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Britain Sets Up Trust Fund for Czech Refugees; Unions Consider Jobs for Exiles

July 28, 1939
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The British Government announced in a White Paper today the establishment of a Czecho-Slovak Refugee Trust Fund to administer a £2,500,000 advance for refugees, to be repaid after the release of the blocked balance of the British loan to former Czechoslovakia. It was stated that £425,000 of the Trust Fund would be advanced to the Jewish Agency for Palestine to finance transfers from Czecho-Slovakia to Palestine.

At the same time, the General Council of the British Trades Union Congress circularized members unions asking whether they would favor approaching the Government to modify its ban on employment of refugees. The circular asked whether the unions would be willing to cooperate in finding employment for refugees. It asserted that among the refugees were many skilled trade unionists who could be usefully employed in industry and declared that appropriate safeguards would be taken to protect the interests of British workers.

In Commons yesterday, Colonial Secretary Malcolm MacDonald reported that an advance guard of 250 or 300 refugees will leave for British Guiana this Autumn. They will be selected by American and British relief organizations to do preparatory work to determine practice ability of large scale Jewish colonization there, he said.

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