REFUGEES' PLIGHT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23482, 20 October 1939, Page 9

REFUGEES' PLIGHT

SETTLEMENT SCHEME, HOMES IN PHILIPPINES SOME TO ENTER DOMINICA (Received October 19, 9.15 p.m.) LONDON, Oct. 19 The inter-Governmental Committee on Political Refugees is to settle immediately Germau Jews in the Philippines and Dominica. The scheme will be on a small scale for a start. Relief will be given particularly to refugees in the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland. A large number of refugees, it is reported, will be settled in Abyssinia if Signor Mussolini's approval can be obtained. The international executive of the committee, states a message from Washington, has adjourned until October 26, when it will consider Mr. .Roosevelt's suggestions. The committee is of the opinion that the immediate problem will be to give refuge to 200,000 people. This, it is believed, can best be handled through individual infiltration Tinder immigration quotas and settlement projects, such as in Dominica and the Philippines. British and French representatives informed the committee that refugees in their countries were being placed in war and other industries. The question of their removal was not a pressing one. The 60.000 refugees in Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands, however, constituted an acute problem. Mr. Roosevelt, stated a message from London published yesterday, urged that the committee should speed up the present task of helping 300,000 homeless people. The President announced active settlement, beginning with Dominica and the Philippines, and said he hoped the projects would be the forerunner of many similar ones by other nations. He observed that the possible field of the new settlements covered millions of miles in Africa, America, Australia and New Zealand. The problem now transcended any racial or religious division.