Britain Urged to Plan Permanent Settlement of Refugees

Resolutions demanding that the Government ease restrictions on refugees in Britain and plan for their permanent settlement have been submitted to the annual conference of the British Labor Party at Bournemouth.

A resolution submitted by the National Union of Clerks and Administrative Workers demands “that the Government grant rights of temporary asylum to all refugees from political and racial oppression and that the Government, in cooperation with the governments of other democratic countries, should plan a permanent settlement of refugees.”

Proposed amendments to the resolution provide for permission to refugees to obtain freely industrial employment, except where such employment would conflict with wartime restrictions.

A resolution on Palestine reaffirming the Labor Party’s “traditional support” of the Jewish national home policy was introduced by the Labor Zionist Organization. It expressed conviction that this policy provides the basis for increasing peaceful cooperation between Jews and Arabs.

Demanding that the Jewish people should be allowed to make the most of Palestine’s absorptive capacity, the resolution reaffirms last year’s resolution condemning the British policy on Palestine and endorses the Labor parliamentary group’s criticism of the Palestine land restrictions. It urges the Labor parliamentarians to continue their efforts for abolition of the White Paper policy.

Jewish peace aims, including restoration of Jewish rights in Germany and Eastern Europe and continued development of the Jewish national home in Palestine, are set forth in a memorandum, “The War and the Jewish People, “submitted to the Bournemouth conference by the laborite Zionists (Poale Zion).

“The Jewish people expects a victorious democracy to seek to ensure full equality of all men before the law, guarantees against oppression by any country of any section of the population on racial , religious and political grounds, particularly against a policy of physical persecution, economic extermination and expulsion.

“It will be necessary to restore to the Jews who have still remained in Germany or wish to return the right to live as equal citizens and secure, as far as possible, compensation for the victims of the Nazi regime for what they have suffered in person and property.

“In countries containing great Jewish masses there should be effective guarantees against enforced nationalization, for the cultural and other specific interests of the Jewish minority. It may further be hoped that countries which are still able to admit a substantial number of immigrants will, after the war , apply a bolder immigration policy.

“But, though vital, these measures remain uncertain palliatives without a great measure which can alone render normal the life of the Jewish people in terminating landlessness. By restoration of the Jewish national home in Palestine, the Jews will become once more a normal people. Then can it be hoped that the complexes and misconceptions of centuries will gradually diminish, the Jewish people will survive and the Jewish problem disappear.”