British Mandate: A Survey of Palestine: Volume I - Page 82. Historical Summary: Period IX: October - November, 1945. The agitation for a Jewish State and unrestricted immigration

CHAPTER II.

wounded. Explosives, grenades and military uniforms were found during the search. On 25th December illegal immigrants, stated to number 250, landed from a small schooner near Naharia with assistance from the Hagana.

18th October, 1945.

Mr. Byrnes made a statement that, if any proposals should emerge from discussions with the British Government which, in the opinion of the United States Government, would change the' basic situation in Palestine, it would be the policy of the United States Government not to reach final conclusions without full consultation with Jewish and Arab leaders. At the same time he released the text of President Roosevelt's letter to King Ibn Saud of 5th April, 1945, in which a similar assurance had been given.

19th October, 1945.

A commission, under the chairmanship of Sir Arnold McNair, arrived in Palestine to undertake an enquiry into the Jewish public school system. The Jewish representative institutions co-operated with them. The commission left Palestine on 20th December.

5th November, 1945.

Field Marshal Lord Gort was obliged by ill health to relinquish his appointment and was succeeded by General Sir Alan Cunningham, who arrived in Palestine on 21st November.

13th November, 1945.

A statement on the "problem of the Jewish community that has arisen as a result of Nazi persecution in Germany" was made in the House of Commons by the Foreign Secretary, Mr. Bevin, and in the House of Lords by Lord Addison. This statement, which is reproduced in full as annexure C to this chapter, announced that His Majesty's Government had decided to invite the Government of the United States to co-operate with them in setting up a joint Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, under a rotating chairmanship, to examine the question of European Jewry and to make a further review of the Palestine problem in the light of that examination. Mr. Bevin stated that the Government of the United States had accepted this invitation. On the same day President Truman made a statement in which he released the text of his letter to Mr. Attlee of 31st August, 1945, and announced that the United States Government had acceded to the British suggestion for a joint Anglo-American Committee of

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