White Paper Prevents Palestine from Speeding Development of Middle East, Says Lowdermilk

Declaring that “Palestine may yet become the leaves that will transform the surrounding lands of the Middle East so that 20 to 30 million people may live decent and prosperous lives where a few million now struggle for bare existence,” Dr. Walter C. Lowdermilk, of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, last night scored the British White Paper policy which curtailed Jewish immigration into Pelestine on the basis of the supposedly limited absorptive capacity of that country.

Addressing 400 persons attending the fifth annual dinner of American Society for the Advancement of the Hebrew Institute of Technology in Haifa, Dr. Lowdermilk aid that “absorptive capacity cannot be measured by a yardstick. It expends or contracts in accordance with the degree of Justice and security provided by the government of a country, in accordance with the genius of the people who occupy the land as well as its resources. Recent Jewish colonization, industry, and technological advancement has brought about an expanding absorptive capacity once again. The consecrated genius and vision of the Jews in draining swamps and turning sand dunes into orchards and poultry farms, in planting millions of trees on the rocky hills, in building terraces and digging wells, has established many and varied industries whose full value to the Allied war effort has not been made known.”

The dinner marked the inauguration of the closing phase of the campaign to raise $500,000 for the erection an dequipment of the Kisch Memorial Laboratories for industrial and electrical engineering. Approximately $250,000 of this amount has already been raised.