Your telegram 11 of 6th January Palestine. [1] In using the phrase
which you quote, I had in mind no specific promises other than
those conveyed in the Balfour declaration of November 1917 which
as you may remember was formulated in a letter addressed by Lord
Balfour [2] to Lord Rothschild as President of the Zionist
Federation. The terms of the declaration were subsequently
embodied in the Mandate of Palestine which requires mandatory to
place the country under such political administrative and
economical conditions as will ensure that they are carried out.

This has been the governing factor ever since in regulating our
policy in Palestine. The declaration affords a general background
against which all other questions have necessarily to be
considered. I hope that this will make the position clear to you.

I am sorry if my words were not sufficiently explicit. It was
never intended to suggest that we are under obligations to the
Zionists other than those that we have publicly avowed.