The Jewish Trail of Tears The Evian Conference of ... - Haruth.com

vote of 210 to 142. 77
The Labor Member of Parliament (MP) for Newcastle-under-Lyme,
Colonel Wedgwood, asserted, in his motion concerning “Austrian Refugees Immigration
and Naturalization,” that British honor would suffer if German and Austrian refugees
were prohibited from entry. The United Kingdom could not be perceived as being “less
generous than the French” and the “voice and spirit of Cromwell, of Palmerston, of
Gladstone” must be preserved. During the Nineteenth Century the British had provided
aid and succor for the “negro slaves.” Failure to act similarly for the persecuted of
Central Europe would “destroy the traditions of our race and sacrifice to unworthy fears
the honor of England.” 78
Major Sir George Davies, Conservative MP from Yeovil, asserted, in the debate
over Wedgwood’s motion, that the refugee community should be viewed as a whole,
composed of both Jews and non-Jews, and special consideration could not be granted to
one group over another “when the conditions that appeal to the hearts of all of us may be
the same in many other countries.” 79 Davies was not, however, averse to using late
Nineteenth Century negative imagery of Eastern European Jewish immigrants that had
been utilized in anti-alien debates:
Think of the difficulty after their landing, after their spreading amongst
the population, of the police department, the safety department of this
country, which has to see that our own people are protected against
77 New York Times, March 23, 1938.
78 House of Commons Debates March 22, 1938, PRO FO, 372/3282 cited in Romaine, “The Anschluss,”
93, 100. Wedgwood’s Parliamentary motion called for amending the “Aliens Acts and Naturalization
Acts.” The Secretary of State for the Home Department would be empowered to permit entry into the
United Kingdom of Austrian refugees for “a period of six months from the date of the passing of this Act,
and the granting of British nationality to such immigrants.”
95.
79 House of Commons Debates, March 22, 1938, PRO FO 372/3282 cited in Romain, “The Anschluss,”
40