A VAST SCHEME

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 64, 13 February 1936, Page 8

A VAST SCHEME

SETTLEMENT OF SYRIANS. HELP FRODI BRITAIN. (United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) (British Official Wireless.) Received February 12, 11.50 a.m. RUGBY, Feb. 11. Tlio plan for the settling of Assyrians in the Gligb district in Syria was the subject of a debate in the House of Lords initiated by the Archbishop of Canterbury. He pointed out that when the contributions already promised, including tlio £250,000 which the British Government had offered, had been added together a balance of £IBO,OOO remained to be found. Tlio Primate stated that he was ready to inaugurate a public appeal for this money. He had already secured a strong committee to give effect to it if the Government approved. Lord Stanhope said that, although the Government felt they had no actual liability in regard to the settlement of the Assyrians, they had decided to make the offer of £250.000 to the League on condition that Iraq made an equal contribution, and Iraq had agreed. The only hope to meet the gap and clear up the situation would bo a substantial response to the appeal which the Archbishop proposed to make to private charity. The Government would help the appeal and hoped it would be a great success. The scheme for the settlement of the Assyrians requires preliminary work of reclamation and development in a plain known as the Ghab, including extensive drainage and irrigation itt a cost of about £827,000, of which the French mandatory authorities are finding about £380,000. The alluvial soil of the valley of the Orontes is believed to be of great potential richness. It is anticipated that the Assyrians will be able to begin to cultivate tlieir permanent lands in 1940. The net cost of the settlement operation itself, as distinct from the preliminary acclamation and development, was estimated in ihe original plan submitted to tlie League of Nations last September at about £320,000. This covered provision for administration, transport of the Assyrians from Iraq, food supplies, motor vehicles, and tractors, agricultural implements and seed, live stock, tlie construction of houses, schools, and churches, and sanitary services and supplies. The most important of these credits is for food —about £125,000— during the period before the settlers are able to grow sufficient for their own needs. As a result of a resolution of the League Council, an autonomous board of trustees for Assyrian settlement has been established at Beirut. Its task is to collaborate with the French mandatory authorities in the administration of tbe actual settlement operation—„as distinct from the reclamation works on the Ghab plain, the eexcution of which is being left to the mandatory authorities —and to assume local financial responsibility within tlio limits of its regular budgets, as approved by the League of Nations. The French mandatory authorities propose eventually to naturalise the Assyrians en bloc, after which they will be in the same position and enjoy the same rights as the other religious minorities in States covered by mandate for Syria.

Orontes is tho ancient name of a river in Syria, now called. Nohr-el-Asi. It rises in ihe highest part of CoeleSyria, near Baalbek, and flows 147 miles north and west past Antioch to the Mediterranean. Its lower course is remarkably beautiful, the rocky banks rising 3UO feet.