“You have asked me, as Political Officer in charge of the Zionist Commission which has been sent out to Palestine by H.M. Government, to attend this historic gathering and to say a few words of good wishes to you, the representatives of all Jewry in the occupied part of Palestine, on behalf of my Government. I do so with a full heart. My Government――the British Government――has said one or two important things during this war concerning Palestine. “My Government has said that, if England and her Allies win this war, the future Government of Palestine shall not be Turkish, because in this war England and her Allies are fighting, not for the extension of any Empire, nor for the acquisition of further power or further territory, but they are fighting for an ideal, shared by all our Allies, namely, that countries shall be governed in the interests and according to the wishes and the aspirations of the inhabitants of those countries. We are satisfied when we look at the results of Turkish rule upon the land and the people of Palestine, that such rule ought to disappear in the interests of Palestine and of civilization. The Turkish rule in Palestine was an alien rule, and was not in the best interests of any of the inhabitants of Palestine, and, moreover, such a rule crippled the free development, economic and political, of this country. “My Government has said that it wishes to see the people of Palestine among others freed from the rule of the Turks, but it has as yet said nothing as to what Government should take its place――that is a matter for the Peace Conference. But Mr. Balfour has made an historic declaration with regard to the Zionists, that he wishes to see created and built up in Palestine a National Home for the Jewish people. “What do we understand by this? We mean that those Jews who voluntarily come to live in Palestine should live in Palestine as Jewish nationalists, _i.e._ that they should be regarded as Jews and nothing else, and that they should be absolutely free to develop _Hebrew_ education, to develop the country, and live their own life in their own way in Palestine freely, but only submitting equally with all others to the laws of the land.