(Jewish Telegraphic Agency Mail Service)
The League of Nations is seeking a fund of not less than $25,000,000 for the purpose of aiding refugees of various nationalities to settle in new countries. The League now has under consideration the financing of a plan to settle 25,000 Armenian refugees in their national home.
These facts were brought out in a report published here of the proceedings of the Seventh Assembly of the League held last September when the question of the refugees was discussed and some action determined upon.
Various proposals aiming at extending the scope of the work in favor of Russian and Armenian refugees in the near future was rejected by the Committee. A suggestion of the Belgian Delegate was adopted by the Committee and by the Assembly. This resolution “invites the Council to request the High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Labor Organization to consider how far the measures already taken to give protection to, to provide employment for, and to afford relief to, Russian and Armenian refugees can be extended to other analogous categories of refugees”.
The Assembly also took note of a plan presented by the Armenian Refugee Settlement Committee, which aims at settling at least 25,000 Armenian refugees in their national home. The Council was requested to consider the possibility, after due inquiry of setting up a Committee to investigate the possibility of obtaining the sum required; and a credit of 15,000 francs was voted to provide for the printing and distribution of literature regarding the proposed financial operation.
The Assembly, in another resolution relating to refugees in Bulgaria, declared that it had learned with satisfaction that the negotiations of the last six months had resulted in the adoption of a scheme for the settlement of some 120,000 refugees in Bulgaria; a scheme which will tend to alleviate widespread suffering, and is also calculated to produce beneficial results of an economic and social character.
The Assembly also expressed the hope that the total expenditure estimated for its work, namely £ 2,250,000, would be successfully subscribed in the near future. Through a first advance of £ 400,000 it has been possible to begin the work of settling refugees in Bulgaria before the winter season commences.
The Assembly also noted with satisfaction that the work of settlement effected in collaboration between the Greek authorities and the Settlement Commission set up under the auspices of the League has made continuous and satisfactory progress.
The Resolution adopted on this point by the Assembly notes that more than half of the 1,400,000 destitute refugees who have entered Greece have been assisted to establish themseives and have become productive citizens. Apart from the humanitarian significance of the plan, it is having permanent beneficial results in strengthening the economic life of the country and in promoting social stability.
The resolution expresses the hope that conditions may be such that the sum required (estimated by the experts at £ 5,000,000) may become available in due course for the completion of this work.
The Fifth Committee of the Assembly, by which the various problems connected with the refugees were discussed, elected Dr. Breitscheid, German Government Delegate, as Rapporteur for the question of Russian and Armenian refugees. The report presented to the Assembly by the Fifth Committee points out that it appears, from the information received, that serious discriminations are made by certain countries against the bearers of refugee identity certificates, as compared with the holders of national passports. This constitutes a serious hardship to refugees desiring to travel for professional, health, or domestic reasons, and renders exceedingly difficult the work of placing the refugees undertaken by the International Labor Office; that Office also experiences considerable difficulty in obtaining accurate statistics regarding the number of unemployed refugees according to their occupations. The general application of the identity certificate system would contribute considerably to the removal of that difficulty.
The report of the High Commissioner and that of the International Labor Office both lay stress on the fact that maximum value cannot be secured from their services until the revolving fund recommended by the Sixth Ordinary Session of the Assembly and planned by the Sixth Governmental Conference materializes. As an argument in favor of this fund it was declared that eight Governments alone expended annually no less than 20 million gold francs on their refugee problems, or more than 300 franes per head of the refugees concerned, whereas the cost to the League, in the shape of administrative liquidation expenditure, is no more than 20 francs per head, expenditure from the revolving fund being reimbursed by the refugee benefiting therefrom.
The members of White Goods Workers’ Union 62, which has more than 2,000 members, adopted new demands to be placed before the manufacturters of this merchandise next month, at a meeting in Beethoven Hall, New York City, on Tuesday night. About 900 attended. The meeting was under the direction of Abraham Snyder, manager of the union.
The chief demands by the workers in their new contract will be for a forty-hour five-day week and a 10 perent increase in wages. Miss Mary Goff, President, read a letter from Morris Sigman, President of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, urging the members not to subscribe to the bonds issued by the Joint Board of the International, under the leadership of Louis Hyman.
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.
