Political report of the Executive of the Jewish Agency submitted to the ... Zionist Congress and the ... session of the Council of the Jewish Agency · 1937-08-01 · 8.1937 · p. Seite 8

8 been reduced, proved of no avail. All that was achieved was the reduction of the reserve to be retained by the Government Department of Migration from the original figure of 350 to 200. 6. The schedule of 3,250 certificates granted for the period from October 1935 to March 1936, threw Jewish labour immigration back to the dimensions of 1932. This was the first decline in the size of the labour schedule after its uninterrupted rise for seven schedule periods from 350 in Oct. 1931 to 8000 in April 1935. The drop was considerable. Its effect on the total number of Jewish immigrants was to be felt in the immigration record of the following year. The year 1935 closed with a record figure of 61,854 authorised Jewish immigrants of all categories. In its conversations with representatives of the Jewish Agency early in 1936 Government made no secret of its view that the immigration of 1935 had been "excessive" and that the repetition of the same figure, let alone its increase, was undesirable. 7. The schedule of 3,250 certificates, which was only 29% of that applied for, could not but be taken as an indication of the new restrictive tendency. Another such indication was furnished by the limitations imposed on the admission of relatives dependent upon residents in Palestine. From early in 1935 the practice came to be established of granting permits under this category as a rule only to members of what was described as the "natural family unit" (wives and children) and to aged parents, while limiting the admission of other relatives only to those cases in which it could be definitely proved that the immigrant would permanently be supported by the resident inviting him and would never enter the labour market. The Jewish Agency joined issue with Government on the legality and fairness of this practice, and late in 1935 the Executive was notified of Government's intention to amend the law so as to make it conform to the established practice, should the latter be successfully challenged in court. The evolution of the practice in dealing with the immigration of relatives, first in the direction of greater liberality and then in the opposite trend, was clearly reflected in the annual returns: the total figure of relatives admitted, which rose from 2,896 in 1933 to 6,879 in 1934 and to 16,610 in 1935, dropped in 1936 to 9,495 and amounted to only 1,078 in the first quarter of 1937. It must be pointed out that the imposing total for 1935 appears to have been due in