JERUSALEM (May. 15)
British authorities today took important preventive action to cope with possible outbreaks following publication of the White Paper on Palestine. They seized important illegal arms caches in many sectors and arrested several suspects.
Preparing for reaction to the White Paper, military officials visited Tel Aviv and carefully inspected streets, houses and various strategic points. They also conferred on preventive measures to taken in the Nathania region.
Police aided by radio experts were attempting to locate a clandestine broadcasting station operating in a Jewish coastal plantation. The British military commander for the Southern District informed the Mayor of Tel Aviv that Jews were free to demonstrate through strikes or rallies but ruled that the duration of such demonstrations be limited. He announce that a curfew was not contemplated.
The Jerusalem Jewish Community dispatched an appeal to Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain urging him to maintain a Jewish home in Palestine. The appeal stressed the difficult situation of Jews in many parts of the world. Police were called on to disperse Jewish demonstrators parading through Jerusalem streets.
Many workers’ groups and labor unions, meeting to decide what stand they should take against the British proposals, voted to follow the recommendations adopted by central Zionist organizations.
Some 220 Jewish immigrants interned in the Sarafend concentration camp because they entered the country without passports were freed by virtue of a measure which fixes their status as immigrants entering the Holy Land under this month’s quota.