“Attended Council from 12 till 1.30. A very difficult question has presented itself in Roosevelt’s appeal to different countries to unite with the United States in admitting refugees from Austria. That means, in a word, admitting numbers of Jews. My own feeling is that nothing is to be gained by creating an internal problem in an effort to meet an international one. That we must be careful not to seek to play the role of the dog in the manger so far as Canada is concerned, with our great open spaces and small population.

“We must nevertheless seek to keep this part of the Continent free from unrest and from too great an Intermixture of foreign strains of blood—much the same thing as lies at the basis of Oriental problem. I fear we would have riots if we agreed to a policy that admitted numbers of Jews. Also we would add to the difficulties between the Provinces and the Dominion.”