Palestine Hardship
Even those who have accepted the Government's White Paper on Palestine as defining the only policy practicable in existing circumstances are growing increasingly uneasy about the decisions taken regarding immigration. An artide on another page describes in language of studied moderation the sufferings of a certain class of refugees who have escaped from misery in Germany and failed to gain admission to Palestine ; several such cases have been reported in the past week in the daily Press. But there is a quite different category of refugee, regarding whom the Colonial Office appears to be acting with unconscionable harshness. In the chief centres in Germany adults are repeatedly being granted visas for Palestine but refused them for their children, the result being either that the parents cannot go at all or that really tragic family separation has to be faced. Such action is the more inexplicable in view of the perfectly plain provision made in the White Paper for the admission of 25,000 refugees in the next five years over and above, the normal immigration quota. Of these 25,000, it is said ex- plicitly that they shall be admitted, not at a regular yearly or half-yearly rate, but " as soon as the High Commissioner is satisfied that adequate provision for their maintenance is ensured, special consideration being given to refugee children and dependents." In view of the words italicised Mr. MacDonald may properly be urged to reconsider, and revise, the policy he appears at present to be applying.
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