Zionist Executive Sees White Paper Prejudicing Conclusions of Sir John Simpson’s Report

The references in the White Paper recently issued by the British government on the Palestine situation to immigration and land problems tend to prejudice the conclusions of the report of Sir John Simpson, commissioned to investigate land and immigration problems, declared the Palestine Zionist Executive in an official communique. The statement makes no comment on the White Paper other than this, pointing out that such official comment will come from the Jewish Agency in London.

The Zionist Executive here publishes a letter to the Palestine government dated April 27 in which it repudiates the Shaw Commission’s allegations that the selection of immigrants under the labor schedule is entrusted to the General Federation of Jewish Labor. The letter points out that “seeing that the Federation is not in a position to allocate certificates to individuals the Chief Immigration Officer’s allegation that the Federation pays regard to the political creed of the possible immigrants falls to the ground”.

PROTESTS ERRONEOUS INFORMATION

An emphatic protest against an official of the Palestine government giving erroneous information to the Shaw Commission on the manner in which the Palestine Zionist Executive discharged one of its most important duties is also contained in the letter. After describing the actual manner of distributing the immigration certificates, the Executive declares Albert Hyamson’s (chief immigration officer) misrepresentation has greatly harmed Jewish interests since the commissioners based their conclusions on his information.

Declaring it would be glad to know what steps the government intends to take to remove the effects of “false imputations”, the Executive says it is “unaware that any adequate reason prompted the government to render Mr. Hyamson’s evidence in camera, depriving the Jewish authorities of a possibility of testing the reliability of his evidence.”