Jerusalem Official Says Palestine Immigration Depends on Jews

Members of the executive boards of the Zionist Organization, Hadassah, Junior Hadassah and the Jewish National Fund joined a luncheon at Hotel Statler, in honoring Captain William J. Miller, who, with Mrs. Miller, is on his vacation in Detroit. Mrs. Miller was also an honor guest at the luncheon.

Joseph H. Ehrlich, president of the Zionist Organization, presided, and an open forum was conducted following an address by Captain Miller.

Captain Miller discussed frankly the question of immigration and Palestine’s capacity to absorb more immigrants.

“Shall the door of Palestine be flung wide open or only partially?” he asked, and he stated that “not the British government but the wisdom and political sagacity of the Jews should furnish the reply.”

“The capacity of Palestine to absorb new immigrants is entirely commensurate with the flood of money provided by private and public Jewish funds,” he stated.

Reviewing the events that led up to the crisis in 1927 and 1929, following the flood of immigrants in the two preceding years, Captain Miller said that those who predicted the collapse of the Zionist scheme proved unwise in their judgment. Referring to the demands for state waste lands, he said there are no such lands suitable for Jewish settlement, and that the only worth while stretch of land was turned over in 1921 to the Arabs, in Beisan, on the strength of the Arabs’ 10-year settlement there. The Arabs, however, Captain Miller explained, lacked the energy to develop this land and later sold it at a large profit to Jews who are now successfully working on it.