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FORETGN NEWS

of illumination. He smiled and sent half of them to the Japanese Crown Prince Hirohito who, in his garden at Tokyo, liberated them. The Prince, being but recently married, found light in the eyes of his Princess Firefly.

a great sea turtle emerged upon the beach at Kamakura, famed site of the imperial villa of the Crown Prince Hirohito of Japan. Out rushed the imperial household, agog at this omen of good luck. When the turtle, having laid exactly 70 eggs, retired into the sea, it was bruited throughout Japan that the Crown princess Nagako would be certain to give birth to a male heir. Then a pair of sacred cranes nested in a great pine tree almost at the imperial threshold, and this omen was thought to be so certain of fulfillment that the Japanese newspapers commenced to refer to the expected child as "him." Last week the famed obstetrician, Professor Nobuhige Kuriyama, waited hourly upon the Crown Princess; final preparations were made for an immense fCte. Then there came into the world the 124th descendant in direct line of the EmAUSPICIOUS BIRTH: Last August

DEC.

:i

ciously born proved to be a girl. Some 70 million disappointed Japanese were comforted by an announcement: "The Princess Nagako continues in robust health, and will personally nurse the granddaughter of the Emperor."

peror Jimmu Tenno (660 B.C.), founder of the oldest reigning dynasty in the world. Unfortunately the infant thus auspi-

Palestine In an effort to control the unrest which had existed between Arab and Zionist communities ever since World War I, the League of Nations made Palestine a mandate of Great Britain in 1922. The mandate lasted until 1948.
Hale and hearty at the age of 76, Arthur of that name, descended from his bedroom one bright foggy morning into his electrically lit study in his electrically lit house in Carlton Gardens, London. He
HOSTILE ARABS:

MARCH

James Balfour, Earl

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sank agedly into a chair before his writing desk, opened a cablegram from Palestine sent by the Arab Executive, political agency of the Arabs, read:

"Realizing that the Balfour Declaration contains a policy that is fatal to Palestine, the Arab Executive has passed the following resolution: " 'Inhabitants who are victims of the aforesaid policy will withhold the reception otherwise due to Lord Balfour. On the day of his arrival, meetings will be held in places of worship for protest and prayer. Representatives of Arab bodies will refrain from meeting him publicly or privately. The authorities responsible for the Holy Places and national institutions will withhold leave of access to them. Arabic papers will appear with black borders and brief comments in English on the Balfour Declaration. Political authorities in Arab countries will associate themselves with the said protests and prayers. The Palestine Government is notified that it will be responsible for consequences resulting from Jewish demonstrations, public or private, authorized or unauthorized.'" Why this hostility? The Balfour Declaration of 1917 had declared that "His Majesty's Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people," but specifically stipulated that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine." The letter and the spirit of this agreement have been carried out, according to British and Jewish sources. But the fact remains that the British Government has tacitly undertaken to reconcile what are essentially irreconcilable peoples and policies. Within Palestine, which is about the same size as the state of New Hampshire, there are about 757,182 people, of whom 77/, are Moslems (most of them Arabs), I l/. Jews, 9f Christians, and 3l othet religions. The Moslems view with considerable alarm the infiltration of the thrifty Jews, and since Britain tries ineffectually to side with both, a further issue between Arab and Britisher
is created.

The Arab, as he has been in possession of the country for centuries, regards himself as a national of Palestine and consequently is opposed to the Jews coming into the country

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FoF"r,tcN NEWS

and considering themselves equally palestine nationals. This resentment is heightened by the fact that the Arabs, although owning most of the land, are poor; while the Jews seemingly

with pursuing a policy calculated to drive the Arab from

these things the Arab finds good material for a constant stream of propaganda against the Jews, whom he charges

have unlimited wealth behind them, which comes in from the Zionist organization. The Arab is opposed, as he always has been, to change; and the one thing that the Jews are doing is changing the whole aspect of the land. The Jews, for the most part, settle on the swamps and the dry sand belts. The swamps they drain and the sand patches they fertilize and irrigate. In

the country. Therefore, so long as the Balfour Declaration remains in force, all good Arabs must refuse to codperate with the British Administration.
MANHATTAN To HArFA: It was a historic occasion marked by uancH the presence of 5,000 excited Jews, for the president Arthur was inaugurating a new steamship line with a sailing for Haifa, the port of Jerusalem, and carrying the flag of Judea (six-pointed star of David) on the high seas for the first time in 2,000 years. Men and women wept from emotion and when they were not weeping they were singing Hatikvah, Zionist anthem, or The Star-Spangled Banner. Considerable difficulty was experienced in getting visitors off the boat, and as a result it was nearly an hour late in sailing. Finally, an official of the Line pleaded that, if the boat did not catch the tide, the company would lose $15,000. Soon after this, the President Arthur weighed anchor.
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lN THE PROMTSED LAND: Last week, nearly seven and a half ApRrL 13 years after the Earl of Balfour had issued his declaration fa_

voring the establishment of Palestine as a national home for the Jewish people, he entered a special railway car provided by the Palestine Government and was whisked off across the Suez Canal from Cairo to the holy land of two religions: Judaism, Christianity. Lord Balfour went to Jerusalem. On a spur of the Mount of Olives, known as Mt. Scopus, stands the Hebrew Uni_ versity which he had come to open-which all Zionist Jewry

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considers

of the utmost importance in the growth of what may be called modern Israel. He was met enthusiastically Uy itre Jewish communities and by the Arabs with a parade

oi mourning and the silence of grief, a protest against the Balfour Declaration. Before the opening ceremony took place, he visited Jaffa, motored to its suburb Tel-Aviv, a purely Jewish town where, it is said, everybody lives by doing someone else's washing' Everywhere the veteran Earl was received in manifest good-

will. The great day came. Hawkers sold "Balfour biscuits"' "Balfour keftas" (rissoles), "Balfour chocolate," which was not strange in a land which has a model village named Balfouria. Dr. Chaim Weizmann, President of the World Zionist Organization, declared the University open' Then Lord Bal-

fouraroseandtheovationwassuchthatthewallsofthe

amphitheatre were endangered. At length-silence' iord Balfour spoke in his best Eton and Cambridge manner, dwelt upon the significance i:f the event which had brought people from all the earth's cubbyholes' The speech

endedonaBalfouriannote:agraceful,tactful,courageous
plea for Arab goodwill and coOperation'
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20 LAST LAP: The last lap of Lord Balfour's visit to the Holy Land proved more exciting than the flrst and ended with regrettable suddenness. The Earl and his party had proceeded irom Jerusalem to Nazareth and Haifa in a sort of triumphal

tour.Atallpoints,hewasmetbyenthusiasticJewishcolonists; Arabs appeared to inform him that they lived peacefully with their Jewish neighbors. Over the border in Syria (French mandate), things were different. At Damascus, a furious mob twice attacked his

hotel.Thesecondonslaught,whichstartedin"TheStreet
appeared and spanked

That Is Called Straight," almost ended in a disaster, for when the gendarmes had nearly been overpowered French troops

off, with the flats of their swords'

theseethingcrowd,whichwasyelling..DownwithBalfour!,' An hour or so after the second attack, Lord Balfour was

spiritedfromthespotinahigh-poweredautomobileand ooly."upp"ared at Beirut, where he boarded a ship bound

for Alexandria, EgYPt.