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the matters to which they specially desired to direct attention and were permitted to address the Commission after all the evidence in open session had been heard.
Before our departure from England we were furnished with copies of despatches and with memoranda bearing on matters connected with the subject of our mission and we were able to study the various Papers dealing with Palestine affairs which have been laid before Parliament during recent years.
At the time when the notice of our appointment was issued by the Colonial Office to the Press on the 14th of September, 1929, it was hoped that we should sail for Palestine early in the following month and in the first instance we had intended to leave England on the 8rd of October. After we had formu- lated the procedure which we proposed to adopt, as recorded above, we decided to postpone our departure in order to give all the parties concerned ample time in which to make adequate arrangements for the representation of their interests during the course of our enquiry. Some of us left England on the 12th of October, 1929, and the others joined us at Toulon on the 18th of that month; we arrived in Palestine on the 24th of October and remained there until the 29th of December. We arrived back in England on the 4th of January. The details of our itinerary are given in Appendix JI to this report.
While we were in Palestine we held 47 sittings in open session and 11 in camera. With the exception of our first meeting and of three sittings held at the offices of the Supreme Moslem Council in the Old City of Jerusalem, all these sittings were held at the offices of the Commission which were established at premises provided by the Government of Palestine in Sulei- man Road, Jerusalem. We heard the evidence of one witness in London after our return there.
Of the 47 sittings in open session 43 were devoted to the hearing of evidence and three to the closing speeches by the representatives of the three parties principally concerned in our enquiry, while the first meeting, after which Commission ad- journed for four days, was occupied by a short explanation of the principles that would govern us in the course of our enquiry and the procedure that would be followed in the presentation of the evidence laid before us.
During the sittings in open session we heard the evidence of 110 witnesses and during the sessions in camera we heard the evidence of 20 witnesses of whom seven had previously given evidence in open session. Of the 110 witnesses heard in open session, 26 were officers called by the Palestine Government, 47 were called by or at the request of the Palestine Arab Execu- tive, and 37 by or at the request of the Palestine Zionist Execu- tive. Of the 20 witnesses heard in camera, two were officers in the service of His Majesty’s Government, 12 were officers in the service of the Palestine Government, and the remaining
