DRIFT TO PALESTINE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23381, 24 June 1939, Page 14

DRIFT TO PALESTINE

Whatever the truth of a police inspector's story of»a "brains trust" organised to smuggle Jews into Palestine, it is certain that refugees have been entering the country illegally in increasingly large numbers since the official immigration quota was reduced. The Dominions Secretary, Sir Thomas Inskip, gave figures this week showing that the flow latterly had amounted to about 500 a month. While there will be sympathy with the stream of Jews who accept lethal risks and endure incredible hardships in crossing Europe to reach the Promised Land, their steady advent makes endless trouble. The Arabs are antagonistic to Jewish infiltration of any kind and are suspicious lest this human smuggling is just another back-door method of overcoming the official quota. This baseless idea does not help the British Administration. The Jewish Agency is also embarrassed by a flow which in the past it could, hardly be expected to help in staunching. Now that the British Government has decided to deduct the number of these illegal entrants from the immigration quota, the agency may be more vigilant in supporting the authorities lest the quota be cancelled out, as may easily happen at the present rate. The result would be that, instead of selecting a good type of immigrant, Palestine would be loaded with a penniless horde that might compromise the earlier successes of settlement. So far, however, no effective way of stopping the smuggling has been found and, once the refugees make the land, it is found impossible on the score of humanity, and because usually they are Stateless, to deport them. The only way to solve the problem seems to be to present some other objective for refugees than Palestine. The reports on the possibilities of British Guiana are not encouraging, but that land need not be the last resort.;