London, Mar. 23.
Admission of Austrian refugees into Great Britain and their naturalization was the subject of a long discussion in the House of Commons yesterday. Following a statement by the Home Secretary, Sir Samuel Hoare, the House, by 210 votes to 142, refused leave to Col J.C. Wedgwood, Labour member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, to introduce a bill to amend the Aliens and Naturalization Acts and to give the Home Secretary powers regarding. the immigration of refugees from Austria for a period of six months.
There was doubtless a general desire, Sir Samuel Hoare said, to maintain the traditional policy of Britain of offering asylum to persons who, for political, racial or religious reasons, had had to leave their own country.
On the other hand, he declared, there were obvious objections to a policy of indiscriminate admission. Such a policy would aggravate unemployment, housing and other social problems, While, therefore, it was proposed to pursue a policy of offering asylum so far as practicable, and steps were under consideration to enable this policy to be carried out effectively, Sir Samuel Hoare said that he was anxious to avoid creating an impression that the door was open to immigrants of all kinds. Such misleading impression might inflict a great hardship.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.