Evening star., 1939-02-12

receive vote. Mr.. J. j. Parkinson,
the well-known horse dealer, again
headed the poll as one of the repre-
sentatives on the cultural and edu-
cational panel He was closely fol-
lowed by Mr.. P. T. Kelly. the man
ager of the Royal Liver Friendly
Society.
Country Humor.
OF course, one gets much the same
kind Of humor out of reading any
small country newspaper. The re-
viewer down in her rustic Eastern
Shore retreat, has recently become
quite local paper addict. Journal
ism fourishes in her neck of the
woods, she is happy to be able to re-
port. and rival editors there hurl
defiance at one another from week
to week in almost the old palmy way.
But the Round Table isn't small
weekly paper. 1t is the quarterly
review of the politics of the British
Commonwealth.
The reviewer is sorry that she
missed the first issue of the w
Washington weekly, the Senator.
| The succeeding numbers Of the
magazine have come to her hand.
however, and she has read them
with interest. The publication cer-
tainly has an impressive array Of
contributors; it is filled with the
names of well-known local writer's
some of them really writer's and
some simply local. The basic idea
OF the newcomer is one on which
the reviewer would prefer not to
commit herself-that the popula-
tion of our city has an appetite for
gossip which is Unsuitable.
For one finds little beside gossip
in the Senator's pages. Depart
ment follows department in them,
to be sure, and one might expect
variety. to read the contents page.
But, whatever the subject. the ap-
proach is the same-intensely per-
sonal. One can only assume, there
fore, that the Senator is aimed
exclusively at the local public. Ger
tainly it seems in no danger Of
giving the New Yorker any grave
competition. At least. not on its
present basis of organization.
Army on Palestine.
The troubled question of Palestine
comes in for examination once more
this month in the current issue Of
the Infantry Journal. The article
is called Palestine: Some Aspects
of the Military Problem and is by
Maj. William Yale of the Military
Intelligence Reserve.
Maj. Yale describes the geograph-
ical features of the Holy Land, call
ing it "a small country, about the
size of New Hampshire-9O miles
wide by 12O miles long" There are
about $4,000 men in Britain's pres
ent military force there, he says,
and adds that ordinarily so many
would be adequate to police such a
territory. But in Palestine there
are many factors working against
Britain's success.
The one of these factors which
interested the reviewer most was
the selling of arms to the Arabs
by Italy and Germany. This, says
Maj. Yale, is being done consid-
erably.
The British can. control the flow
of arms and munitions through the
Mediterranean ports of Palestine,
but traffic in arms to Arabia from
Italian Eritrea and French Somali-
land across the Red Sea is practi-
cally beyond British control. The
smuggling of war supplies from
Africa to the Arabian tribes IS an
old established business which will
be difficult to check as long as there
are buyers and sellers.
From the Iraq, across the no.
mads' land Of Northern Arabia be-
tween Mesopotamia and TransJor-
DANA, Britain is helpless to prevent
the flow of arms and munitions.
She can, however, eventually check
the import of war material to 1raq
via the Persian Gulf. The trafne
in weapons and ammunition for
Transjordania and Syria will be hard
to stop as long as there are those
ready to supply the Palestinlans
with what they need. s
Munitions Problem.
"The munitions problem" con.
cludes the article, sis international.
An Anglo Italian pact might help
check the supply of war material
to Arab rebels. An agreement with
Germany might also stop the flow
of arms at its source. The French.
though they face very serious
problem of their own in Syria. might
in cooperation with the British
exert a more effective control over
the arms trafiic across the Syrian.
palesfinian frontier. e.