Summary
W. G. A. Ormsby Gore, Secretary of State for the Colonies, who as Ormsby Gore appointed the Palestine Partition Commission in March 1938 (by the report’s Preface he was by then Lord Harlech, the appointment having been made by Malcolm MacDonald’s predecessor), signed the 23 December 1937 despatch setting the technical Commission up, and stated H.M. Government’s partition case before the Permanent Mandates Commission in 1937 (Palestine Partition Commission Report, PDF p.7, 284-288).
Details
- His despatch of 23 December 1937 to the High Commissioner, Sir Arthur Wauchope (published separately as Cmd. 5834, and reproduced in the report’s Appendix 1), records H.M. Government’s general agreement with the Royal Commission and its opinion that tripartite division is the best and most hopeful solution, while making clear that Government are in no sense committed to the Royal Commission’s tentative plan and have not accepted its proposal for compulsory transfer in the last resort of Arabs from the Jewish to the Arab area; the further body is to act as a technical Commission confined to ascertaining facts and considering partition’s practical possibilities, and any scheme regarded as equitable and practicable will be referred to the League Council (Palestine Partition Commission Report, PDF p.284-286).
- In his statements before the Permanent Mandates Commission (Minutes of the Thirty-second Session, as summarised in Appendix 1) he asked only that partition be explored and the door not be closed to it; held that no British Government could administer Palestine on the existing Mandate without considerable alterations and that carrying it on indefinitely would involve repression and continual friction; stated that the Balfour Declaration remains a binding obligation until replaced by an independent Jewish State; declared the Arab Higher Committee’s four-point solution unacceptable to the United Kingdom Government for the whole of Palestine; and held that Palestine need not be limited to ordinary European minorities-treaty procedure in safeguarding its minorities (Palestine Partition Commission Report, PDF p.287-288).
Related pages
Palestine Partition Commission, Palestine Partition Commission Report, Arthur Wauchope, Permanent Mandates Commission