PLIGHT OF THE ASSYRIANS

Evening Star, Issue 21581, 29 November 1933, Page 9

PLIGHT OF THE ASSYRIANS

A DIFFICULT PROBLEM DISCUSSION IN HOUSE OF LORDS (British Official Wireless.) Press Association—By Telegraph -Copyright RUGBY, November 28. (Received November 29, at 11.30 a.m.) In the House of Lords the Archbishop of Canterbury called attention to the plight of tile Assyrians, and said ho shared the hope expressed by Sir John Simon that the Council of the League of Nations would be able to make a satisfactory and enduring solution of the most perplexing and difficult problem of finding a place of settlement for tho Assyrian people. Replying, Lord Hailsham recalled that, after the war, which the Assyrians entered at tho instance of Russia, Britain saved them from annihilation by keeping many thousands of them in refugee camps at considerable expense. Since that time Britain had assisted them to settle on lands which they occupied before the war, and in other suitable places. It had not been possible to settle them in one homogenous community in Europe. Lord Hailsham denied that Sir Francis Humphry’s had assured tho Mandates Commission at Geneva that Britain would accept responsibility for the future safety and welfare of tho Assyrians after tho cessation of tho mandate and the entrance of Iraq into the League. To a question by the Mandates Commission whether Iraq had reached such a state of development that it could bo relied upon to exercise religious toleration, Sir Francis Humphry’s had replied that he was satisfied that Iraq could be so relied upon, and the responsibility for that view rested upon the British Govern ment, not upon the Mandates Commission. He never gave any assurance that after Britain gave up the mandate she would guarantee tho protection ol the minorities in Iraq. Lord Hailsham pointed out that in the recent disturbances the Assyrians attacked first, and had they succeeded a first-class war would have broken out with the certainty of very serious repercussions. On the other hand the excesses of tlic Iraqians after subduing the Assyrians was quite unjustifiable, and merited and received the severest condemnation. The Iraqi Government had undertaken to make a substantial contribution towards whatever cost might be incurred in resettling the Assyrians. The view of tho Government was that, apart from the special responsibility of the Iraqi Government, there rested also a very great responsibility on the League of Nations as a whole.