An international loan to finance settlement of German-Jewish refugees in the British Empire, suggested by its chairman, David Lloyd George, was embodied today in a resolution adopted by the Council of Action for Peace and Reconstruction. The plan, which is being forwarded to Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax, asks the Government (I) to elaborate a broad plan to settle German refugees in the British Empire, to issue an international loan to finance the plan, to study the possibility of substantially increasing Jewish immigration into Palestine, and (2) to give temporary refuge, pending execution of the plan, in Great Britain with Government aid to those refugees in immediate danger.
Addressing a private meeting at Commons, Sir John Hope Simpson, director of the Refugee Survey of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, declared that only large-scale international action to find homes for a million refugee families would solve the persecution problem. The meeting, called by Capt. Victor Cazalet, Conservative M.P., agreed to appoint an all-party committee of both house to press action by the Government.
Continued consultation with Washington on the refugee question is the policy of the British Government, Foreign Undersecretary R.A. Butler told Commons today in reply to a query by William Gallacher, Communist member.
“His Majesty’s Government are in close and constant contact with the United States Government on this question,” Butler said, “through the Intergovernmental Committee. An informal meeting of the chairman and vice-chairman of the committee took place on Dec. 2 when all aspects of the question were reviewed.”
Gallacher then asked if Butler was aware that the great part of the German people were terrified by the treatment inflicted by the Nazis on the Jews and would welcome intervention by Britain and the United States. Butler replied again that the two governments were in consultation.
Home Secretary Sir Samuel Hoare informed Commons that 11,000 refugees from Germany and Austria have been admitted to Britain since 1933. of these 5,000 left for other countries after sojourns here.
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