generally useful, the other larger, more showy, and more hazardous, both for gain and loss. The former is generally carried on between individuals, the latter more by and for the community and more according to opportunity; the one serves to preserve the State as it is, the other tends to enlarge it; the one fosters diligence, the other enterprise; the one binds the citizens to each other and conciliates them, the other draws different nations together. Both are necessary, and they join hands in such a way as to strengthen each other, mutually adjust their means, further their designs, and ensure their

success.

Credit is the soul of commerce. Those who wish to carry on business usefully and profitably must preserve their good name-wise maxims, driven home to-day by the experience of Russia. Montchrétien allows merchants a fair profit. As for malpractices and lying about prices (profiteering), these are due to the vices of men, not to their occupation, which can be carried on in a fair and clear way without such evils. He does not deny that the business mind is ordinarily more bent on private acquisition than moved by love of the public; but that is no reason for expelling them from society and depriving them of citizenship as a kind of helots. It is the part of the authorities to see that things are sold at a fair price, to'check frauds, monopolies, and adulteration.

How very modern all this is! I remember the question-Can a business man be a Christian ?-being posed not many years ago at a Church Congress, to which I was invited to contribute a paper. I took the same line as Montchrétien, and contended that if a business man was not a Christian it was his own fault. But why business man alone? No one reproaches consumers, who get all they can for their money, drive hard bargains and cheat if possible, for their non-Christian conduct. I have never been able to understand why a higher morality is demanded of a man when he sells than when he buys; but that standpoint is so universal that its justice is taken for granted and never questioned. The only reason I can see is that all are consumers and general buyers, while each is only a particular seller. I think Montchrétien took a wider view. Not that he defended malpractices; on the contrary, he denounced

them. In particular he pointed out the abuses in the State salt monopoly. We have long known,' he says, 'by sad experience that far too many people, as hangerson, tax-collectors, police, toll-gatherers, controllers, warders, re-graters, and down to the smallest retailers, daily invent new means of making a profit by various devices to the ruin of the people.' But that was in a State service. Colbert afterwards effected great improvement by financial reforms, and achieved the masterpiece of increasing the revenue while diminishing the duty.'

As I have already said, Colbert was inspired by Montchrétien, who was essentially a reformer and particularly concerned about the state of the poor, as the Physiocrats were in the next century. He held that the law of economic progress was to make necessaries cheaper and luxuries dearer. Injustice should be redressd by taxation. By these means it is possible to preserve tranquillity; for the rich, like the stronger parts of the body, always lay their weight on the weakest, and place their own burden on those who are already sinking; and the extreme poverty of the one and the excessive wealth of the others are the usual cause of troubles, seditions, and civil wars. But in regard to all these matters and all the economic evils he enumerates, with others passed over because they are so many, he refers them ultimately to moral defects. They come primarily from the fact that men no longer have the fear of God before their eyes, as formerly they had, are no longer restrained by good laws and no longer recognise what they are, namely, members of the same body, united under the same head, and, in a word, baptised with the same spirit. The best ordinances are no more than vain words for lack of men to enforce them, charity is frozen up and can no longer kindle us to mutual love and service.'

After all, it seems, modern Capitalism is not so modern or so responsible for economic and social evils as some would have us believe.

A. SHADWELL.

T

Art. 10.-PALESTINE-YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW.

1. Report of the High Commissioner on the Administration of Palestine, 1920-25. Colonial No. 15, 1925.

2. Palestine of the Mandate. By W. Basil Worsfold. Unwin, 1925.

3. Awakening Palestine. Edited by Leon Simon and Leonard Stein. Murray, 1923.

4. Zionism. By Leonard Stein. Ernest Benn, 1925.

ALTHOUGH most of the readers of 'The Quarterly Review' are aware of the statistical facts and of the historical developments, it may be advisable to remind them that the area of Palestine is approximately 9500 square miles, and that its population amounts to roughly 800,000 souls. This population, which has increased by 130,000 in the last five years, is made up of about 615,000 Moslems, 104,000 Jews, and 75,000 Christians. In the year 1921-22 Palestine, excluding Transjordan, cost the Home Government 3,155,000l., which sum covered the upkeep of the British Forces and the financial assistance given to the Palestinian Government. This too vast amount has been reduced for the year 192526 to an estimated sum of 640,600l., including the grant in aid for the British Gendarmerie and the cost of the regiment of cavalry, a squadron of aeroplanes, and a section of armoured cars. In exchange for this Great Britain has the immense moral advantage of the guardianship of the Holy Land, and as Mr Herbert Sidebotham points out in 'Awakening Palestine,' the terms of the Balfour Declaration assure to us the friendship of the Jewish world and the British Mandate is of preponderating importance in the defence of the Suez Canal. Moreover, from the practical and economic standpoint, one-fourth of the imports into Palestine come from the British Empire, that is, more than twice as much as from any other country except Syria, and nearly one-third of the exports go to various parts of the Empire.

The political situation, under which Palestine is still governed without any form of popular representation, is the outcome of a variety of developments which must be recited in order that the conditions of the

362 PALESTINE-YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW present and of the probable future may be understood. For nearly three years prior to the arrival of Sir Herbert Samuel, on July 1, 1920, a great part of the country had been controlled by a Military Administration. During this time and after the establishment of the Civil Régime, racial feeling ran high, the more extreme Zionists boasting as to what was to be their position under the Mandate, and the Arabs believing that Palestine was to become a purely Jewish country. In the spring of 1920 there were riots in Jerusalem, and these disturbances were repeated on a larger scale in Jaffa and the neighbourhood during May 1921. But in October 1920, immediately after his arrival, Sir Herbert Samuel formed the first Advisory Council,* and subsequent to the Jaffa outbreak he appointed a Commission to inquire into that disturbance.† Moreover, in June 1921, the High Commissioner announced to an Assembly of Notables that the British Government was giving the closest attention to the question of insuring a free and authoritative expression of popular opinion, and in the following month an Arab Delegation went to London, where it was received at the Colonial Office. After some delay, during which the obstructive policy of the Arabs was becoming more noticeable, the draft constitution was submitted to this Delegation, a Correspondence took place between the Government and that Body and the Zionist Organisation, and, on Sept. 1, 1922, by which time the British Mandate had been approved by the Council of the League of Nations, "The Palestine Order-in-Council, 1922," was promulgated.§

The Advisory Council, set up in October 1920, met for the last time in February 1923, and in the spring of that year (February and March) the primary elections were held for the new Legislative Council, which was to

This Council was made up of ten unofficial nominated Representatives (four Moslems, three Christians, and three Jews), and of ten Members of the Administration.

† The Report of the Commission was published as a White Paper, Cmd. 1540, 1921. This Correspondence was published as a White Paper, Cmd. 1700,

1922.

§ This order and certain dependant documents published in the 'Official Palestinian Gazette' for Sept. 1, 1922.

consist of official and elected members. Largely owing to the non-co-operation of the Arab leaders, an insufficient number of secondary electors was nominated, and consequently the elections were declared null and void. Subsequently, two further opportunities were given to the Arab leaders to co-operate in the government of the country, the first by the reconstitution of the Advisory Council with a membership conforming to that which had been proposed for the Legislative Council, and the second by the formation of an Arab Agency † on the lines of the Jewish Agency. When the Mandate had already been brought into operation by a Resolution of the Council of the League, of September 1923, and when it was obviously impossible for the moment to hope for success in the establishment of any elected form of Government, a new Advisory Council, consisting of the High Commissioner and ten official Members, was appointed in December 1923.

At the present time, therefore, the Government of the country consists of the High Commissioner, whose staff is composed of a Chief Secretary and a Secretariat, of the Executive Council,‡ and of an appointed Advisory Council. The High Commissioner, who possesses practically arbitrary rights, and the Executive Council consider all Ordinances before they are discussed by the Advisory Council, but the most careful safeguards are taken to secure justice for the people and to prevent any infringement of the Mandate. At this point the Administration is separated into two parts-the district and the departmental machinery. From 1920-22 the country was divided into seven districts; but in July of the latter year this number was reduced to four, and it has now been cut down to three, which are to be still further reduced by the disappearance of the Jerusalem Province

* There were to be ten official Members besides the High Commissioner, and the twelve elected Representatives were to consist of eight Moslems, two Jews, and two Christians.

†The Correspondence between the Colonial Office and the High Commissioner in regard to this proposal was published as a White Paper, Cmd. 1989, 1923.

The Executive Council, established under the Palestine Order in Council of 1922, is made up of the High Commissioner, the Chief Secretary, the Attorney-General, and the Treasurer. Its composition may be changed by the direction of the Home Government.