3 SEPTEMBER 1921, Page 3

No doubt Sir Herbert Samuel writes truly when he describes

the excellent settlements of the Jews in Palestine with their pleasant villages and their skilful cultivation and when he -contrasts these amenities with the primitive conditions of life and work by which they are surrounded. But all this prettiness and. success cannot be expected to appease the Arabs, who have lived in Palestine much longer than the Jews, and who find their interests subordinated to those of the comparatively new invention of Zionism. Hopelessly estranged Arabs would be a new thorn in the side of the British Empire, regarded as a Mahomedan power. The situation is unquestionably dangerous, and meanwhile we are paying £2,500,000 a year (£500 a year for every soldier) in order to prevent the sects from quarrelling.