The Maccabaean

United States is at once deeply interested in Palestine, and at the same time without any political or military interest in Palestine. It has no desire to interfere in Palestinian affairs for any purposes of its own; it has no axe to grind there; it would simply watch with the utmost sympathy over the fulfilment of the mandate given to Great Britain in Palestine by the Peace Conference. In this connection the United States could perform the most valuable function. But, indeed, the obligations of the United States would begin even before, for one of the duties of the United States at the Peace Conference is to secure for the new Palestine its »roner territorial boundaries.

the land question is concerned. The first is that the Fellahin should be protected in a holding adequate to the number of his family. The second is that land must be made available for the building up of a great Jewish rural life. Both these needs are very easily reconciled in Palestine, and the future administration will have to make it one of its early tasks to reconcile them both.

The question arises how far the points we have enumerated should be dealt with in the instrument by virtue of which ihe Peace Conference sets up the trusteeship over a Jewish Palestine, and how far the determination should be left over to be a matter of adjustment between the trustee and the Jewish people? For our part, we should like to see the general outline of the most important problems specified in the Act of the Peace Conference, although the details may have to be adjusted between the trustee and the Jewish people. A great advantage of making the Act of the Peace Conference in relation to Palestine comprehensive in its general terms is that that instrument is to be the charter of the trustee, and that all the right of appeal which the Jewish people may possess to the League of Nations will have to rest upon this Act. Of course, it might be urged that the more general it was in its terms and the less it dealt with special problems, the wider the ground upon which, if the necessity arose, the Jewish people could base its appeal to that great Court of Chancery, the League of Nations. And again, it might be urged that the Peace Conference would be so overburdened with tasks, that it will not desire to concern itself with too detailed an instrument in relation to Palestine. These are formidable considerations, and we have no desire to underrate them. This particular matter . is evidently one upon which opinions may differ, but in any event, the rights of a Jewish Palestine must be guaranteed in the instrument creating a British trust in relation to Palestine. We have, for our part, no doubt whatever that even without such an instrument British faith can be trusted, British sympathy and British genius. But we can hardly expect the same understanding in peoples in other countries, and in any case these are days in which a title to authority and to territory must run in harmony with certain great principles.. The British Government itself is as ardent as anybody that it should receive a mandate as trustee for a Jewish Palestine from the Peace Conference.