Great Britain’s policy of turning away “useful, able-bodied, hard-working, honest immigrants” was described today as “criminal lunacy” by Alfred Duff-Cooper, former First Lord of the Admiralty. Writing in the Evening Standard, he refuted the assumption that immigration created unemployment and emphasized the current decline in the English population. He also referred to England’s desperate need of manpower for her military forces and stressed the desirability of creating a Foreign Legion.
Assurance that Great Britain and the western countries were not being regarded as lands of settlement for Jewish refugees was given by Neville Laski, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, in an address before the Birmingham Rotary Club. Mr. Laski declared there were between 18,000 and 19,000 German and Czech refugees in Britain but the Jewish community has guaranteed that no Jewish immigrant would become a public charge. He said the Jewish community had already raised $15,000,000 to maintain its guarantee.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
