Palestine High Commissioner Confers Again with Foreign Office on Exodus Case

Palestine High Commissioner Sir Alan Cunningham, returning to London unexpectedly from a holiday in the country, conferred with officials of the Foreign Office on the Exodus case.

It is understood that Sir Alan is continuing to press the government to reverse its decision to disembark the deportees in Hamburg. He believes that returning the DP’s to Germany would be a mistake on both political and humanitarian grounds. Cunningham will probably meet later in the week with members of the Cabinet and may see Prime Minister Attlee, when the latter returns from Wales.

Meanwhile, the High Commissioner refused to comment on press reports that he would resign if the government went ahead with its plans to transport the Exodus refugees to Germany.

Harold Laski, former chairman of the Labor Party, in a letter to the French Socialist organ, Le Populaire, congratulated France on its attitude in the Exodus case “despite British pressure. Having deeply blundered at the beginning of its career on the question of Palestine, it would have been more honorable for a Socialist Government to have started on a new basis, recognizing its mistakes, rather than be hypocritical and make France an accomplice to its injustices,” he added.

A dispatch from the Reuter correspondent accompanying the deportees said today that they had received with “restrained satisfaction” the reports of the recommendations of UNSCOP. Spokesmen said they could not comment until they studied the report, particularly regarding its effect on the Exodus Jews. The correspondent reported that the three transports and their escorts hove to for a half-hour today while burial services were held for an infant who died aboard one of the ships.