Numerous important recommendations, which are bound to have a profound effect on Jewish interests in Palestine, were made in the report submitted to the League of Nations by the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League, which was made public today.
The Mandates Commission asked the Palestine government:
1. To submit to the League more detailed information on the methods the Palestine administration intends to use in creating “a larger dependence between the number of new immigrants and the actual long-lasting economic absorptive capacity of the country.”
2. Information as to how the Palestine government will spend the £2,000,000 loan, to be floated by the government.
3. How the municipal election ordinance was carried out and how it works in actuality.
4. Detailed information as to how the Palestine government, which assured the League that it has sufficient forces to maintain order, proposes to avoid such disturbances as the Arab riots of October, 1933.
5. Information on the question of the border between Transjordania and Saudi Arabia.
6. The Mandates Commission hopes that the Palestine government, whose efforts to spread education in Palestine are appreciated by the Commission, will extend the educational system to confer more benefits on the Arab children.
SEES JUSTICE IN RABBIS’ APPEAL
The Mandates Commission also recognized the justice of the petition submitted by the Palestine rabbinate complaining that rabbinical courts are not supported by the Palestine government, while Moslem courts are recognized, and asked the League of Nations to urge Great Britain, the Mandatory Power, to end the difference in treatment.
The report disclosed that seven Arab petitions were submitted to the Mandates Commission at the last sitting, but that no action was taken on them.
The report also contained the official explanation submitted to the Commission by Chief Secretary John Hatton Hall as to why the Jewish Agency request for 37,240 immigration certificates this year was reduced to 11,000 by the Palestine government.
CERTIFICATE REFUSALS EXPLAINED
The explanation, which confirmed previous reports of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, listed the following reasons for the reduction:
1. The cautious policy of the High Commissioner, as compared to the optimistic outlook of the Jewish Agency.
2. About 3,000 Jewish children, double the number of Arab children, enter the Palestine labor market each year.
3. Some of the labor shortage, such as citrus picking, is only seasonal. The building shortage is also temporary.
4. The Jewish Agency frequently includes professionals and non-manual workers in its labor schedule, instead of workingmen only.
5. The Jewish Agency guarantees maintenance of immigrants for one year, but not for specific employment for each immigrant.
6. There is no real shortage of unskilled labor if Arab as well as Jewish workers are counted.
MACDONALD’S STAND ON LABOR
Secretary Hall added that the MacDonald letter to Dr. Chaim Weizmann said that if the consequence of the exclusive employment of Jewish labor by Jewish employers was the displacing of Arab labor, then this fact will be taken into consideration by the Palestine administration in considering Jewish immigration.
Professor William Rappard and Vice Chairman Dr. D. van Rees of the Mandates Commission argued, according to the report that the explanations submitted by Hall were so because he interpreted but half of one paragraph from the MacDonald letter, omitting the first half, which offers Jewish organizations in Palestine the right to employ only Jewish labor.
DEALS WITH ILLEGAL ENTRY
The Mandates Commission report also dealt in its closing pages with the illegal Jewish and Arab immigration into Palestine. Hall submitted the Palestine administration’s explanation of the measures taken to combat illegal entry. He stated that the Jewish population of Palestine is hampering the police and that figures of illegal Arab immigration were greatly exaggerated.
Professor Rappard asked Hall whether the government action in reducing Jewish immigration into Palestine did not constitute an almost official connivance in illegal immigration. Secretary Hall denied the government’s action tended to encourage illegal entry.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency learned that the commission submitted no recommendations to the Council of the League of Nations concerning the memorandum on points in dispute between the Jewish Agency and the Palestine government submitted by the Agency.
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