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assault on the blacklegs of a local factory, and much broken machinery. These were all steps in the right direction, and their success was most encouraging, and by the spring of 1921 the society had reached a quite flourishing condition. The fact that the law-abiding citizens of the Jewish suburb of Tel-Aviv and the agricultural communities of the plain refused to have any dealings with it in no way damped the society's ardour: what it lacked in numbers was more than compensated by the enthusiasm of its followers. The posters and the leaflets became ever more inspired, and their sentiments ever more uplifting Arab and Jew alike (for the true proletarian is a leveller of all barriers of race and religion) should reap the benefits of “international solidarity," of "the Dictatorship (surely a better-chosen word than most) of the Proletariat," of the "overthrow of British and French bayonets," "Arab and foreign capitalists," "the Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie," and should alike share in the glorious result, the bright Utopia of a "Soviet Palestine." It is to be supposed that the pious Yiddish hope, "Long live the Free Women of the Communist Society," was not among the sentiments translated into Arabic, but the worthy members of the M.P.S. showed throughout such lamentable ignorance of the Arab mentality that even that would hardly have been surprising.

The climax to which these

activities came is a matter of common knowledge: the riots that raged in the streets of Jaffa in May 1921 were the chief events which drew general attention to the Zionist question. There were scenes of sensational bloodshed and ferocity, in which bomb-throwing, shooting, beating, and stabbing all played their part, together with details of great brutality and horror; but even so it was the attacks on the Jewish agricultural colonies which had a greater political significance. Inflamed by the rumours of the Jaffa troubles, which assumed immensely magnified proportions, the Arabs of the villages, of ever-impressionable imagination, seized upon this provocation as an outlet for the mingled feelings of uneasiness, anger, and jealousy that had been nourished by Communist propaganda on the one hand, and the galling sight of their Jewish neighbours' successful agricultural rivalry on the other. It needed but the love of loot, ably fanned by their Bedouin friends into flame, to spur the Arab villagers into action, and the attacks on the Jewish colonies (which had hitherto lived in outward peace at least with their neighbours) were launched. British troops intervened, and the colonies were saved, but the evil precedent had none the less been established.

Such, then, is the recent history of Communism in Palestine. How comes it, it may well be asked, that such things are possible in a country gov

erned under a mandate granted to a British administration The answer is not far to seek, and may be found in an office in a Jerusalem street.

In the headquarters of the Zionist Commission in Jerusalem sit gentlemen of noble intellect, great intelligence, and the best university education, striving for an unattainable ideal. In the course of this uplifting pursuit they embarrass the departments of State by writing lengthy epistles in Hebrew, probably marked "Confidential" or "Urgent," which, when transcribed by the only junior clerk both competent and free to do so, are found to relate to the confirmation of a week-old telephone conversation, or an error of P.T. 2 in a statement of accounts. They have, moreover, a pernicious habit which is anathema to the well-ordered mind of a government office, that of treating of two completely different subjects in the same letter. They are not, in fine, the heads of an organisation with pretensions to business methods, but the Israelitish equivalent of a Gaelic League; and though these may be their lesser foibles, their greater ones partake of the same undepartmental character.

It is in this fashion that immigration into Palestine is regulated.

"How many carpenters and masons can you absorb into the country in October?" asks the Zionist Commission, ringing up the Department of Commerce and Industry one

morning. Commerce and Industry consults its files, and answers in due course, 100 of the first, and 217 of the second. The Zionist Commission acts accordingly, and informs its branches in, perhaps, Vienna, Warsaw, and Prague, that they are to supply a due complement of each. It is not to be supposed that the emigrants whose names are before the Zionist Commission in these centres are subject to any very searching test of their powers of sawing, planing, or stonecutting, nor that their political opinions are very closely investigated. And yet the Zionist Commission guarantee, once obtained, is a sufficient passport into the Promised Land, and British consuls and Palestine immigration authorities are bound to bow down before it. So, quite irrespective of the facts that the carpenters may be better fitted to be donkeyboys, and the masons may be more highly qualified as crossing-sweepers, and that they may all be members of dangerous secret societies, the Zionist Commission gives its blessing

and when necessary its valuable subsidy, and the good work goes forward.

These, then, are some actual aspects of a few sides of the problem; it would be well now to look at a very different one. It is exemplified not so much by a chronicle of events this time, as by some scenes that impressed themselves very deeply on the writer's imagination at the end of April 1921.

Spring in Palestine is the

epoch of intense religious activity-there is a perfect epidemic of festivals. The Christian Churches-Latin, Greek, Armenian, and English Protestant

celebrate their several Easters with varying degrees of ceremony. The Jews commemorate the Passover, and the Samaritans, on a hill above Nablus, sacrifice burnt-offerings to Jehovah according to the Mosaic ritual. The Moslems, goaded it is said by so much religious rejoicing to start a competitive feast, celebrate the festival of Nebi Moussa-the prophet Moses-by a pilgrimage to his tomb above the shores of the Dead Sea.

Among the Palestinian towns there is none that has so strong and exclusive a Mohammedan character as Hebron, and it is the faithful of Hebron whose privilege it is to carry the holy banners in the long procession. Now the direct route for the pilgrimage and its banners is straight through the heart of Jerusalem, and it was at the moment when the banners had reached the Jaffa Gate that the writer of these lines reached the bank in the hope of cashing a cheque. There was a great crowd outside the Jaffa Gate, mostly, it might be noted, of tarbushes, and above the crowd rose the bright lances and brown imperturbable faces of a squadron of Indian cavalry. In the confusion that prevailed it was not altogether easy to discover what was happening; it soon became evident, however, that the Hebron banners and their large and enthusiastic

following were determined that, however impolitic a plunge into the most Jewish heart of Jerusalem might be, they would not deviate one inch from their direct course. The Indian troops had different orders, and it looked as if the peace of the realm might be rudely shattered. It was at this moment that the Governor appearedwhere he most loves to be, where the spears are thickest and the swords flash-and took the delicate situation firmly in hand.

The banners, he graciously declared, might go through the city with a suitable escort, which he would kindly provide, and the enthusiastic following must go round by the road. Somebody in the crowd had already been wounded by a lance-thrust, so it seemed probable that the Governor was prepared to make good his declaration by force if persuasion failed; the slightly crestfallen pilgrims, therefore, saw the wisdom of obedience: the banners disappeared down David Street; the followers went round by the road.

Later on the same day I stood on the side of the Mount of Olives, where the road winds up the hill to Bethany, and watched the pilgrimage unroll before me. All the slopes of the hill below the Golden Gate were black with people-men, and women, and children. But they were people of one race, and one race only, the Arab ; for at the feast of Nebi Moussa no Jew shows his face; and it is not natural diffidence or delicacy of feeling, but fear, that

In the municipal tent there were indeed some representatives of other faiths and races -the High Commissioner, his staff, the heads of Government departments, and the notables of the town were gathered together, and among them could be counted more than one of the Children of Israel. But British authority, in whoever vested, is a strong defence, and it was here that the pilgrimage halted, the dancers and the banners paused, and there was an interchange of loyal greetings and good wishes to the holy journey. Then the pilgrims continued their march, and the evening air was full of their frenzied singing as they took their way towards the shrine in the plain far below. The interruption was but a formal tribute to the British mandate, and the fierce crowd turned back with relief to the holy fervour of its religious festival.

In a land where such fiercely opposing elements of thought, as are exemplified in the foregoing pages, exist so closely side by side, what chances are there that they can ever be reconciled! Here are

bringing the healing virtue of toleration, but fanatic Arab, conservative and intolerant ; fanatic political Jew, and Jew with a pure if impracticable ideal, and zealous Christian jealous of his holy places: this is the seething pot of Palestine to-day, and it does not seem as though the present British policy were likely to introduce any calming ingredients. A strong British administration, with Englishmen at its head

-at least until that day comes when both Arab and indigenous Jew are sufficiently civilised and educated to govern themselves,-above all, the exercise of British control of immigration, the abolition of Zionist Commission subsidies, and the gates of Palestine still open to the suitable immigrant, who must be self-supporting and sufficient unto himself these are the only lines by which it seems possible reconciliation might be found. For in the hatred of the Bolshevik extremists by both Arab and Jew alike, in the peace in which the indigenous Jews and the new agricultural colonists have equally lived with their Arab neighbours, in that tribute to authority that the pilgrims of Nebi Moussa made on their journey to their shrine, lie surely the seeds of that hope which, if fulfilled, would open a new and shining chapter both in the history of British administration and the troubled story of the Holy Land.

R.