Extending its financial responsibility for the maintenance of refugees presently in England, the Government today asked Commons to vote a new grant-in-aid of £375,000 to the Central Committee for Refugees for the period ending next March.
The Home Office supplementary estimates, published in the form of a White Paper, state that the previous limitation of the Government grant to half the expenditures incurred by the committee was being waived. The grant is coming up in Commons for discussion at the second sitting of the House next week.
The previous Government contribution for refugee maintenance was restricted to a maximum of £27,000 monthly. The new grant more than doubles this.
The Government’s action is necessitated by the fact that the sweeping internment policy deprived thousands of refugees of the opportunity of earning a livelihood for their families and threw a new burden on the refugee organizations, which also faced the problem of evacuating hundreds of refugee families from London and rehousing others left homeless by bombings. At the same, as a result of intensification of the war the organizations met increasing difficulties in raising voluntary contributions.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.