SPEAK NO ENGLISH.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 157, 4 July 1940, Page 12

SPEAK NO ENGLISH.

BRITISH REFUGEES.

5000 FROM LOW COUNTRIES. ANOTHER PBOBISM. (Special.—By Air Mall.) LONDON, June 8. Thousands of British people are now refugees in their own country—yet many of them cannot speak English. More than 500 or them hurried home from Germany in September, and they have since been joined by 5000 more from Holland and Belgium. So serious is their plight that a special fund has been formed to help them, with Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary, as president and Sir Nevile Henderson, late British Ambassador in Berlin, as treasurer. "Many of them held responsible positions with high incomes in Belgium, Holland and Germany," an organiser said thie week. "Now they are reduced to accepting public assistance in their own country.

"The problem is complicated because many of them do not speak English, though they are British subjects. They have lived so long in these other countries that they have forgotten their own language. Already 23 of the men are attending a special language class. "The refugees include commercial people, university professors, doctors, lawyers*, and a large number of scientists. One man owned a chemical factory in Berlin and was earning nearly £1000 a year."