Condition of Refugees in Far East Improves

Conditions among the Jewish refugees in the Far East have considerably improved since the cessation of the civil warfare in China. Jewish artisans are settling in Mukden, Dajren, Tientsin, Shanghai and Nankin, where they find employment.

The number of Jewish emigrants from Poland, Lithuania. Austria and Roumania coming to Harbin has increased and from there they leave for the United States, South America and other countries. This information is contained in a report received at the New York headquarters of the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society of America, Hias, from the Hias Central Information Bureau in Harbin.

“In China as a result of the cessation of the civil war, labor conditions in certain places have improved,” the report states. “This affords the opportunity to improve the unemployment condition existing among the immigrants. Every day we received new immigrants, individuals and families, Part of these are on their way to relatives in South America, Australia and South Africa. Some have no definite destination and for these it is important that they shall be aided to adapt themselves to the circumstances here. Skilled artisans go to Mukden, Dajren, Tientsien, Shanghai and Nankin, the last having already become an employment center and for which a number of skilled workmen have left. The foreign European population in the interior of China prefers to give employment to European workmen.

“In addition, we have a certain number of quota immigrants to America,” the report continues. “We are working energetically and systematically and maintain amicable relationship with the Consulates here.

“In Soviet Far East, wages were always higher than in European Russia and Siberia. As a result of the interest of the Jewish world in the Far East and the settlement activities in our neighboring Biro-Bidzan, there is an emigration from the West to the Far East. Many inquiries have reached us from White Russia and the Ukraine.

“The Soviet organization in Siberia will not issue any emigrant passports until the emigrant produces a document showing that his people have asked for him. Therefore, the emigrants for whom we have letters, documents, steamship tickets or money and certificates to the effect that their relatives have asked for them, receive the necessary emigrant passports. Unemployed who are registered in the Employment Bureau receive their passports free of charge when they produce the necessary documents from their relatives. Another class of emigrants pay only 50 roubles. Only declassed immigrants, refugees without any trade, must pay 330 roubles, under favorable conditions, 220 roubles, for a passport.”