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 117

117 ing half-year have revealed the need for additional labour both in agriculture and in a number of industries. It was a cause of deep satisfaction to the Jewish people that all through the disturbances immigration continued, and that the Government refused to be deflected by violence from the maintenance of the principle, repeatedly and authoritatively affirmed, that Jewish immigrants are to be admitted in accordance with the economic capacity of the country to absorb them. I regret that it is not possible to speak with equal satisfaction of the practical application of that principle in the case of recent labour Schedules. The Jewish Agency believes that, had the demand for labour existing at the time been objectively considered, even a conservative estimate of the absorptive capacity of the country would have called for Labour Schedules considerably in excess of those which were in fact authorised in the period under review. I venture to express the confident hope that a Labour Schedule giving full effect to the principle of economic absorptive capacity and satisfying the legitimate requirements of the Jewish labour-market, will now be duly granted, and that immigration of Jews of other categories xvill be allowed to continue without interruption. It remains the firm conviction of the Jewish Agency that the principle of absorptive capacity is the only just, and, in fact, the only practicable basis for regulating Jewish immigration, and that any departure from it must open the door to the pressure of political influences and, therefore, to purely arbitrary decisions. The Jewish Agency has made it clear in the statement of its case before the Royal Commission that a firm application of the policy laid down by the Mandate with reference to the establishment of the Jewish National Home, coupled with the vigorous development of the resources of Palestine for the benefit of the entire population, offers, in its view, the only just and effectual solution of the problem presented by the present situation. Above all, the Jewish Agency considers it vital, in the interests of the Jewish people, as well as of a lasting peace in Palestine, that the Jewish National Home should be enabled within the shortest possible time to develop, through immigration and settlemen, to such an exent as to reneder futile any attempt by violence to arrest its growth. I have the honour to be Your Excellency's obedient servant, CH. WEIZMANN. President, Jewish Agency for Palestine.