Britain Rejects Demand of Transjordan Cabinet for Abrogation of Mandate

The British Government has rejected a demand submitted by the cabinet of Transjordan asking abolition of the mandate and complete independence, it was learned here today.

Any new arrangements or treaties concerning the status of Transjordan must wait until after the war, the British Government informed Emir Abdullah, the ruler of Transjordan. In the meantime relations between the two countries will have to continue on their present basis, the reply said.

Upon receipt of the British reply, the Transjordan cabinet resigned. Its resignation was not accepted by Emir Abdullah after a conference with Sir Harold Michael, British High Commissioner for Palestine and Transjordan, who made a flying trip from Jerusalem to Amman, the capital of Transjordan.

Under the terms of Article 25 of the mandate, Transjordan was included in the mandated territory of Palestine. But by virtue of a saving clause in the article, the British Government, as mandatory, was empowered to withhold application of any clauses of the mandate which she might consider to be inapplicable to Transjordan, and to provide it with such administration as she might think fit.

In the British view, Transjordan unlike Palestine fell within the area in which the McMahon promise of independence applied. The British Government, therefore, in 1922, secured approval by the Council of the League of Nations of a memorandum proposing that Transjordan be exempted from all those clauses dealing with the Holy Places and the Jewish National Home. On the strength of this, Jews have been refused immigration into Transjordan and the right to purchase land there, a step which they resent as being an infraction of the article of the joint mandate which provides against discrimination on grounds of race, religion or language.