News of the Week
Palestine
ON Thursday the Times published a letter on Palestine, signed by Mr. Baldwin, Sir Austen Chamberlain and Mr. Arriery, which is nothing less than a grave new element in the controversy. It will arouse in the Zionist zealots jubilant opposition to every point in the Government's statement of policy. The Zionisti in the United States will receive it with rapture and seize the occasion to intensify their anti-British propaganda. By an unexpected stroke a settlement in Palestine is thus made more difficult instead of easier. It must be assumed that in accusing the Government of bad faith the signatories of the letter honestly reckoned the cost in terms of the difficulties which will be added to the already too difficult task in Palestine. No doubt they laid the responsibility upon themselves 0-5 a matter of conscience. We feel strongly, however, that their language is not justified. The Palestinian Problem is so baffling -that any Government who are trying to solve it, however clumsily, deserve to be
treated with restraint. There must be an early debate in Parliament as the result of the letter. Happily, in the background there is always the Mandates Com- Mission. A verdict on questions of principle and justice can always be sought there. And, of course, no decent Englislunan wants to impair the value of the pledge to set up a Jewish " National Home " in Palestine.
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