BASQUE REFUGEES

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 147, 23 June 1937, Page 11

BASQUE REFUGEES

EVACUATION DIFFICULTIES

(British Official Wireless.) (Received June 23, 11.40 a.m.) RUGBY, June 22. The Prime Minister answered a question in the House of Commons on the evacuation of Basque refugees. He explained difficulties arising from the absence, since the end of last week, of the conditions on which British naval protection had previously been given to refugee ships, namely, the assurance of the Basque Government of impartiality and the association of the British Consul with arrangements in order- to ensure that the assurance was carried out. In the altered circumstances the Government was considering the possibility of other measures with a view to supervising the character of evacuation. In addition, it was communicating with the French Government with a view to arranging a system of joint control at ports of arrival in France. In the meantime, instructions were being sent to the naval authorities on the north coast of Spain to continue the protection of refugee ships, British and others, proceeding to France.' Mr. Nevilis Chamberlain referred to a suggestion sponsored in the House of Commons yesterday by Mr. Lloyd George that Basque women and children should be evacuated through France to Barcelona and Valencia. The Government had consulted the French Government and received a favourable reply on this proposal, and if refugees themselves wished to go in this way the British Navy would give protection to such a scheme.