REFUGEES’ HOME

Evening Star, Issue 23745, 28 November 1940, Page 10

REFUGEES’ HOME

DOMINICAN SCHEME VAST NEW DOMINION PLANNED Thirty-five young European refugees, first settlers of what is hoped will become a vast new dominion, recently left on route from Genoa, Italy, to the Sosua area of the Dominican Republic, where they will test themselves in a new mode of living and do the spado work for less hardy refugees who will join them later, says a writer in the ‘ Christian Science Monitor.’ They represent the pioneer contingent of an initial group of 500 colonists who have been selected to launch one of the most significant organised migration of refugees to the New World.

A gift of 26,000 acres of sub-tropical soil awaits the pioneers as a result of negotiations by the President’s Advisory Committee with the Dominican Republic, Dr James Rosenberg, president of the Dominion Republic Settlement Association in New York, said. Recently incorporated under the laws of the State of New York, the association selected and trained the colonists,, while agronomists, experienced in largescale settlement on unoccupied land, surveyed and examined the territory.

If the undertaking succeeds, it is believed that 100,000 Europeans without! a country will eventually make homes for themselves in the colony. Experts of the commission gave encouraging reports of the sparsely settled, rapidly developing Dominican Republic, whosa Government balances its budget and maintains friendly relations with tha United States.

“ From what I’ve seen of the great progress in the Dominican Republic in the past 10 years in schools, roads, irrigation, and bridge and harbour improvements, I am convinced that the settlers will not suffer and that the£ will have a just and equal opportunity to pursue their occupations and lives free from molestations and persecutions,” Dr Rosenberg said. The contract with the Dominican Government guaranteed the settlers full legal, civic,, and economic rights and complete freedom and exempted them from all entry taxes, he added.

While many of the first colonists will come from Germany, others will he from refugee camps in Norway, Sweden, and Holland, Dr (Rosenberg said. “We know the immigrants can liva satisfactorliy,” he continued. “ Tha temperature is sub-tropical, and conditions, generally speaking, are excel-: lent, in some instances better than in the Ukraine, where 300,000 Jews were successfully settled between 1932 and 1936.

“The big question facing us is this: Can these new white people do the work before them? They must not' hire native labour for their tasks. They must do 75 per cent, of the work themselves.”-

GIFT FROM FORMER PRESIDENT

The land was a personal gift of Gene* ral Raphael L. Trujillo, former President of the Dominican Republic. On a previous plantation of the United Fruit. Company, the settlement association! found 5,000 acres cleared, with 17 good houses, running water, electricity, and telephone facilities, a spokesman, said. Two gifts of £2,000 and £ljooo recently received by the association will he used to establish a refrigerating system and a research department. Large-scale raising of cattle and the cultivation of bananas, cocoa, and coffee will be conducted on a 00-operativa basis. In addition, each family will have a plot of six to 10 acres, with! sheds for chickens and livestock, and space for cultivation of garden vegetables and tropical fruits for personal*, use. Dr Frederick Pelstein, agronomist, who has been named resident director of the colony, looks towards the development of a dairy industry and!' possible cultivation of early vegetables* for United States consumption, and o? poultry for the Puerto Rican market,, as sources of income for the colony.. One year will tell whether the Sosual colony is' to succeed, officials of the association hold, and if it does, the Government has offered additional grants of fertile land along the Tasica River in the Puerto Plata region. Dr, Rosenberg voiced confidence that farsighted men would come to the support of the colony. “ It will contribute to the Republia hard-working people who, as has been, the case with refugees in other countries over and over again, will develop new industries, au extension of agriculture and science, all for the good of the country,” he declared. A spokesman of the association held that where many private settlementshad failed in Latin America, those supported by philanthropic funds, an*; needful of showing a quick dividend* had flourished during the last 50 years... Large colonies in the Argentine and Brazil, founded by Jews in flight from pogroms in Tsarist Russia, are studied-to-day by those who are supervising the . retraining of refugees for an agricultural life. One such group is the Monte-, fiore colony in the Argentine with 1,000 farmers and a village of 5,000 persons. Established by the Baron do Hirsch Fund for Colonisation of Persecuted Jews, this colony has prospered through several generations and added to the' wealth of the country. The d’Vigdor Goldsmith Colony of 350 German professional persons, established three years, ago in the Argentine, and the smaller Finca Miraflores group of 100 families, formed six months ago in Bolivia, report good adjustment of former urban dwellers to farm, life, according to a spokesman of the National Refugee Service.

“ We had the task of getting lawyers, doctors, and business people to think' and act as farmers,” the spokesman said.- “ This involved retraining of the body and mind. Recent reports indicate that these pioneers, and in parti-t cular those 30 years of age or younger, have found fulfilment in their new way of life.”

Infiltration and subsequent aid by private agencies rather than planned migration have characterised the colonisation of a large portion of the hundrecU of thousands of Jews and Genincluding thousands of Spanish refugees, whose flight out of Europe sines T 933 has made the greatest exodus in history. . TJruguav, named the “ Switzerland of South America,” by virtue of its liberal Constitution, admitted 3,000 refugees and Paraguay 1,000. Bolivia's Jewish population alone during the period of panicky flight grew from ICO to 6,000 persons, and 3.000 Soanish destitute fled: to the Dominican Republic, while approximately 6,000 now are in Mexico.