Palestine: Statement of Policy by His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom

Summary

The October 1930 statement of policy (Cmd. 3692), known from other ingested sources as the Passfield White Paper: His Majesty’s Government’s statement framed after the Shaw Commission report of April 1930 and Sir John Hope Simpson’s report on land settlement, immigration and development. It reaffirms the June 1922 statement as the foundation of British policy, holds the Mandate’s obligations to the Jewish people and to the non-Jewish population to be of equal weight and in no sense irreconcilable, announces a Legislative Council on the 1922 lines, and, on Simpson’s figures, holds that with present methods of Arab cultivation there remains no margin of land for new agricultural settlement outside the Jewish agencies’ reserves — so that additional Jewish settlement, land transfers and Labour Schedule immigration are all to be governed by a Government-led development policy and by the total of unemployment in Palestine, Arab as well as Jewish (Palestine: Statement of Policy by His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom, lines 111-347).

What the file is

• The UNISPAL reproduction of Palestine: Statement of Policy by His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom, presented by the Secretary of State for the Colonies to Parliament by Command of His Majesty, October 1930, printed and published by His Majesty’s Stationery Office, London (Cmd. 3692), downloaded from https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-205977/ (access basis: public-domain). The original is the HTML page; the supplied text copy (9,847 words as given for this ingest, 417 lines counting the final blank line) is a plain-text rendering with no page markers, so locators are line numbers. UN page furniture occupies lines 1-71 and 365-416, the title page is lines 73-109, the statement itself (paragraphs 1-29) is lines 111-347, and UNISPAL document metadata at lines 351-363 gives the publication date as 01/10/1930, the document type as “Policy statement, White paper” and the country as United Kingdom.
• The file nowhere names the Secretary of State for the Colonies; the statement speaks throughout for His Majesty’s Government. Its identification as the Passfield White Paper, and the Secretary’s identity as Baron Passfield (Sidney Webb), rest on other ingested sources: Purchase by Other Means: The Palestine Nakba and Zionism’s Conquest of Economics calls it the Passfield White Paper of Colonial Secretary Baron Passfield (Sidney Webb), and The Invention of Palestinian Citizenship, 1918–1947 records the Shaw Commission as sent by Colonial Secretary Lord Passfield after the August 1929 riots (see Lord Passfield).
• Text quality: the statement is complete as a continuous text. Slips present in the HTML original as well as the text copy (checked against the original) include the paragraph numbered “8.” for paragraph 3 (line 121) and “18.” for paragraph 13 (line 259), the third heads numbered “(8)” at lines 213 and 327, the Holy Places article of the Mandate headed “Article 18” (line 169; the article as ingested in the Mandate itself is Article 13), “Mr. Eamsay MacDonald” (line 125), “Chief Eabbinate and Eabbinical Council” in the quoted 1922 passage (line 141), “It it a primary duty” (line 219), “tho activities” (line 315), “the Kit Jewish labourer” (line 303), “W.C.z” and “Price 46. Net” on the title page (lines 93, 103), “29-4 per cent” (line 283) and “the 80th September, 1980” for the half year ending in 1930 (line 329). Each is held as printed, under Open questions. Asterisks after “Report” (lines 111, 115), after the 1922 statement (line 129) and after “exercised” (line 335) appear with no footnote text reproduced in either file.

Section by section

• Introduction and occasion (para. 1, lines 111-115): the Shaw Commission’s report, published in April, gave rise to acute controversy and showed considerable misunderstanding about the Government’s past actions and future intentions in Palestine. The Shaw report drew attention to features calling for prompt and full investigation, so Sir John Hope Simpson was sent to confer with the High Commissioner and report on land settlement, immigration and development; pressure to issue a policy declaration before his report was received was resisted, given the problem’s extreme difficulty and complexity. Simpson’s report has now been received, and the statement is framed after careful consideration of it and of other information recently available.
• The appeal for co-operation (para. 2, lines 117-119): the two sections’ interests and aims are diverse and in some respects conflicting, so no declaration will fully satisfy either; the Government will endeavour to convince both Arabs and Jews of its firm intention to promote both races’ essential interests and to develop a prosperous community under an impartial and progressive Administration, but no policy can succeed without the communities’ willing co-operation. The Government record that they have received little assistance from either side in healing the breach since the disturbances of August 1929, and that a press campaign has fostered mistrust by obscuring and distorting the true facts.
• The double undertaking (para. 3, numbered “8.” as printed, lines 121-127): misunderstandings result from failure to appreciate the Mandate’s duty — in the Prime Minister’s Commons statement of 3 April, “a double undertaking is involved, to the Jewish people on the one hand and to the non-Jewish population of Palestine on the other.” Both sides have demanded policies from which the Government are debarred by the Mandate’s explicit terms. Administration in accordance with the Mandate as approved by the League Council is, in the Prime Minister’s words quoted, an international obligation from which there can be no receding; it is useless for Jewish leaders to press for policy conformed to the more uncompromising sections of Zionist opinion on immigration and land, and equally useless for Arab leaders to demand a constitution that would make the double undertaking impossible to carry out. The Government will not be moved by pressure or threats from the path laid down in the Mandate.
• The 1922 foundation (para. 4, lines 129-133): the 1922 statement was communicated to the Palestine Arab Delegation, then in London, and to the Zionist Organisation; the Arab Delegation did not accept it, while the Zionist Organisation’s Executive resolved that its activities would conform to it, Dr. Weizmann writing that nothing was further from the Organisation’s purpose than to prejudice the non-Jewish population’s civil or religious rights or material interests (quoted under Key passages). Despite administrative defects and economic problems since brought to light, the 1922 statement “provides the foundations upon which future British policy in Palestine must be built up”.
• The three points recalled (para. 5, lines 135-155): (a) the Jewish National Home — the 1922 passage is quoted in full: the existing Jewish community of 80,000, about one-fourth on the land, with its elected assembly, councils, schools organisation, Chief Rabbinate, Hebrew vernacular and press, has in fact “national” characteristics, and the Home’s development is not the imposition of a Jewish nationality on Palestine’s inhabitants as a whole but the further development of that community into a centre in which the Jewish people as a whole may take an interest and a pride, the community being in Palestine as of right and not on sufferance and its Home internationally guaranteed on its ancient historic connection. (b) Immigration — the 1922 passage is quoted: immigration limited by the country’s economic capacity to absorb new arrivals, immigrants not to burden Palestine’s people or deprive any section of employment, about 25,000 immigrants since the British occupation, and exclusion of the politically undesirable; the statement adds that estimating absorptive capacity must now take account of Arab as well as Jewish unemployment, with a more exact application of the principles in future. (c) The Jewish Agency — the 1922 passage is quoted: the Zionist Commission, now the Palestine Zionist Executive, has not desired and does not possess any share in the general administration, and the Organisation’s special position under Article IV relates to measures affecting the Jewish population and assisting general development, not to sharing in government.
• Reaffirmation and machinery (para. 6, line 157): the 1922 policy and the three passages are reaffirmed generally; the practical application is to be improved, with closer co-operation and consultation between the Palestine Administration and the Jewish Agency further developed on the basic principle that the Agency’s position in advising and co-operating does not entitle it to share in the government of the country, and with machinery likewise to safeguard the non-Jewish sections’ essential interests and afford them consultation.
• The Mandate passages (para. 7, lines 159-185): Articles 2, 6, 9, 13 (headed “Article 18” as printed), 15, 4 and 11 are quoted. Article 2 charges the Mandatory with securing the establishment of the Jewish National Home and the development of self-governing institutions and with safeguarding all inhabitants’ civil and religious rights; Article 6 requires Jewish immigration to be facilitated and close settlement encouraged while ensuring the rights and position of other sections are not prejudiced; Article 9 guarantees rights in the judicial system, personal status and the Wakfs; the Holy Places article makes the Mandatory responsible solely to the League for the Holy Places, with no interference with purely Moslem shrines; Article 15 ensures freedom of conscience and worship, non-discrimination and each community’s schools; Article 4 recognises an appropriate Jewish agency as a public body to advise and co-operate, the Zionist organisation being recognised as such agency; Article 11 requires the interests of the community to be safeguarded in development, gives public-ownership powers, requires a land system having regard to close settlement and intensive cultivation, and permits — does not require — arrangements with the Jewish Agency for public works on terms capping its profits.
• Equal weight (para. 8, lines 187-203): Article 6’s obligation is qualified by the requirement that other sections’ rights and position not be prejudiced, and Article 11’s object is the population of Palestine as a whole, not any sectional interest; claims for the Jewish Agency to a position in the general administration go far beyond the Mandate’s clear intention, and the argument that the Jewish National Home is the Mandate’s principal feature and the safeguarding passages merely secondary is “totally erroneous” — neither obligation may be subordinated to the other. The Permanent Mandates Commission, commenting on the British Accredited Representative’s statements of 9 June, pronounced that the two obligations are of equal weight and in no sense irreconcilable, and that this accurately expresses the essence of the Mandate; the Government are fully in accord, and the pronouncement has been rendered authoritative by the League Council’s approval.
• The three heads (para. 9, lines 205-215): the practical problems fall under (1) Security, (2) Constitutional development and (3) Economic and Social development (the third numbered “(8)” as printed).
• (1) Security (para. 10, lines 219-223): it is a primary duty to ensure peace, order and good government; past outbreaks have been promptly repressed, and incitement to disorder or disaffection will be severely punished, with the Administration’s powers enlarged so far as necessary. Two battalions of infantry are to be retained for the present, with two squadrons of aircraft and four sections of armoured cars in Palestine and Trans-Jordan. Mr Dowbiggin, Inspector-General of Police, Ceylon, reported on the Palestine Police Force; some of his recommendations have been carried out, including increased British and Palestinian strength and a scheme of defence for Jewish Colonies, and the rest are under consideration with the High Commissioner. The security forces’ nature and composition are to be guided by expert advisers and suitability for their duties, without regard to political considerations.
• (2) Constitutional development, history (para. 11, lines 227-247): the time has come to take a measure of self-government in hand without further delay. In October 1920 an Advisory Council was set up in equal parts official and nominated unofficial — of the ten unofficial members, four Moslems, three Christians and three Jews. The Palestine Order in Council of 1 September 1922 directed a Legislative Council of the High Commissioner as President, ten official and 12 elected non-official members; the election attempt of February and March, dated 1928 as printed, failed through the Arab population’s refusal as a whole to co-operate, and the High Commissioner suspended the Council and continued with an Advisory Council. Two further opportunities — a reconstituted nominated Advisory Council conforming to the proposed Legislative Council’s membership, and a proposed Arab agency with functions analogous to the Jewish Agency’s under Article 4 — were not accepted, and in December 1928 an officials-only Advisory Council was set up, which still continues. Lord Plumer, High Commissioner 1925-1928, introduced a wider measure of local self-government to give practical experience of administration; Sir John Chancellor took up constitutional development on assuming office in December 1928 and put forward proposals in June 1929, discussion being suspended after the August 1929 disturbances.
• The Legislative Council decision (paras. 12-13, lines 249-261): the Government intend to set up a Legislative Council generally on the lines of the statement issued by Mr Churchill in June 1922, reproduced as Appendix 5 to the Shaw Commission’s report; all possible steps will be taken to circumvent any section’s attempt to prevent the decision taking effect. The Council should be of special benefit to the Arab section, who at present possess no constitutional means of putting their social and economic views before the Government. It will consist of the High Commissioner and 22 members, ten official and 12 unofficial, the unofficial members normally elected by primary and secondary elections, with steps devised to ensure their appointment if members fail to be elected through non-cooperation, so as to avoid the deadlock of 1923; the High Commissioner retains the power necessary for the Mandatory’s obligations, including urgently required legislation and the maintenance of order. A petition to the League of Nations on fulfilment of the Mandate is stated to be admissible under Article 85 of the Order in Council of 1922, as printed.
• (3) Economic and Social Development, introduction (para. 14, lines 265-267): the practical problems are land, immigration and unemployment, intimately interrelated, investigated since the Shaw report by a Committee appointed by the High Commissioner in April on agriculturists’ economic condition and fiscal measures, and by Simpson, who proceeded to Palestine in May.
• Land findings (paras. 15-16, lines 269-283): with present methods of Arab cultivation there remains no margin of land for agricultural settlement by new immigrants except the undeveloped land the Jewish agencies hold in reserve. The extent of unoccupied Government land is negligible; considerable areas the Government claims are in fact occupied and cultivated by Arabs, and even if its disputed title were admitted those areas could not be made available for Jewish settlement, given that occupation and the need of land for landless Arab cultivators. A margin depends on increasing the productivity of land already occupied. The cultivable area excluding the Beer-Sheba region is 6,544,000 dunams, against previous official estimates of 10 to 11 million; at least 130 dunams are required to maintain a fellah family in a decent standard in the unirrigated tracts, while all the cultivable land excluding that already in Jewish hands, divided among the existing Arab cultivators, would give an average of not more than 90 dunams — about 8 million dunams would be required for an average of 130. Of the 86,980 rural Arab families, 29.4 per cent (“29-4 per cent” as printed) are landless; how many previously cultivated and lost their land is not known, and is hoped to be ascertained in next year’s Census.
• The fellah and Jewish settlement (paras. 17-18, lines 285-295): the Arab fellah’s condition leaves much to be desired and a policy of land development is called for; the sole agencies that have pursued a consistent policy of land development have been the Jewish Colonisation organisations. Jewish settlers had every advantage of capital, science and organisation, and to these and their energy their remarkable progress is due; the Arab population, lacking those advantages, has increased rapidly by excess of births over deaths while the land available for its sustenance has decreased by about a million dunams, which has passed into Jewish hands. It would be unjust to accept that Jewish settlement has in all cases been detrimental to the Arabs, but P.I.C.A. colonisation must be differentiated from colonisation under Zionist auspices: under the P.I.C.A.’s past policy the Arab has profited largely and relations with Arab neighbours have been excellent, and the cases quoted for advantageous effects relate to P.I.C.A. colonies established before colonisation financed from the Palestine Foundation Fund, the Jewish Agency’s main financial instrument, came into existence. Some attempts to prove Zionist colonisation has not caused previous tenants to join the landless class have proved “unconvincing, if not fallacious”.
• Jewish labour conditions (paras. 19-20, lines 297-305): the Enlarged Jewish Agency’s Constitution, signed at Zurich on 14 August 1929 (Article 3(d) and (e)), provides that land acquired shall be held as the inalienable property of the Jewish people and that in all the Agency’s works Jewish labour shall be employed as a matter of principle; Article 23 of the Jewish National Fund’s draft lease binds the lessee to execute all cultivation works only with Jewish labour, with stringent observance conditions; and the Palestine Foundation Fund’s repayment agreements bind Maritime Plain settlers, and the Emek Colonies’ agreement likewise, to hire Jewish workmen only. These provisions are said to be difficult to reconcile with the 1921 Zionist Congress declaration of the Jewish people’s desire to live with the Arab people in friendship and mutual respect and together to develop the common homeland. The General Federation of Jewish Labour’s Executive, which exercises a very important influence on Zionist policy, justifies the restrictions frankly as necessary to secure the largest possible Jewish immigration and to safeguard the Jewish labourer’s standard of life from falling to the Arab’s lower standard; however logical from a purely national movement’s standpoint, the arguments take no account of Article 6’s requirement that the other sections’ rights and position not be prejudiced.
• Agricultural development (paras. 21-25, lines 309-325): a more methodical agricultural development is called for; only by such a policy will additional Jewish agricultural settlement be possible consistently with Article 6, and only after years of work — fortunately the Jewish organisations hold a large reserve, so their operations can continue while general development shared by Jews and Arabs is worked out. During this period control of all disposition of land must rest with the authority in charge of development, the Palestine Administration, and transfers will be permitted only so far as they do not interfere with its plans. Problems to be considered include irrigation, co-ordination with the Department of Agriculture and other departments, protection of tenants by occupancy right or other means against ejectment or excessive rental, acceleration of settlement by ascertainment of title and registration of tenancies — nearly half the Arab villages are held on mesha’a tenure, by consensus a great obstacle to agricultural development — and co-operative societies among the fellahin. Palestine’s finances have been severely strained by the security forces’ increases, which cannot yet be forecast for reduction; Palestine is to be self-supporting, and the contemplated improvement will take time and considerable expenditure, part of it hoped to be recoverable.
• Immigration machinery (para. 26, headed “(8) Immigration” as printed, lines 327-333): in May the Government suspended further issue of Labour Schedule certificates beyond the 950 already sanctioned for the half year ending 30 September 1930 (“the 80th September, 1980” as printed), leaving other forms of Jewish immigration undisturbed. The examination showed many persons admitted who should not have received visas, no effective Government control over selection abroad, no adequate safeguards against irregularities or the immigration of undesirables, travellers overstaying in 7,800 cases over the last three years, and a serious number evading frontier control. Account must be taken of the General Federation of Jewish Labour’s part: its influence is far-reaching, more than a quarter of the last Zionist Congress’s delegates represented circles identified with it, its members may not use the country’s Courts against another member — it has its own Courts of First and Second Instance and a Labour High Court — and its policy is a new social order based on communal settlements and “self labour”, insisting where self-labour is impossible on Jewish labour exclusively by all Jewish employers. The Palestine Government, as the Mandatory’s agent, must be the deciding authority on immigration policy, and a modus vivendi between Government and Jewish Agency on their respective functions is required, taking full account of the Federation’s influence on the Agency.
• Immigration and unemployment (paras. 27-28, lines 335-343): no efficient machinery exists for estimating unemployment, especially Arab unemployment; the evidence nonetheless establishes a serious degree of Arab unemployment and a definitely unsatisfactory degree of Jewish unemployment, that the Labour Schedule’s preparation must depend on ascertainment of the total of unemployed in Palestine, and that economic capacity must be judged with reference to Palestine as a whole, allowing for temporary labour demand from development expenditure’s circulation of money. Under Article 6, if Jewish immigration prevents the Arab population obtaining the work necessary for its maintenance, or Jewish unemployment unfavourably affects the general labour position, the Mandatory must reduce or, if necessary, suspend such immigration until the unemployed of the other sections can obtain work; the May suspension is held fully justified, and not political — it had in mind the Shaw Commission’s opinions on land shortage and closer immigration control, pending expert examination. Hasty decisions for more unrestricted Jewish immigration are deprecated even from the Jewish community’s standpoint, while Arab suspicion that their depression is due to excessive immigration remains plausibly grounded; changes in the Labour Schedule’s preparation and closer consultation between the Jewish authorities and the Government are hoped for, towards an agreed Schedule.
• Close (para. 29, lines 345-347): development, immigration and unemployment are closely inter-related, and Palestine’s future depends on a policy taking account of all three; the Jewish National Home’s ideals can be realised only in a peaceful and prosperous Palestine. Palestine has reached a critical moment: the Government’s past policy of leaving economic and social forces to operate with minimum interference can no longer continue. The Arabs are appealed to for recognition of the facts and sustained co-operation for the country’s prosperity as a whole; Jewish leaders are asked to make concessions on the independent and separatist ideals developed in some quarters in connection with the Jewish National Home, and to accept general development carried out so that Arab and Jewish interests each receive adequate consideration, without grounds for charges of partiality.

Key passages

• “a double undertaking is involved, to the Jewish people on the one hand and to the non-Jewish population of Palestine on the other.” (line 121; the Prime Minister’s Commons statement of 3 April, quoted by the statement)
• “is an international obligation from which there can be no question of receding.” (line 125; the Prime Minister, quoted by the statement)
• “The Zionist Organisation has, at all time, been sincerely desirous of proceeding in harmonious co-operation with all sections of the people of Palestine.” (line 131; Dr Weizmann’s letter, quoted by the statement)
• “that the obligations laid down by the Mandate in regard to the two sections of the population are of equal weight” (line 193; the Permanent Mandates Commission, quoted by the statement)
• “there remains no margin of land available for agricultural settlement by new immigrants, with the exception of such undeveloped land as the various Jewish agencies hold in reserve.” (line 273)
• “it shall be deemed to be a matter of principle that Jewish labour shall be employed.” (line 297; the Enlarged Jewish Agency’s Constitution, quoted by the statement)
• “Transfers of land will be permitted only in so far as they do not interfere with the plans of that authority.” (line 313; the authority being the Palestine Administration)

Evidence the work relies on

• The statement is a policy declaration resting on two reports it names: the Shaw Commission’s report, published in April 1930, and Sir John Hope Simpson’s report on land settlement, immigration and development, received before the statement was framed (lines 111-115); and, for the land, immigration and unemployment findings, on a Committee appointed by the High Commissioner in April 1930 on agriculturists’ economic condition and fiscal measures (line 267) and on Mr Dowbiggin’s report on the Palestine Police Force (line 223).
• Texts it quotes or relies on as authority: the June 1922 statement of policy, quoted at length on the National Home, immigration and the Jewish Agency (lines 141-155); the Mandate’s Articles 2, 4, 6, 9, 13 (headed 18 as printed), 11 and 15, quoted (lines 161-185); the Prime Minister’s Commons statement of 3 April (lines 121-125); the Permanent Mandates Commission’s pronouncement on the British Accredited Representative’s 9 June statements, approved by the League Council (lines 189-199); the Enlarged Jewish Agency’s Constitution of 14 August 1929, the Jewish National Fund’s draft lease Article 23 and the Palestine Foundation Fund’s settlement agreements (lines 297-299); and the 1921 Zionist Congress declaration (line 301).
• Figures it gives, each as of the statement’s own date unless it says otherwise: a Jewish community of 80,000, about one-fourth on the land, and about 25,000 immigrants since the British occupation — both from the 1922 passage it quotes (lines 141-145); cultivable land excluding Beer-Sheba 6,544,000 dunams against earlier estimates of 10 to 11 million, a fellah family’s requirement of at least 130 dunams against an average available holding of not more than 90, about 8 million dunams required for 130-dunam holdings, 86,980 rural Arab families of whom 29.4 per cent (as printed “29-4 per cent”) are landless, and about a million dunams of Arab sustenance land passed into Jewish hands (lines 279-289); 950 Labour Schedule certificates already sanctioned for the half year to September 1930 and 7,800 travellers overstaying in the last three years (lines 329); and more than a quarter of the last Zionist Congress’s delegates identified with the General Federation of Jewish Labour (line 331). The land figures are Simpson’s, restated without separate citation in the statement (see How it relates).

Analysis

• Form and method: an interpretive and programmatic ruling, not an evidential work. It settles the Mandate’s meaning by the issuing Government’s reading of the articles it quotes — equal weight for the two obligations, the safeguarding passages not secondary — and converts Simpson’s findings (no land margin, serious Arab unemployment, certificate-system weaknesses) into policy consequences (a development authority controlling land disposition, a Labour Schedule set by total unemployment) without reproducing Simpson’s evidence; the figures must be tested in Simpson’s report itself, which is ingested separately.
• Its central move is to reaffirm the 1922 interpretation while changing its application: absorptive capacity, stated in 1922 as a general limit, is here specified to count Arab as well as Jewish unemployment, and the 1922 Legislative Council proposal, deadlocked since 1923, is revived with an anti-deadlock appointment device and retained High Commissioner powers.
• Limits, on the file’s own terms: it names no development authority beyond the Palestine Administration itself, no timetable or budget for the development policy beyond noting the strained finances and self-supporting principle, and no machinery yet devised for measuring unemployment, on which its immigration rule depends; the landless figure’s composition (how many lost land they previously cultivated) is expressly stated to be unknown pending the Census. Its account of the May 1930 suspension answers the political-influence charge by citing the Shaw Commission’s opinions, not by setting out the certificate figures for the suspended schedule beyond the 950 already sanctioned.

People, organizations, places and events

Lord Passfield, Passfield White Paper, Walter Shaw, Shaw Commission, John Hope Simpson, Ramsay MacDonald, Chaim Weizmann, Winston Churchill, Herbert Plumer, John Chancellor, Jewish Agency, World Zionist Organization, Histadrut, Palestine Jewish Colonization Association, Jewish National Fund, Keren Hayesod, League of Nations, Permanent Mandates Commission, Mandate for Palestine, British White Paper of June 1922, Legislative Council (Palestine, 1922 proposal), Palestine Order-in-Council 1922, Waqf

Concepts

Jewish National Home, Economic capacity, Labour Immigration Schedule, Jewish Labour Only, Mesha’a, Mandate system

How it relates to other sources

• It is the Government’s response to, and restatement of, the two 1930 enquiries ingested separately: the Shaw Commission (whose report is not itself ingested in full; see Shaw Commission) and Simpson’s report at Palestine: Report on Immigration, Land Settlement and Development. Its land figures are Simpson’s: the 6,544,000-dunam cultivable total excluding Beersheba is Simpson’s settlement area (Simpson, lines 735-739), his lot viable is the statement’s 130 dunams, and his landless and average-holding argument (61,408 fellah families at an average 91.9 dunams) underlies the statement’s 90-dunam average (Simpson, part 2). Its immigration rule — the Schedule set by unemployment generally, with reduction or suspension under Article 6 where Arab work is prejudiced — is Simpson’s Chapter X conclusion in almost his words (Simpson, lines 3005-3015, as recorded on Mandate for Palestine); On the May 1930 suspension the two accounts differ in emphasis: the statement holds the suspension itself “fully justified” by the examination and by the Shaw opinions pending expert examination, and rejects the charge of political influence (lines 337-339), while Simpson records that the suspended schedule had been prepared in the ordinary way and that the Chief Immigration Officer’s recommendations and the High Commissioner’s sanction were justified by the prospects of work at the time, changed conditions since making it unwise, on purely economic grounds, to cancel the suspension at the moment of his writing (Palestine: Report on Immigration, Land Settlement and Development, lines 3015-3025). The two accounts are held side by side.
• It reaffirms and quotes the June 1922 statement at British Policy in Palestine — British White Paper of June 1922 — the same 80,000 community, 25,000 immigrants and economic-capacity passages — and adds the application the 1922 paper lacked: Arab unemployment counted in absorptive capacity, and the Legislative Council revived with a device against a repetition of the 1923 deadlock. The 1922 paper’s appeal right is there given under Article 81 of the draft Order in Council; the 1930 statement gives a League petition under Article 85 of the Order in Council of 1922 (see Open questions).
• Against the Jewish Agency’s own July 1930 memoranda at Palestine: Land Settlement, Urban Development and Immigration: where the Agency’s industry memorandum held absorptive-capacity talk “out of place” and its land memorandum read Articles 6 and 11 as intending surplus land to be made available for Jewish settlement, the statement holds there is no surplus margin at present methods, makes further settlement conditional on Government-led development, and subordinates land transfers to the development authority’s plans.
• Later ingested sources record the statement’s fate, which this file does not: in Wolfe’s account the Passfield White Paper’s restrictive recommendations were negated by the MacDonald letter Palestinian Arabs dubbed the “Black Letter” (Purchase by Other Means: The Palestine Nakba and Zionism’s Conquest of Economics, PDF p.17 / printed p.149), and in Banko’s account the Prime Minister’s February 1931 letter to Weizmann retracted the recommendations and reaffirmed the Balfour Declaration, with no drastic changes to immigration or naturalisation following (The Invention of Palestinian Citizenship, 1918–1947, PDF p.131 / printed p.120). Both accounts stand on Shaw Commission.

Open questions

• The Secretary of State for the Colonies is nowhere named in the file; the Passfield attribution rests on Wolfe and Banko, as recorded under What the file is.
• Paragraph and head numbering as printed: paragraph 3 is numbered “8.” (line 121), paragraph 13 is numbered “18.” (line 259), and the third heads at lines 213 and 327 are numbered “(8)”; the Mandate’s Holy Places article, Article 13 in the Mandate as ingested (Mandate for Palestine (1922), Article 13), is headed “Article 18” (line 169). The recurring 3 rendered as 8 is held as printed in each place, not corrected.
• Dates as printed conflict inside the file: the Legislative Council election attempt and its Command Paper are dated February-March 1928 and 1928 (lines 233-235), while paragraph 13 speaks of avoiding “the repetition of the deadlock which occurred in 1923” (line 259), and the 1922 statement’s own history, as ingested, places the proposed Council’s elections in the same sequence without the 1928 date. Both dates are held as printed.
• “Command Paper 8582” for the earlier statement on British Policy in Palestine referred to at line 223, “Price 46. Net” (line 103), “W.C.z” (line 93) and “the 80th September, 1980” (line 329) are held as printed; no corrected form is asserted from this file.
• The League petition right is given under Article 85 of the Order in Council of 1922 (line 261); the 1922 statement gives the comparable appeal under Article 81 of the draft Palestine Order in Council (British Policy in Palestine — British White Paper of June 1922, line 45). Whether the difference is the draft-to-final renumbering or a slip in either file is not settled by either file.
• How many of the landless rural Arab families previously cultivated land they have since lost is stated to be unknown (line 283); whether the Census taken the following year settled it is not in this file.
• The statement’s 90-dunam average and 8-million-dunam requirement (line 281) are stated without the cultivating-family count that would recompute them; Simpson’s corresponding figures (61,408 families, 91.9 dunams average, 130-dunam lot viable) would give about 8 million dunams (computed from Simpson’s figures), but the statement itself does not give that count.

Coverage

lines 1-417 of 417, read in full