England Votes Loan Program for Palestine

King George V today signed the bill authorizing the Palestine government to float a £2,000,000 loan to be used for public works in Palestine, for the educational system, for the resettlement of Arabs alleged to have been dispossessed from their land by Jews and for all other purposes to be decided upon by the Palestine authorities.

Earlier in the day the bill authorizing the loan had been passed for the third time by the House of Lords. Before its introduction in the upper branch of the British legislative body, the bill had been passed by the House of Commons after a stormy debate which was provoked by Colonel Josiah Wedgwood, independent member of Parliament, who had just returned from an extended stay in Palestine.

Jewish Palestine bitterly opposed the issuance of the loan and fought the passage of the bill through the British legislature. Palestinian Jewish leaders declared openly that, according to the announced intention of the Palestine government, the Jews of the Holy Land would receive few benefits from the loan while they would be compelled to pay most of it through taxation.

Allocation of the loan announced by the Palestine government while the bill was still before the House of Commons tended to confirm Jewish fears. The Palestine government gave an outright grant of ½20,000 to the Jewish educational system under the direction of the Vaad Leumi, but provided ½40,000 for the erection of an Arab technical school, to be built and maintained out of the yearly budget of the Palestine government.

Palestinian Jewish leaders also pointed out that most of the money to be derived from the Loan was to be spent for public works and that few Jews were employed by the government owing to the low rate of wages paid the workers.

It was also pointed out that it was a strange thing for the Palestine government to float a huge loan in London at the very time when the official surplus as announced by Palestine treasury officials exceeded the amount of the loan.