Mandates and Tariffs
On the question of Mandates Mr. MacDonald naturally referred to Palestine. His remarks were opportune because there had been mischievous rumours that the British Government intended to try to modify or forsake the Palestine Mandate and the Balfour Declaration. " A nation accepting a Mandate under the Covenant," he said, " accepts an international responsibility which it has to justify." We cannot follow Mr. MacDonald's statement that there had been " no racial conflict" in Palestine. Surely there was. The conflict was in essence religious, but, as religion and race are virtually coextensive, we are brought back to the fact which Mr. MacDonald disputes. Finally we must give a special welcome to the Prime Minister's insistence that the League ought to face the problem of the tariffs. He promised that the British Government would co-operate in every attempt to translate political agreement into economic agreement. If that means what it seems to mean it is the death sentence of every scheme for turning the British Enipire into an economic unit with tariff barriers against the rest of the world.
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