BRITISH PARLIAMENT 1930-1947:

Submitted by Reality (United States), Nov 2, 2011 at 03:50

BRITISH PARLIAMENT 1930-1947:

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PALESTINE. (Hansard, 17 November 1930)
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE I wish to... This White Paper is a one-sided document. It is biased. Its whole drift is hostile to the spirit of the mandate... Jewish capital has been flowing into that country since the Peace, and Jewish capital has improved Arab conditions. You cannot pour capital into a country and simply confine its benefits to one section of the community.... you cannot restore a land so let down as this without a good deal of loss, and if these people, who have got an historic affection for this land, are prepared to sink their capital there, and to lose it—they are not people who will do It in every land as a rule—but if they are prepared to do it out of natural love and affection for this country, why should we hinder them?...

The Jews are 20 per cent. of the population, and their contribution to the revenue of Palestine is between 40 and 50 per cent. That is what enabled the Palestine Government to raise a loan of £4,000,000 or £5,000,000 85 —[Interruption]—£4,500,000 was raised as a development loan, most of which provided labour for the Arabs, it was not spent upon the Jewish settlements there. We are told the Jews are using their wealth for the purpose of driving the poor Arab fellaheen from the soil of their fathers. It is not true. Most of the land cultivated by the Jews is land which they have reclaimed from the wilderness. Here and there, no doubt, upon the fringe of a morass, a little squalid Arab village may have been disturbed, but there have only been 700 taken out in order that it might be possible to drain the land. Half of them have been put back on the land and the others have found some other work. Here is a phrase which I will quote to the House: 'Most of the land acquired by the Jews was swampy and malarial and required heavy expenditure on drainage before it could be made habitable. Much of the rest was sand dunes.' What is the result? Not merely can you settle more people on the land, but you have improved the health of the community. Malaria is a very serious disease there, and it was slaughtering these poor people, and by this enormous expenditure of Zion and the other associations, such as the Colonisation Society, great tracts of territory have been drained in these areas and malaria has been eliminated. I would like somebody to take the trouble to read the eloquent description given by my right hon. Friend the Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) when he was Commissioner of Palestine of this area. Its condition before the Jews went there was a swamp, a morass, created by the famous brook of Kishon. There were just a few miserable Arab villages right up on the hillsides, and not very many people there. The Jews spent £900,000 on draining about 50 square miles, and now there is a population of 2,600—probably it is more now. There are 20 villages, there are schools, there is a little forest in what was a treeless waste—this is very important in Palestine, as T shall point out—there is a training college for women for agriculture, and there are hospitals. That is a description of one valley.

... Surely with such an increase of population there must have been a great increase in the employment available for the Arab population. The large increase of population has been due undoubtedly, apart from a considerable Arab immigration, to the measures we have taken, in which the Jews have helped, to improve the health of the country, ...
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1930/nov/17/palestine

PALESTINE (IMMIGRATION). (Hansard, 26 March 1934)
Mr. RHYS DAVIES asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether His Majesty's Government's policy of restricting immigration into Palestine includes measures to control and restrict Arab immigration from Transjordania; and whether any increase in Arab immigration is accepted as a reason for restricting Jewish immigration?
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1934/mar/26/palestine-immigration
Your Democracy - Housing
http://yourdemocracy.newstatesman.com/parliament/housing/HAN3312744

PALESTINE LOAN [GUARANTEE]. Colonel Josiah Wedgwood Commons — May 11, 1934
Yet I think the worst illustration of all is in the question of immigration. You have these frightfully heavy restrictions upon Jews who go into the so-called Jewish National Home, and at the same time you have Arabs immigrating into that country without any check or restriction and without any possibility of knowing how many are going in except when the census is taken. The census figures have shown a far larger numerical increase of Arabs than of Jews, and that 1369 in the last year when the cry for labour has been so great. It has led to a large immigration of Arab labour. That labour is unskilled and is gradually driving Jewish labour out of all the unskilled trades and the heavy manual trades in the country. When I was in Haifa last I saw Jews, driven from Salonica, six feet high and broad-shouldered men, doing the stevedore work in the port, and their complaint was that they were offered precisely the same wage as the Arabs who came in. There again, you have the same discrimination against Jewish labour. Unless you can get the working class in Palestine Jewish it will never be a Jewish country. If you are to go on allowing the capitalist to go in—the merchant and the middleman—you will have repeated in Palestine what has happened in the rest of the world. One hope of making Palestine a Jewish country is to allow the workers to go in and to see that they are not driven out by inferior labour and paid a sweated wage on which the Jew cannot live free.
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1934/may/11/palestine-loan-guarantee
Immigration.: 26 Jul 1939: House of Commons debates - TheyWorkForYou
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=1939-07-26a.1454.2

PALESTINE (REFUGEES).Mr Malcolm Macdonald Commons — May 24, 1939
Mr. Herbert Morrison Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that in the White 2295 Paper it is set out that it is Jewish immigration that will be discounted to the extent of any illegal immigration into Palestine, and that in that connection there is no mention of Arab illegal immigration?

Mr. MacDonald It will clearly be unfair to the Jews to deduct from their immigration quota the number of illegal Arab immigrants. The question, as I understood it, was what was to happen with regard to illegal Arab immigration, and I answered that steps would be taken to prevent it equally with steps to prevent illegal immigration of Jews.
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1939/may/24/palestine-refugees

IMMIGRATION. Sir Geoffrey Mander Commons — July 26, 1939
Mr. Mander asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the extent in numbers during each of the last three years and for the last three months of illegal Arab immigration into Palestine, and what steps are being taken to prevent it?
[...]
Will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that at least the same energy will be shown in preventing illegal Arab immigration into Palestine as in preventing illegal Jewish immigration?
[...]
Miss Rathbone asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in the matter of immigration into Palestine, he will consider making a concession on behalf of the elderly dependants of already established Jewish immigrants from the countries of persecution,..
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1939/jul/26/immigration
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=1939-07-26a.1454.2

Illegal Immigration (Hansard, 19 November 1947)
Mr. Janner Can my right hon. Friend give to the House the total number of Arabs residing illegally in Palestine, and can he say whether reductions are made from the monthly quota for Arab immigration on that account?

Mr. Creech Jones That does not arise on this Question.

Mr. Stokes rose —

Mr. Speaker It is quite obvious that we could go all over the place if we went on with this Question.

Mr. Stokes On a point of Order. As I have been unable to pursue this matter, Sir, I beg to give notice that I shall raise it on the Adjournment at the earliest possible moment.

Mr. Janner On a point of Order. With respect, Sir, the main Question referred to illegal immigration into Palestine, and I was referring to illegal immigration over 1121 the borders of Transjordan, Egypt, and so on, by Arabs.

Mr. Stokes Further to that point of Order. As my supplementary question would have dealt with where the money comes from, and representations to the United States, would it be in Order to ask it now, Mr. Speaker?
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1947/nov/19/illegal-immigration
19 Nov 1947: House of Commons
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debate/?id=1947-11-19a.1120.6

• ON 'UNCHECKED' ILLEGAL ARAB IMMIGRATION
• THE 'UNFAIR' "WHITE PAPER" RESTRICTING ONLY JEWISH IMMIGRATION
• ON JEWISH IMMIGRANTS INHABITING MOSTLY THE DESERTED SWAMPY LAND
• AND ACTUALLY BENEFITING ARABS IN PALESTINE

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