Having passed its second reading in Commons yesterday, a bill for utilization of the unexpended balance of British loans and gifts to former Czechoslovakia to meet financial claims and in settlement of Czech refugees entered the committee stage today and was expected to achieve final passage by Friday.
According to the terms of the bill, which was introduced last Wednesday, two gift accounts totalling L3,573,200 will be paid over by the Treasury to the Czech Slovakia Refugees Fund after deduction of sums already advanced by the Treasury. The advances total L500,000, according to an explanatory memorandum accompanying the bill.
The bill specifies that the refugee fund will be under the control of the Treasury. The memorandum states that payments will be made from this fund to trustees for the purposes of the trust.
The gift accounts include the balance of L427,000 remaining from the L500,000 transferred to London by the Czech Government following the Sudetenland occupation for the transportation of 2,500 Jews to Palestine. The sum of L75,000 was paid over to the Jewish Agency for Palestine prior to the Nazi seizure of Prague.
As a result of the German Government’s refusal to permit the Czech National Bank to agree to further transfer of funds, the balance has been blocked here. Following protracted negotiations, the Jewish Agency last August received a further advance of L133,000 from funds advanced by the Treasury to the Czech refugee trust, to be repaid by the trust when the present bill is enacted. The remaining L392,000 was to be paid to the Agency when the immigrants reached Palestine.
The last group of these immigrants have now arrived in Palestine under arrangements approved by the Colonial Secretary, according to which 1,200 Czech and 1,700 German and Austrian Jews who had received immigration certificates before the outbreak of war were permitted to proceed. The balance of L292,000, consequently is now due to the Agency and is to be paid through the Czechoslovak Refugee Fund. The negotiations with the Czech Government for the original L500,000 allocation and the subsequent negotiations here for the release of the funds were conducted on behalf of the Jewish Agency by Leo Hermann, director of the Palestine Foundation Fund.
The balance of the British loan to Czechoslovakia, totalling L3,478,900, will be paid to the Czechoslovak Financial Claims Fund and will be used for the satisfaction of obligations incurred here by the Czech Government and persons conducting business in Czechoslovakia before March 15, 1939.
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