Edward Grey

Summary

Sir Edward Grey, afterwards Viscount Grey of Fallodon, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in 1915, on whose instructions Henry McMahon gave the British pledge to the Sherif Hussein of Mecca, and whose House of Lords speech of 27 March 1923 doubting the British Government’s interpretation of those pledges is a central Arab-side exhibit in the 1939 committee report on the McMahon–Hussein correspondence (Report of a Committee set up to consider certain correspondence between Sir Henry McMahon and the Sharif of Mecca, lines 259-270, 367-387).

A declaration from Grey recognising the French claim to special rights in Syria to a large extent was made public by the French Prime Minister in the French Senate on 21 December 1912, as Annex A presents it (lines 311-320).
The Arab representatives argue that if any intention counts it is Grey’s, as the Minister responsible for the policy, not McMahon’s; in his 27 March 1923 speech he “entertained serious doubts as to the validity of the British Government’s interpretation of the pledges” he had caused to be given in 1915 (lines 259-270; Annex A para. 16, lines 345-360).
In the extracts appended to Annex A, Grey urges official publication of all the wartime engagements and frank admission of any inconsistency; on the Balfour Declaration he holds that a Zionist home “undoubtedly means or implies a Zionist Government over the district in which the home is placed”, and that if 93 per cent. of Palestine’s population are Arabs such a government cannot be established without prejudice to their civil rights (lines 367-380).
The United Kingdom representatives reply that Grey’s 1923 words were used in debate when he had not the terms of the Balfour Declaration before him (lines 271-277).