Home Secretary Sir Samuel Hoare told Commons today that the Government is considering allowing Jewish refugees now in England to fill the gaps caused by a shortage of agricultural labor and also the temporary admission of new refugees to assist in harvesting. He said he was examining such a plan in conjunction with the agriculture and labor ministers.
Sir Samuel rebuked Lady Astor, Conservative M.P., for a remark that “the (Jewish) race is not particularly keen on agriculture.” He said that this view was not borne out in fact since large numbers of young refugees were anxious to work on the land.
The statement followed discussion of the refugee question in the House of Lords late yesterday, during which demands were voiced from all sections for extension of British aid to refugees. Replying for the Government, Parliamentary Colonial Undersecretary Lord Dufferin and Ava rejected suggestions for increased admission of refugees to England and for financial assistance in refugee settlement projects for colonial territories.
“I have the strongest feeling,” he declared, “that any very large increase in the Jewish population of this country would provoke anti-Semitic feeling, which, I cannot disguise, is an underlying factor in Great Britain, in common with almost every other country in the world.”
On the question of aiding such colonial refugee projects as British Guiana and elsewhere, Lord Dufferin said: “Whereas we are prepared to go to every limit of our resources in supplying the services of the administration, even transport, we do not feel justified at this stage in giving actual financial assistance to these schemes.”
The Lord Baldwin Fund for Refugees, which was inaugurated by the former Prime Minister last December, has passed the £500,000 mark and will be closed July 31, it was announced today. The Daily Express urged editorially that the fund be used to turn refugees into farmers and to send them to thinly populated parts of the colonial empire without delay.
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