Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-04-13

iaiSeSI dimensions Tell from the skies
INTO the lap Of the universal foster
mother of Europe's refugees.
In Asia Minor Renal Pasha swept
down upon the overconfldent Greek in
vading army and pushed it into the sea.
Horoes OF refugees Immediately poured
INTO Greece to escape the sword of the
avenging Iurk-in all, 1000, 900, of
Whom four-fifths were women and chill
dren, quite destitute and most of them
half naked.
This happened while the Assembly OF
the League was sitting at Geneva In
the FAN OF 1922. The Assembly called
IN Nansen, handed him this new fam
lily and 100000 gold francs for its 10.
keep, and told him to get busy. But IL
dld not leave things there. The Greeks
were lucky.
Food and clothes having been rushed
to the refugee areas, the commission
got scheme for self-supporting and
productive refugee settlements under
way. The Greek government simplifed
the commissions task by transferring
full rights over large extent of terri
tory to resident refugee settlement
commission presided over first by Mr..
Henry Morgenthau and then by Mr..
Rowland, both Americans. And the
financial committee OF the League put
its powerful shoulder to the wheel and
raised loan of $5o,000 900.
Greeks Take Prominent Part.
There were reasons why the Greeks
should get the white meat of the ref
ugee dinner. Lloyd George and bH
foreign minister, Curzon, had pursuit..
a pro-Greek policy and urged the
Greeks on, and now Britain had a
guilty conscience and used all her in
fiuence to help the Hellenes out of
thnir Tot
largely interested through the ramifica-
tons Of Greek f1nanciers in London and
Paris, and the Greek millionaire, Sir
Basil Zaharoff, who had largely
financed the Greeks unlucky war, lent
a gold-filled hand. And finally various
countries were interested in seeing
Greece put on her feet again-she is
such a useful counter balance to Tur-
key who one of these days may grow
too ambitious for the peace of mind of
Eastern Europe and the British In
Egypt.
Motives apart, miracles were achieved.
More than half million refugees were
settled in the first three years, and
Macedonia, where most of them were
sent, has been turned by this huge COL
onizing work from a deserted plain
where nomad shepherds wandered with
their scraggy herds into a fruitful land
grain and cotton fields and vineyards,
while along sheltered parts of the coast
where no man formerly dwelt fishing
villages have sprung up, and even a
small part or two with sailing vessels
In the harbor and in shipyards that
have been constructed there.
While all this was going on two more
small families were brought to Geneva.
The Bulgars sought aid for the Bull
Uh ho
out of Western Thrace by the Greeks
some time before and were languishing
and dying off in ThesSaly, and the
Greeks asked the League to relieve
them of the burden Of 10000 Ar
menians who had fed to Greece from
Asia Minor.
Armenians in Special Plea.
An emissary went out and organized
the return of the Bulgarian deportees
to their homes. But the Armenians
proved a more difficult proposition.
They wanted a national home in the
Caucasus. Nansen got out a $5,000000
scheme for irrigation works in that
region which would absorb $4,000 of
them.
But more and more the work was
invading the province of the tnterna-
tional labor office, for it always boiled
down, after the first urgent relief
measures, to the question of a Job
somewhere for somebody.
Consequently, in 1925 the whole ref
ugee department was turned over TO
that Office. hansen, as high commits
sioner OF the League, continued to deal
with questions of a political legal or
financial character, while the labor Of
flee looked after employment and emf
grafton.
Az tbis +ipoa tbara sti1I r,n.a oro,,r5
100000 Russian and Armenian refugees
out of work, including $4,000 in Syria,
1000 in Japan and 10000 in Shanghai.
In the first year the international
labor Office managed to find work tor
$4,000 of this army in 80 different
countries, but the following year, despite
Canada's acceptance of $500 Russians,
the total for the IL months dropped
to 10000.
Most of the European countries were
suffering from economic depression, and
negotiations became complicated when
1t is necessary to safeguard at the same
time the interests of the workers of
each country, which might be affected
by sudden influx of foreign labor, and
the interests of the refugees.
Ely 1929 it looked as if sporadic wars
and eruptionS over the European con-
tirent and the contiguous Asiatic terri
tory had ceased Off the Chinese refu-
gees had BURST out of their own coun-
try the refugees organization probably
would have gone mad), and the chances
OF the whole refugee business being
wound up over period looked good.
100000 Reported Unemployed.
Nansen reported to the Tenth Assem-
bly, last year that about zoe, 1000 refu-
gees remained unemployed or in casual
employment, excluding 10000 invalids.
old people or children, and also eX-
Guiding large numbers of refugees in
North and South America whose legal
and personal status had not been regu-
lated, and he added that his commission
was remedying wastage represented by
large numbers of refugees who were in
employment unsuited to their qualifica-
tons by special assistance to these per-
sons to fit themselves for occupations
and professions for which they were
specially equipped.
But the Office asked the Assembly to
relieve it of further responsibility. Evil
IDENTIFY it felt it had done everything
possible and now it was up to refugees
to get along as best they could. most Of
the nations represented by the ONCE
having acute unemployment and social
aid problems of their own.
The Assembly turned down a sugges-
ton for the transfer of the work to an
Independent and autonomous organiza-
ton and, admitting that it might take
10 years to wind up the refugee ques-
ton entirely, incorporated the refugee
central service in the Leagues own sec
retariat for the space of year, Nansen
(now 70) remaining high commissioner.
but being relieved of most of the bur-
den Of work he had shouldered for the
last eight years. At the next Assembly
the secretary general of the League is
to report how he finds things and say
whether the little central service left in
his Secretariat can handle the work.
Into this fairly clean-cut situation
burst the new refugee problem, caused
by the determination of the red chiefs