Refugee Corporation Plans Settlement Loan; Aid Sought in New York

A loan projected by the International Refugee Settlement Corporation, which has been approved by the Intergovernmental Refugee Committee, is rapidly taking form. A famous London banking house is actively furthering the loan project. Negotiations are now proceeding in New York to enlist financial support and participation of interested parties there.

The corporation is expected to finance and direct resettlement of refugees from Germany leaving the Reich under the plan of “orderly emigration” handed to George Rublee by the and also to arrange the transfer of emigrants’ capital. By arrangement to be negotiated with the German authorities the corporation will arrange the transfer of goods to be utilized in resettlement, such as equipment and machinery. The corporation will not, however, engage in the sale of German goods on the world market.

Before leaving for the United States, Mr. Rublee, it was learned, prepared a reply of the Intergovernmental Committee to the Nazi emigration program which reply will be transmitted to the German authorities next week. While the German plan called for emigration of 150, 000 Jewish workers in five years, authoritative sources declare that this is only a fraction of the anticipated emigration from the Reich. Additional wage-earners and many others will emigrate in the five years, it is said. It is believed that the total will be nearer to 100,000 annually than to the 30,000 yearly envisioned by the memorandum of Dr. Helmuth Wohl that, German Economics Ministry official.

Meanwhile, increasing concern is felt over the Jews remaining in Germany. Although a central Jewish emigration bureau is being established by the German Government to direct and control Jewish emigration and end the indiscriminate, forced emigration which made the resettlement problem so difficult, information received here indicates that this bureau may become another weapon in the hands of the Gestapo to be used, like the Vienna central bureau, as a means to force Jews to emigrate.

Pending emigration, the Jews will be admitted to employment in certain industries. It is reliably understood that there is no question of permitting Jews to reopen business enterprises or to engage in business as principals. The sole concession made by a Reich, suffering from a manpower shortage in armed forces and war industries is to allow Jewish employment in certain industries having an acute shortage.

Little progress is reported regarding the opening of new territories for refugee settlement. The commission studying the prospects in British Guiana will proceed, under an arrangement with the Netherlands Government, to Dutch Guiana to study possibilities there. A projected survey of prospects in Rhodesia is held up by the delay in removing technical obstacles.