the goods that they manufacture?" The Jews were not thinking only of the population of Palestine; they were thinking that their wares were going, with their knowledge and technique, into markets all over the world. That development has taken place, and I say with deep sincerity to men like the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, that I honestly believe that they will have a much greater opportunity of carrying that development forward, that they will sustain, and sustain with peace and good will, a larger Jewish population in the Jewish State which may be small in territory—after all England is not a very big country but it supports a great many people—that they will do better that which they desire to do in a State they are able to govern themselves. And to the Arabs I would say: "You desire a State which can play its part as a unit in an Arab world. An Arab State in Palestine offers you that opportunity?" Lastly, I would say this: To-day, in an anxious, suspicious, distracted world, what is the greatest need and the greatest longing? It is the desire for peace, and the Commission, in their recommendation, do offer alike to Arab and to Jew in Palestine the inestimable boon of peace.
§ LORD STRICKLANDMy Lords, I rise to make a personal explanation. It is my duty to inform your Lordships' House that the speech that I have delivered on this question was submitted for legal advice after an appointment in a lawyer's office. My accuracy is not a question of one lawyer's opinion but of two lawyers' opinions. Moreover, I would consider it disrespectful to your Lordships' House if I proposed Bills or propounded opinions on legal questions unless I had previously taken the trouble to obtain the best legal advice. The challenge which the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, delivered against me would, in another place, never be delivered except by a Law Officer of the Crown, and I am entitled to say that it ought not to have been delivered here as it has been.
§ VISCOUNT SWINTONMy Lords, I do not wish to continue this debate on a very 823 unimportant matter. The noble Lord made some statements, which I really was not going to deal with, that there was no duty upon us to go to the League of Nations, and that nobody in the League of Nations or no nation in the world had any right to be consulted in this matter. That is not a view which I venture to think any lawyer would sustain.
§ LORD STRICKLANDThe noble Viscount has not understood what I said, or represented me correctly or completely. It is very unfortunate. It is not the first time.
LORD STRABOLGIMy Lords, my noble friend Lord Snell has had to leave the House but he has asked me to say that he does not wish to press his Motion for Papers. I know he would wish me to thank the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, and also the noble Viscount, Lord Dufferin, for their very full replies
§ Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.