In reply to Mr. Fenner Brockway, the Chairman of the Independent Labour Party, who enquired whether it was still proposed to ask Parliament to guarantee a loan of two and a half million pounds for the relief of agriculture in Palestine, and if so, who would administer the scheme which the loan was intended to facilitate, Mr. Thomas said:
The projected loan is for development purposes, the details of which are under investigation. The question of asking Parliament to authorise His Majesty’s Government to guarantee such a loan does not arise at the moment, but will be further considered in due course in the light of the general financial situation.
The scheme, if and when approved by His Majesty’s Government, he added, would be administered by the Director of Development in Palestine (Mr. Lewis French).
When Colonel Wedgwood pointed out that a large part of the money involved in the scheme was for the purchase of land in Palestine from the Arab classes, Mr. Thomas replied that all these questions will be raised at the moment when the money is necessary.
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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.
