THE NATIONAL HOME
Sta,—Your leading article on Palestine states: "There was never any intention in anyone's mind except the Zionists (and Zionism as known today dates back less than sixty years) to turn Palestine into a Jewish National Home. A National Home for the Jews in Palestine has already been established."
The intentions of the British Government in 1917 have been clearly explained and may be found in the late Earl Lloyd George's The Truth About the Peace Treaties. Dealing with Mr. Balfour's explanation of the Declaration to the War Cabinet, the author wrote: "As to the meaning of the words 'national home' to which the Zionists attach so much importance, he (i.e., Mr. Balfour) understood it to mean some form of British, American or other protectorate, under which full facilities would be given to the Jews to work out their own salvation and to build up, by means of education, agriculture, and industry, a real centre of national culture and focus of national life. It did not necessarily involve the early establishment of an independent Jewish State, which was a matter for gradual development in accordance with the ordinary laws of political evolution."
Mr. Lloyd George himself commented: "There has been a good deal of discussion as to the meaning of the words 'Jewish National Home' and whether it involved the setting up of a Jewish National State in Palestine. I have already quoted the words actually used by Mr. Balfour when he submitted the Declaration to the Cabinet for its approval. They were not challenged at the time by any member present, and there could be no doubt as to what the Cabinet then had in their minds. It was not their idea that a Jetvish State should be set up immediately by the Peace Treaty without reference to the wishes of the majority of the inhabitants. On the other hand, it was contemplated that when the time arrived for according representative institutions to Palestine, if the Jews had mean- while responded to the opportunity afforded them by the idea of a National Home and had become a definite majority of the inhabitants, then Palestine would thus become a Jewish Commonwealth. The notion that Jewish immigration would have to be artificially restricted in order to ensure that the Jews should be a permanent minority never entered into the heads of anyone engaged in framing the policy. That would have been regarded as unjust and as a fraud on the people to whom we were [Nothing Mr. Lloyd George may have written retrospectively in his Memoirs in the middle 'thirties can supersede the official statement issued by his own Government in 1922.—En., The Spectator.]
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