Report to the ... Zionist Congress and to the Council of the Jewish Agency in ... · 1935-08-01 · 8.1935 · p. Seite 444

The new system has yielded beneficial results in many directions. Applications for capitalists' visas "are now settled promptly and discretion has been given to the Consular Authorities in a number of centres, in addition to Berlin and New York, to grant capitalist visas on the spot without reference to Jerusalem. The practice of granting permits outside the schedule of fiancées of Palestinian residents, which had been in abeyance for some years, was now revived in a limited scope and subject to the guarantee of the Jewish Agency with regard to the bona fide character of the applications. Greater liberality and expedition were shown with regard to the admission of parents and other dependent relatives of Palestinian residents, with the result that the number of persons admitted under this category grew from 2,587 in 1933, to 5,857 in 1934, and 6,594 in the first six months of 1935. Of late Government signified its intention of restricting by law the definition of the category of dependent relatives and, unless the representations made by the Jewish Agency to the contrary prove successful, the number of persons admitted under this category may shrink considerably. The number of tourists registered for permanent settlement likewise increased in the last year and a half as will be seen from the following figures : 1932. 1933. 1934. Jan. to June, 1935. 3,730 2,465 4,115 1,958 It should be noted that the figures for 1932 and 1933 were swollen by the registration of the accumulated number of illegal residents who were given an amnesty in connection with the census of 1931, and seeing that these are not indicative of normal conditions the rise in the figure witnessed in 1933 is all the more marked. 15. At the same time the Government has attempted to regulate the supply of immigrant labour by methods which seem to err on the side of excessive systématisation. It found itself faced, on the one hand, with a prolonged labour shortage and persistent complaints on the part of employers of their inability to satisfy their labour requirements. On the other hand, it held it impossible to increase the labour schedules up to a figure which would satisfy all labour needs. It tried to find a way out of this dilemma by dividing up the general labour pool, which had always been constituted by the labour schedules, into water-tight compartments, each of which would be designed to serve a specific need. A theory was evolved that by selecting immigrants with special regard to their skill and insisting on only those being admitted who had experience over a specified number of years in their trades it would be possible to create a stable labour supply for the most essential industries or undertakings that would not be susceptible to the fluctuations brought about by differences in wage levels. While the Executive agreed that the utmost should be done to give preference in the distribution of certificates to those candidates who possessed skill in trades in which there were openings in Palestine, it maintained 444