Conversations on the world-wide problem of refugees were scheduled to begin tonight as a preliminary to the conference of officials of the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees, called by President Roosevelt, which opens tomorrow at the White House and continues at the State Department.
The parley will open with a luncheon at the White House at which President Roosevelt will deliver a speech in which he is expected to indicate the gravity of the whole refugee problem and present the views of the United States on what steps should be taken for its amelioration. The President’s address will be made public.
First on the agenda, which was prepared by the State Department in consultation with the British and French Embassies, is the defining of the full extent of the world refugee problem. Next will be an attempt to find new lands to which refugee immigration can be directed, it is understood.
A project for settlement in the Philippine Islands, approved by an experts’ commission, will be placed before the conference by James G. MacDonald, chairman of President Roosevelt’s Advisory Committee on Political Refugees, who, with Myron C. Taylor, vice-chairman of the Intergovernmental Committee, will be the only Americans to sit in on the deliberations.
The State Department was awaiting the arrival of Lord Winterton, chairman of the Intergovernmental Committee, and Sir Herbert Emerson, director, both of Britain, who were believed to be coming on the Cunard liner Samaria. (The Samaria, although expected to arrive in New York harbor yesterday, had not been reported at a late hour.) They will stay at the British Embassy during their visit in Washington.
Paul van Zeeland, former Belgian Premier and now president of the Coordinating Foundation for refugees, and Taylor are expected to arrive in Washington early tomorrow morning.
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.
