'File 11/32 Royal Commission on Palestine' [‎66v] (132/308)

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common administration for the whole territory, should be em
powered to contemplate in some form or other the establish
ment of a regime in which these aspirations would each be
satisfied in a part of the territory.
“ This satisfaction cannot, of course, be complete. For the
Arabs, any partition must necessarily involve the abandonment
of a fraction of what they consider to be their hereditary
patrimony. For the Jews, it could involve, together with a
restriction of the scope of their national home, already limited,
as they allege, by die exclusion of Trans-Jordan in 1922, a
fresh reduction in its capacity of absorbing population. ^
“ Any solution to prove acceptable should therefore depriv
the Arabs of as small a number as possible of the places to
which they attach particular value, either because they are t^ir
present homes or for reasons of religion. And, further, aie
areas allotted to the Jews should be sufficiently extensive, fertile
and well situated from the point of view of communications by
sea and land to be capable of intensive economic development,
and consequently of dense and rapid settlement. ...
“ The Commission would be failing in its duty if it did not
draw the Council’s attention to the delicate problem of the
transfer of populations from one territory to the other which
might be necessary if there was a partition. In order to
guarantee that the advantages of such a transfer should out
weigh the disadvantages, particular care would have to be given
to ensure that it was carried out with the greatest fairness.
“ As regards the proposal to withdraw the Holy Places from
the domination of Arabs and Jews and place them under a
special regime, the Commission thinks that such a step could
not but be of advantage to general peace, provided that this
regime was based on Article 28 of the present mandate. . . .
‘ ‘ While declaring itself favourable in principle to an examina
tion of a solution involving the partition of Palestine, the Com
mission is, nevertheless, opposed to the idea of the immediate
creation of two new independent States. . . .
“ The Commission therefore considers that a prolongatiou**
of the period of political apprenticeship constituted by the man
date would be absolutely essential both to the new Arab State
and to the new Jewish State. This apprenticeship might be
carried on in one of two forms.”
” Provisional cantonization ” and “ Two Mandates ” are
then discussed.
5. Extracts from the Speech of the Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs at the g8th Session of the Council of the League of
Nations, on the 14th September, 1937.
" I would remind the Council that the Balfour Declaration
itself had a dual character. On the one hand, it provided for