§ LORD DAVIESasked whether His Majesty's Government is aware of the plight of a party of 2,000 Jewish refugees from Germany, Czecho-Slovakia and Hungary who have been marooned on barges in the Danube for some months past; whether the Regulations governing the admission of Jews to Palestine are the 529WA main cause of their tragic, situation; and whether His Majesty's Government will relax those Regulations to permit the admission of the refugees in question?
THE MARQUESS OF DUFFERIN AND AVAI understand that reports on the matter to which the noble Lord refers have been received by the Foreign Office. As regards the second part of the question, the situation in which these Jews find themselves appears to be the result of an attempt to escape from the consequences of the well known and deliberate policy of the German Government, and His Majesty's Government cannot accept responsibility for it. Palestine is already making a considerable contribution, under the terms of the recent White Paper, towards the solution of the Jewish refugee problem by means of quotas for legal immigrants, and His Majesty's Government cannot accept the suggestion in the third part of the question.