POLES IN BRITAIN Army Problem: Limit To Be Raised

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 February 1947, Page 5

POLES IN BRITAIN Army Problem: Limit To Be Raised

(Recd. 10.30 a.m.) LONDON, Feb. 13. The British Government’s desire that all of the 127,000 Polish nationals now in the United Kingdom, who thought they could do so with safely, should return to Poland at the earliest possible moment, was expressed by the Home Secretary, Mr. Chuter Ede, when the Polish Resettlement Bill was read a second time in the House of Commons. The primary purpose of the Bill, he said, was to take over the functions of the Interim Treasury Committee for Polish questions, set up by the Coalition Government when it withdrew its recognition of the London Polish Government. 213,000 Involved. The problem covered approximately 213,000 Polish nationals, of whom 127,000 were at present in the United Kingdom, 25,000 in overseas theatres and 61,000 who had been repatriated to Poland or had emigrated to some other country. Of those in the United Kingdom 65,400 had entered the Polish Resettlement Corps, 19,000 had chosen repatriation, 15,400 had not yet given their decision on the various alternatives proposed and 26,600 had not yet been approached. Discussing a clause dealing with service in the British forces, Mr. Ede said the present limitation was that there might not be more than one alien to every 50 soldiers and no alien could hold rank higher than warrant officer. It was now proposed that this limit should be raised for the Polish Settlement Corps. Not an Anti-Warsaw Army. The Government did not regard the Poles remaining in Britain as being available as military personnel if at any time there should be a dispute or trouble in Poland. “We are deter-

mined that they should not be regarded as the nucleus of some ‘antiWarsaw’ army,” he said. Mr. Ness Edwards. Parliamentary Undersecretary of National Service, stated that a satisfactory financial adjustment had been made concerning the outstanding Polish debts to Britain, details of which were not at present available. The Government had provided facilities for the Poles to return home at the rate of 10,000 a month. ; ' Reuter’s Warsaw correspondent stated that Wladyslaw Gomulka, general secretary of the Polish Workers’ Party, and Minister of Recovered Territory in the Provisional Government, stated about 1,000,000 Poles, at present living in various European countries, are expected to return to Poland this year.