SIR HERBERT SAMUEL AND PALESTINE. [To THE EDITOR OF THE
" SPECTATOR."J SIR,—If the hack-word " amazing " had really been put out at grass, as your poet suggests, I should have had to hale it back to characterize your attitude on the Palestine question. You continue to gird at Sir Herbert Samuel's appointment, as though no duty rested upon the Entente or the League of Nations to carry out the Zionist item of the Turkish Peace Treaty or the solemn promise 'which preluded it—a ',remise which was as dangerous to the Jews in enemy countries as it was valuable to the Entente at a dark moment in its fortunes. I was not surprised to see the Morning Post anxious to reduce Mr. Balfour's pledge to "a scrap of paper "—the Post is a militarist journal—but to find a respectable Christian organ, nay, the Christian family organ, backing and buttering up the Post, calls indeed for the impagned epithet. The fact that the present Palestine plan is a disastrous defeat for the cause for which Dr. Herzl besought my services a quarter of a century ago, and that the appointment of Sir Herbert Samuel is a mere cover for the practical repudiation of the Balfour promise, adds to the audacity of the pretence that a damnosa haereditas has been inflicted upon poor suffering Britain, already staggering under the " too vast orb of her fate." The Morning Post actually declares that the Jews get everything and England nothing. The truth is the exact reverse. Indeed, the acquisi- tion of a buffer-State for the defence of Egypt has been the chief argument put forward by the Manchester Guardian in its persistent plea for Zionism.
The idea that without any special status or privileges a " Jewish National Home " can emerge in Palestine in face of the present Arab preponderance—even though this is far smaller than the fifteen to one which you allege—is an illusion all the more pitiful because so many millions of homeless wan- dering Jews have been shamelessly buoyed up with a Messianic dream, the collapse of which cannot fail to be tragic. But a certain enrichment of population and fertility must as inevit- ably ensue in the new and largely derelict British possession under such an able administrator as Sir Herbert Samuel, especially with so much Jewish enthusiasm to exploit, and if he is as " timid and weak-hearted " as you say, all the less chance of his departing from the official British tradition in favour of his own race. The Arab will soon learn that Sir Herbert Samuel has not the remotest intention of enslaving or evicting him, and will as little justify your fears of a Jewish domination as my hopes of a Jewish State. As for your idea that Mr. Lloyd George had to find him a good job, it is an open secret that he refused office under the present Premier, loyally sticking to Asquith. England is to be congratulated on so able and high-minded a servant, though his appointment is to Zionism proper a shorter way of spelling disappointment. The headship of a Jewish hero like Jabotinsky was necessary in Palestine, if Israel—like other beneficiaries of the war for the principle of nationalities—was to re-enter the circle of nations the real makers of history come not from Cabinets but from prisons.—I am, Sir, &c., ISRAEL &NI:TWILL. Far End, East Preston, Sussex.
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