Continuation of the High Commission for German Refugees was voted Saturday at the closing session of the League of Nations Assembly, and the Council later re-appointed Sir Neill Malcolm of England High Commissioner until Dec. 31, 1938.
Meeting in camera after the end of the Assembly’s seventeenth session, the Council outlined the future tasks of the High Commissioner as follows:
1-To induce the various governments to ratify a provisional arrangement for refugees’ legal status drawn up by an inter-governmental conference last July and to call another international conference to draw up a convention on refugees.
2-To assist private refugee-aid organizations to study emigration and colonization projects, with interested governments.
3-To maintain contact with private organizations.
4-To prepare a report for the 1938 meeting of the Assembly containing concrete proposals for future conduct of refugee work.
To assist the High Commissioner, the Council approval a proposal of the Second (Economic) Commission to establish an administrative council of interested governments.
The Assembly’s decision was made in adopting the report of its sixth (political) commission.
The Assembly decided to recommend to interested Governments the ratification of a convention drawn up Nov. 28, 1933, on the international status of refugees as well as a provisional arrangement for German exiles adopted by an intergovernmental conference on July 4, 1936.
Pending the next session of the League, when the entire problem of German refugees will be reconsidered, the Assembly allocated 82,500 Swiss francs for continuing the work of the High Commission.
The Assembly, in a resolution, requested all governments not to deport refugees before they could obtain visas to other countries.
An appropriation of 200,000 Swiss francs was made to transport 200 refugees families from the Saar to Paraguay. The allocation was reduced from 400,000 francs on objections by Great Britain and Bolivia.
The arrangement adopted at last July’s intergovernmental conference, which was recommended to member states for adoption, defines the juridical status of refugees, providing for issuance of identity certificates to German refugees by nations in which they take refuge. These certificates, with visas, will be valid as passports to other countries.
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