[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Sra,—We read in the
Press of recurring trouble, strikes, and unrest in Palestine ; of the reconsideration in Geneva of the problems involved ; of a further Royal Commission ; of an appeal to Zionists, and so forth, and Dr. 1,Veizmarin tells us we stand at the crossroads. I believe he is right. May I plead, as an Englishman, for an English view of the whole question ?
What the Jews apparently cannot see, and in some cases will not face, is that the Palestine problem is not eponomie but psychological. Until this is understood, and righted, there will be no peace, however much money is poured into the country. . .
. Arab and Jew are quite able, and not unwilling, to live together ; but the government of the country must rest ultimately on consent and not on British bayonets. I served the Palestine Administration for nearly five years, went out first in 1918 and, like many another Englishman with the naive Protestant training of 50 years ago, was biassed in favour of Zionism ; but I came home with the conviction that the policy of the Balfour Declaration could never succeed because, however well administered, it had in it a fundamental dishonesty and injustice. I went out again last year to see what things looked like, and to compare the dream of fifteen years ago with the achievement. I marvelled at the wonderful things Jewish energy and Jewish money had accomplished, but I was more convinced than ever that the regime could not continue, also that it was doing harm both to the British Commonwealth and to Jewry. It is difficult to say these things in England ; people do not like to hear them, British Civil Servants are precluded from speaking, and Arab opinion does not readily find expression in the British Press ; is indeed often deliberately suppressed. But the words of Talleyrand are worth recalling : "You can do anything with bayonets except sit upon them." Yet that is what the British Mandate in Palestine is trying to do.
: Put the psychological issue in the form of a question to an average honest Englishman thus : "Would you like an alien race, without your cousent, to be provided with a National home' in England ? ". Add that this might be done with the sympathetic aid of International Jewry, and that the economic advantages would be ever so great : is there any doubt as to the Englishman's answer ?--Yours
obediently, C. R. A.SHIIEE. Godden Green, nr. Sevenoaks, Kent.
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