The British Government announced today a Palestine Jewish immigration quota of 1,000 labor and 2,000 capitalist certificates for the six months beginning April I.
The new quota, which compares to the present record-low figure of 1,000-a-month, was revealed by Colonial Secretary William Ormsby-Gore, in replying to a question in the House of Commons with a statement making public a dispatch to Sir Harold a. Mac-Michael, Palestine high Commissioner.
The dispatch, dated March 10, continues in effect the High Commissioner’s power to set a political high level on immigration, but asserts that the Government intends to return to the principle of economic absorptive capacity for the Jewish area after the boundaries under the three-way Palestine partition have been defined.
Mr. Ormsby-Gore’s dispatch states that the British Government has decided to extend for another twelve months section 5-a of the immigration Ordinance, empowering the high Commissioner to fix the maximum number of foreigners to be admitted to Palestine and to prescribe the categories of immigration.
If at the end of the twelve-month period it is still considered essential that the High Commissioner retain these necessary powers, the dispatch adds, the necessary legislation will be enacted.
The Government asserts the “desire to make known that it is their intention, once the boundaries of the various areas under an equitable and practicable scheme of partition have been defined, and as long as the existing mandate continues in operation, that entry of Jewish immigrants shall be regulated, so far as concerns the non-Arab area, by the principle of absorptive capacity.”
Referring to the specific application of Section 5-A, the dispatch states that the Government has decided that the High Commissioner will exercise the power of prescription for the six months ending in September, “leaving open for later consideration the procedure to be adopted after that date.”
Noting various representations by the Jewish Agency for Palestine and other sources, the dispatch declares that the Government realizes there is considerable force in contentions submitted in favor of more generous admission, on economic grounds, of persons of independent means, and on grounds of humanity, of wives and children of immigrants.
The Government has decided to admit in the coming six months, in Category A, 2,000 immigrants having 1,000 ($5,000) capital, including, if the High Commissioner sees fit, pensioners and 20 agricultural settlers with capital not less than 500 whose admission was recommended by former high Commissioner Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope.
Categories A-2 and A-3 are closed. In Category B, students under the definition of Category B-3 will be admitted. Categories B-1 and B-2 are closed.
Regarding Category C, laborers, the dispatch declares that in view of Palestine unemployment, which the Government census has fixed at 41,000 Arabs and 12,000 Jews as of Dec. 31, 1937, “It is obvious that at the present time admission of additional immigrants of the labor class is not justifiable.”
“His Majesty’s Government, however, have approved,” the High Commissioner is told, “of your fixing a quota of 1,000 in this category under the understanding that it will be left to you to decide, in the light of economic circumstances, whether any labor immigration shall be permitted during the six months, and if so, when and to what extent.”
Wives and children of Palestine inhabitants, coming under Category D, will be admitted without numerical restriction. In other categories of dependents, A Quota of 200 for parents, etc., to meet cases of exceptional hardship, has been set.
The bulk of the 3,000-word dispatch is devoted to reviewing the Government’s position in the past regarding immigration.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
