EUROPEAN MINORITIES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 10 March 1944, Page 5

EUROPEAN MINORITIES

PLACE IN POST-WAR WORLD London, March 8. The post-war treatment of European minorities was discussed in the House of Lords on the motion of the Earl of Mansfield. He asked the Government if, when discussing post-war delimitations of the boundaries of the truncated German .empire and other countries with frontiers likely to need adjustment, they would avoid wherever possible leaving considerable minorities within the political boundaries of those states where the majority of the population had a different racial, religious or cultural oullook. He also asked*if the Government would consider the advisability of compulsorily transferring such minorities to the land of their racial origin.

Lord Cranborne, Secretary of State for the Dominions, regretted that Lord Mansfield thought fit at the present lime to raise this extremely complex and delicate subject. It would certainly be impossible at present for him to make a detailed declaration of the Government policy on the subject. The most he could do was to indicate some of the main considerations. Repatriation of war exiles, he said, would constitute a gigantic problem of organisation, transport, supply, and rehabilitation. Many would have no homes to which to return and over a large region economic life would have been so dislocated that a fresh start would need to he made. He added that German minorities were not the only or even the principal ones which had in the past threatened the peace of Europe, and he gave an assurance that the lessons to be derived from the results of the treaties following Versailles were being very carefully studied and would be taken into account by those responsible for the final settlement. “We certainly must not make the same mistakes as were undoubtedly made last time," he added. If, for instance, frontiers had to be drawn in such a way as to include minorities hating and hated by their fellow-citi-zens the case for outright transfer was certainly one for very serious consideration. We should, however, be under no delusions. Such a solution in itself was no panacea for the troubles of Europe. Grave difficulties were likely to be encountered. He would not say they were insuperable, but it should be faced that they existed. A solution might be found in some broad general declaration by the United Nations reprobating ill-treat-ment by a state of its minorities, also some general statement on the standard they would be expected as members of the United Nations to conform to, and indicating if they did not certain sanctions which had to be applied to them. He submitted that this was only in a general form, not as a statement of policy, and emphasised that minorities themselves must play their part if their problems were to be solved.