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The Plight of Loyalists, Rochdale Times, 20th September 1922
1.
THE PLIGHT OF LOYALISTS, 20 September, #1922Live, The Rochdale Times, Timeline of British Mandatory Palestine
Mr Joseph Hanson, J. P. vice-chairman of the Rochdale Conservative and Unionist Association: “In the South of Ireland there was an undoubted conspiracy to break down every connection with England and the British Empire, a conspiracy which had resulted in the murder of many loyalists and dispossessing them of whatever they might happen to possess in the way of property or means of livelihood..
“..Whatever happened in Ireland had its reflex all over the Empire, and if they found that in Ireland the Government gave way to murder they need not be surprised to find that the lesson was quickly learnt in Egypt, Palestine, India, and in almost every part of our far-flung Empire..”
“..if the Government were going to let it be known that they did not stand by the people who had been loyal to them what would be the impression created abroad? Murders in Cairo in Palestine and in India had followed the extraordinary display of weakness by our Government in regard to Ireland, and they could not see where it was to end.”
2.
ARAB INTRIGUE IN PALESTINE. GOVERNMENT’S STRONG MEASURES, 20 September, #1922Live, The Scotsman, Timeline of British Mandatory Palestine
Cairo, September 18- A message from Palestine gives some information as to the measures which the Government of that country are taking as a reply to the efforts of the Arabs to nullify the significance of the approaching elections by organising a general refusal to vote on the part of the Arabs.
The Palestine Government have decided to lay a heavy hand on anybody intriguing against the establishment of a Jewish domination in Palestine. Whether or not this is in deference to the recent Zionist campaign for stronger measures against the Arabs is not known here.”
3.
The New Pacifism, 20 September, #1922Live, Northern Whig, Timeline of British Mandatory Palestine
“..Is it to be supposed that if by armed force the Turks succeeded in wrestling Thrace and Adrianople as well as Smyrna from Greece, and reducing the international control of the Straits to a mere formula, they would long be content to allow the present position in Syria, in Palestine and Mesopotamia to remain unaltered?”
4.
20 September, #1922Live, Sheffield Daily Telegraph, Timeline of British Mandatory Palestine
“A Foreign Office notice in last night’s ‘London Gazette’ announces that the operation of Special Courts is suspended in Mesopotamia, Palestine and Eastern Thrace.”
5.
NEAR EAST CRISIS, 20 September, #1922Live, Evening Mail, Timeline of British Mandatory Palestine
“..Still more dishonest has been our policy in regard at least to two out of the three principal Arab States liberated during the war from Turkish domination. We encouraged the Arabs to rise against Turkey by promising them, in effect when not in actual words, the creation of an independent Arab State. What have we done to carry out that promise? We have forced Zionism upon Palestine, where the vast majority of the population are, rightly or wrongly, intensely hostile to that regime; we have assented to French domination in Syria, whose peoples, also rightly or wrongly, are equally hostile to it; in Iraq we have placed an Arab King on the throne with more or less real authority, but we still insist upon enforcing a mandate which is universally distrusted, though we recognise its futility by excluding all mention of it from the Treaty, what is to regulate our future relations with the Iraq Government?.
Still worse: as if to associate more closely the Western world with policies which are at least regarded in the East as fundamentally dishonest, the League of Nations is being invited to give its imprimatur to them by confirming the mandates of Palestine, Syria, and Iraq, though it is impossible to see how they can be honestly reconciled with Article 22 of the League’s own Covenant, of which paragraph 5 provides that
The wishes of these communities (formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire) must be a principal consideration in the selection of the mandatory.
It is certainly not British policy alone that has been dishonest, but for the dishonesty of their own policies other Western nations must bear the responsibility, and it is with our own responsibility alone that I am concerned. That we have to face ourselves, and our Government must face it without delay lest worst befall us. There is no room now for diplomatic shifts and paper protests. Is this country, still staggering under the losses of the Great War, prepared to make the sacrifices necessary to regain in regard to Turkey the position which we have lost since the Armistice? If not, nothing would be more disastrous than to pretend to put our foot down in the face of the victorious Turks and then to have to take it up again, for that would be merely a fresh dishonesty. It would be better, because more honest, to acknowledge that, as far as Turkey is concerned, we have lost the Peace and must acquiesce with such good grace as we can in the restoration of the Ottoman Empire, with all its old opportunities of misrule, within the limits which Mustapha Kemal is prepared, or allowed by his followers, to accept. But let there be no mistake about it. We shall have, even then, to reckon all over the East with the revolutionary forces which have gained strength from the Kemalist-cum-Soviet triumph, and these can only met by returning courageously to the path of honesty in dealing with the other nations of the East whose faith in “the Englishman’s word” is not yet irretrievably shattered.”
Yours obediently,
VALENTINE CHIROL,
34, Carlyle-square, S.W.3. Sept. 16.”
6.
PALESTINE AND MESOPOTAMIA, 20 September, #1922Live, Evening Mail, Timeline of British Mandatory Palestine
“..If a plebiscite was taken in Palestine on the form of government I doubt if the one that is to be meted out to them would be chosen. If we promised the country to the Jews it is evident that we recognized the right of conquest, and yet we have many times played the self-determination card since the Armistice..”
Mr J. V. CHUTE, Bulhams Covert, Wissett, Halesworth, Suffolk”
7.
20 September, #1922Live, Western Daily Press, Timeline of British Mandatory Palestine
“..But though the Governments of the British Overseas Dominions are solid in their allegiance to the Mother Country it would be unwise to ignore the trend of feeling in other parts of the British Empire, and in those possessions which have been loosely tacked on to it by the much-discussed system of mandates. There is more than a ripple of the surface of Moslem opinion. In Palestine, in Mesopotamia, in Egypt, and more especially in India this is plainly discernible. It could scarcely be otherwise, having regard to the closely-knit web of Mohammedanism. There are hidden springs at work and we must be careful that these are not suddenly liberated..”
The Plight of Loyalists, Rochdale Times, 20th September 1922
1.
THE PLIGHT OF LOYALISTS, 20 September, #1922Live, The Rochdale Times, Timeline of British Mandatory Palestine
Mr Joseph Hanson, J. P. vice-chairman of the Rochdale Conservative and Unionist Association: “In the South of Ireland there was an undoubted conspiracy to break down every connection with England and the British Empire, a conspiracy which had resulted in the murder of many loyalists and dispossessing them of whatever they might happen to possess in the way of property or means of livelihood..
“..Whatever happened in Ireland had its reflex all over the Empire, and if they found that in Ireland the Government gave way to murder they need not be surprised to find that the lesson was quickly learnt in Egypt, Palestine, India, and in almost every part of our far-flung Empire..”
“..if the Government were going to let it be known that they did not stand by the people who had been loyal to them what would be the impression created abroad? Murders in Cairo in Palestine and in India had followed the extraordinary display of weakness by our Government in regard to Ireland, and they could not see where it was to end.”
2.
ARAB INTRIGUE IN PALESTINE. GOVERNMENT’S STRONG MEASURES, 20 September, #1922Live, The Scotsman, Timeline of British Mandatory Palestine
Cairo, September 18- A message from Palestine gives some information as to the measures which the Government of that country are taking as a reply to the efforts of the Arabs to nullify the significance of the approaching elections by organising a general refusal to vote on the part of the Arabs.
The Palestine Government have decided to lay a heavy hand on anybody intriguing against the establishment of a Jewish domination in Palestine. Whether or not this is in deference to the recent Zionist campaign for stronger measures against the Arabs is not known here.”
3.
The New Pacifism, 20 September, #1922Live, Northern Whig, Timeline of British Mandatory Palestine
“..Is it to be supposed that if by armed force the Turks succeeded in wrestling Thrace and Adrianople as well as Smyrna from Greece, and reducing the international control of the Straits to a mere formula, they would long be content to allow the present position in Syria, in Palestine and Mesopotamia to remain unaltered?”
4.
20 September, #1922Live, Sheffield Daily Telegraph, Timeline of British Mandatory Palestine
“A Foreign Office notice in last night’s ‘London Gazette’ announces that the operation of Special Courts is suspended in Mesopotamia, Palestine and Eastern Thrace.”
5.
NEAR EAST CRISIS, 20 September, #1922Live, Evening Mail, Timeline of British Mandatory Palestine
“..Still more dishonest has been our policy in regard at least to two out of the three principal Arab States liberated during the war from Turkish domination. We encouraged the Arabs to rise against Turkey by promising them, in effect when not in actual words, the creation of an independent Arab State. What have we done to carry out that promise? We have forced Zionism upon Palestine, where the vast majority of the population are, rightly or wrongly, intensely hostile to that regime; we have assented to French domination in Syria, whose peoples, also rightly or wrongly, are equally hostile to it; in Iraq we have placed an Arab King on the throne with more or less real authority, but we still insist upon enforcing a mandate which is universally distrusted, though we recognise its futility by excluding all mention of it from the Treaty, what is to regulate our future relations with the Iraq Government?.
Still worse: as if to associate more closely the Western world with policies which are at least regarded in the East as fundamentally dishonest, the League of Nations is being invited to give its imprimatur to them by confirming the mandates of Palestine, Syria, and Iraq, though it is impossible to see how they can be honestly reconciled with Article 22 of the League’s own Covenant, of which paragraph 5 provides that
The wishes of these communities (formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire) must be a principal consideration in the selection of the mandatory.
It is certainly not British policy alone that has been dishonest, but for the dishonesty of their own policies other Western nations must bear the responsibility, and it is with our own responsibility alone that I am concerned. That we have to face ourselves, and our Government must face it without delay lest worst befall us. There is no room now for diplomatic shifts and paper protests. Is this country, still staggering under the losses of the Great War, prepared to make the sacrifices necessary to regain in regard to Turkey the position which we have lost since the Armistice? If not, nothing would be more disastrous than to pretend to put our foot down in the face of the victorious Turks and then to have to take it up again, for that would be merely a fresh dishonesty. It would be better, because more honest, to acknowledge that, as far as Turkey is concerned, we have lost the Peace and must acquiesce with such good grace as we can in the restoration of the Ottoman Empire, with all its old opportunities of misrule, within the limits which Mustapha Kemal is prepared, or allowed by his followers, to accept. But let there be no mistake about it. We shall have, even then, to reckon all over the East with the revolutionary forces which have gained strength from the Kemalist-cum-Soviet triumph, and these can only met by returning courageously to the path of honesty in dealing with the other nations of the East whose faith in “the Englishman’s word” is not yet irretrievably shattered.”
Yours obediently,
VALENTINE CHIROL,
34, Carlyle-square, S.W.3. Sept. 16.”
6.
PALESTINE AND MESOPOTAMIA, 20 September, #1922Live, Evening Mail, Timeline of British Mandatory Palestine
“..If a plebiscite was taken in Palestine on the form of government I doubt if the one that is to be meted out to them would be chosen. If we promised the country to the Jews it is evident that we recognized the right of conquest, and yet we have many times played the self-determination card since the Armistice..”
Mr J. V. CHUTE, Bulhams Covert, Wissett, Halesworth, Suffolk”
7.
20 September, #1922Live, Western Daily Press, Timeline of British Mandatory Palestine
“..But though the Governments of the British Overseas Dominions are solid in their allegiance to the Mother Country it would be unwise to ignore the trend of feeling in other parts of the British Empire, and in those possessions which have been loosely tacked on to it by the much-discussed system of mandates. There is more than a ripple of the surface of Moslem opinion. In Palestine, in Mesopotamia, in Egypt, and more especially in India this is plainly discernible. It could scarcely be otherwise, having regard to the closely-knit web of Mohammedanism. There are hidden springs at work and we must be careful that these are not suddenly liberated..”