REFUGEES : LIABILITY OR ASSET ?
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—Believing The Spectator to be genuinely fair-minded, I feel sure that (in spite of your appearing to publish so far only articles and correspondence in favour of adopting refugees) it is never part of your policy to ignore the other side of any question.
We know that the majority of refugees from Germany will be Jews, and it would be idle to pretend that there is not a rising tide of anti-Semitic feeling. Even in Parliament .refer- ence has been made to it; and this antipathy is based on sound observation. The Jews are an Eastern race, and even the most superficial study of their unfortunate history reveals that all through the past they have proved so alien to the peoples of the countries where they have settled, that after being tolerated for a time they were always evicted. It is true that they make " skilled workers " (though they do not make agricultural labourers or bricklayers), but they have always been, to describe them euphemistically, individualists; which does not tend to make them good citizens. Indeed, the whole tragedy of wandering Jewry seems to be traceable to its inability to conform to the code of living in the countries where they settle.
For example, of the Jews already naturalised here in Great Britain, how many have volunteered for her A.R.P. defence, and how many would be prepared to fight for her in the unhappy event of war? I think many branch bank-managers in the commercial districts of London could answer the latter question; for in the recent crisis their premises were almost literally raided by patriotic Jews anxious to withdraw all their capital, and leave with it for the safe depths of the country— in one case, for the even safer zones of Scandinavia!
In your last issue Dr. McCleary concludes an article by expressing the hope that " narrow sectional interests, anxious to shield themselves from competition, will not be allowed to stand in the way of the adoption of a policy worthy of our national tradition." May one ask if he writes purely academically of these " sectional interests," or if he really knows of any that, purely from a desire to exclude possible competition, are against allowing an increase of the Jewish populftion of this country? I am in the textile trade, which I should imagine to be one of the most seriously opposed to such a policy; but I think Dr. McCleary would find the anxiety of most of us was for the maintenance of our standard of commercial integrity. Otherwise we must agree with him that German-Jewish immigrants in the last three or four years have created business, and to some extent employment here. But the more of their fellow-refugees we allow into the country, the fewer of our own people can they absorb; since businesses started with the small amount of capital that the present influx are able to bring cannot increase rapidly enough or soundly enough for many years yet.
Meanwhile sympathetic people get carried away by their enthusiasm, and, like your recent correspondent, Mr. Geoffrey West, ask why the Home Office appears determined to refuse even temporary admittance to any refugees who have not at least their expenses guaranteed. Surely this is only practical Christianity, and any other course would lay the Govern- ment open to the accusation of taking bread from our children's mouths to give to others; whereas what we are all trying to do is to share it. We cannot do more, and, in fact, I think it possible that if the Lord Baldwin Fund were analysed it would be discovered that British Gentiles had given more in proportion than British Jews.
It seems to many of us that if more people knew and worked with the types under discussion they would not be so indiscriminately in favour of allowing wholesale immigra- tion. Discretion, in fact, might be the pass-word, because we all realise that there are outstandingly admirable Jews both here and abroad whose characters remind us that they are of a once chosen people.—I am, Sir, your faithfully,
BERYL SAVAGE.
Hyver Farm, Barnet Gate, nr. Arkley, Herts.
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