in order to ensure that the situation in Palestine did not develop into a situation like that of Ireland in which two evenly-matched communities engaged in a bitter ethnic conflict during a world war. With anti-Semitism rampant in Europe, MacDonald vainly sought to find new settlements. The White Paper was bitterly opposed by the Jews in Palestine as well as by many supporting the National Government in Britain. When it was voted on in Parliament, many government supporters such as Churchill abstained or voted against the proposals, including some Cabinet Ministers. Opponents of the White Paper pointed out that Jews were suffering from oppression by the Nazi regimes in Germany and Austria but, given that most states, including the United States and Canada, did not accept Jewish refugees, had nowhere other than Palestine to which to emigrate. In a UK Parliamentary debate, David Lloyd George called the White Paper "an act of perfidy." In a leader, the Manchester Guardian called it "a death sentence on tens of thousands of Central European Jews", and the Liberal MP James Rothschild stated during the parliamentary debate that "for the majority of the Jews who go to Palestine it is a question of migration or of physical extinction". Ireland In May 1940, Chamberlain fell and Winston Churchill formed an all-party coalition, bringing the Labour Party into the National Government for the first time. There was some speculation that their hostility might result in MacDonald being amongst the ministers dropped to make way for them (as happened to Earl de la Warr, the other National Labour minister) but instead MacDonald was retained and became Minister of Health. In June 1940, he was sent to Dublin for a series of meetings with Éamon de Valera for which he was authorised to offer the end of the Partition of Ireland if the Free State would enter the war on the Allied side. De Valera declined the offer, instead trying to persuade MacDonald to authorise sale of small arms and artillery to Ireland. The British government refused, fearing that any weapons supplied to Ireland would be captured and swell the German army following a successful Nazi invasion. Canada The following year his career took a different turn when he was appointed High Commissioner to Canada. Initially special legislation was passed to allow him to retain his seat in Parliament, but in 1945 the National Labour Organisation dissolved itself