After a conference between Myron G. Taylor, American vice-chairman of the Intergovernmental Refugee Committee, and President Roosevelt, the administration has decided to go ahead with its plans for the committee meeting at the White House on Oct. 16 and 17.
Diplomatic representatives of some of the 32 interested governments may replace the delegates, the State Department said today, but the general work of the committee will be carried on, with action expected “as developments make action possible.” (The sixman directorate of the committee, representing Britain, France, the Netherlands, Brazil, the Argentine and the United States, had originally been invited to attend the White House conference.)
The immediate problem, it was stated, will be the finding of new homelands for 100,000 refugees scattered through England, France, the Netherlands, Belgium and the Scandinavian countries.
At his luncheon conference with the President yesterday, Taylor reported that the committee had persuaded Nazi leaders to give Jews in Germany limited legal status and to permit them to earn a living at certain jobs. He said an understanding had been reached whereby part of the money which the German Jews still possessed was to go into a trust fund to help locate refugees in new home lands. This trust was about to be set up when the war crisis developed.
Before the conference, one problem likely to develop is the matter of Government aid in financing the establishment of Jewish refugees in new homelands. The British Government has indicated willingness to aid the enterprise on a fifty-fifty basis, with private contributions supplying the other half. The question has been raised as to whether other governments represented on the intergovernmental body would make similar commitments.
Taylor, former chairman of the United States Steel Corp., made a flying visit to the White House accompanied by Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles, lunched with the President and left Washington immediately.
At his regular press conference yesterday, Secretary of State Hull declared that the war had greatly complicated removal of refugees from certain European countries, but that the United States was pushing the work of the refugee committee.
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