British Mandate: A Survey of Palestine: Volume I - Page 175

CHAPTER VII.
25. The preceding paragraphs describe the position as it was when the Royal Commission began to investigate.

Having considered the policy and the legislation expressing that policy the Royal Commission recommended", among other things, that there should be a political high level of Jewish immigration to cover all categories and that the level should be fixed for the following 5 years at 12,000 a year and that in no circumstances during that period should more than that number be allowed into the country in any one year; further, that the numbers actually admitted should be subject to the economic absorptive capacity of the country. That recommendation was adopted. A further important recommendation of the Royal Commission was that the definition of 'dependant' then in force should be modified to ensure a greater control over that form of permanent settlement. This recommendation was adopted by His Majesty's Government.

26. These and other new principles deriving from the recommendations of the Royal Commission were expressed in legislative form in the Immigration (Amendment) Ordinance, 1037***. The provision which secured the numerical limit to the annual volume of immigration was -

“5A. The High Commissioner may, in his unfettered discretion, by Order in the Gazette, exercise all or any of the following powers, that is to say, he may -

(1) prescribe the maximum aggregate number of foreigners to be admitted to Palestine as immigrants during any specified period;

(2) prescribe categories of immigrants and fix the maximum numbers of persons to be admitted in respect of any category.

This section shall expire on the 31st March, 1938, or on such later date as the High Commissioner in Council with approval of the Secretary of State by notice in the Gazette may appoint."

By the High Commissioner's Order in Council of the 14th March, 1938 , the date appointed for the expiry of this provision was 31st March, 1939.

27. In April, 1939, by the Immigration (Amendment) Ordinance, 1939, the Ordinance was further amended and section 5A
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* Royal Commission's report, Chapter X, para. 97. See also Chapter XXH, para. 49(2).

** Ibid. Chapter X, paras. 83-85.

*** Vol. I of 1937, legislation, page 285
Vol. II of 1938, legislation, page 363

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