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

In a report to the third assembly, 1.-The
task Is immense and the resources al
most NIL"
100000 Prisoners ImperiIed.
However, the council fingered an au-
| thorttative report predicting the prob
able death Of most of the 200 900 prison.
erS left in the icy Siberian wastes If
| they were not moved before Winter. II
sought man to direct such work, and
| FOUND one in the person Of the Cougar
old DR.. Nansen, explorer, author, sci
enlist, who had crossed Greenland and
traverSed Siberia, led the North Pole
expedition in 1893-1896, which reached
the highest altitude until then attained
and, after taking anactive part in the
separation Of Norway and Sweden, had
had two-year spell as Norwegian Min
lister at the Court of ST. James.
BY a resolution of April II, 1920
| therefore, hansen was appointed the
Leagues high commissioner to co-ordi-
nate all the efforts made hitherto in
behalf Of the prisoners of war and to
organize their repatriation.
1t was not an affair of sitting in a
comfortable office directing skilled sub
ordinateS and diSpoSing of an ample
budget. Nansen had to improve an or
gani5ation and raise funds. BY the
Summer Of 1922 he had repatriated
at 1886 prisoners belonging to 26 differ
ent nationalities, at q total cost. OF
81, SOC, 900, which works out at about SIS
head.
His task was not over. 1t had, indeed,
only begun. When it appointed Nansen
the League knew all about the refugee
problem, but had averted its collective
mind therefrom. The problem, however,
| could not be ignored.
! Revolution Intervenes.
The revolution and civil war in Rus
STA had resulted in whole armies of the
| population fleeing the country. A mil
Hon and a half of them were scattered
over Europe and China-old and young,
men, women and children-most of
them penniless and in rags. unable to
earn their living or to speak the Ian
guage Of the countries which had re-
ceived them. There were, besides, a
quarter of million Armenians who had
| fed from Turkey, most of them before
the 1918 armistice of Mu'dros, and were
now dotted about Syria, Mesopotamia,
Palestine, Greece and dozen other
countries
The charitable institutions that had
been trying to deal with these hordes
appealed to the League, and in the
eminent representatives, convened by
| the council, met at Geneva and declared
that aid to refugees was moral duty,
| in the fulfillment of which all states
must cooperate. And they authorized
Nansen to extend his commissions ac-
| tivities to refugees.
The moral urge was perhaps strength
ened by certain economic, political and
financial considerations. Poland, Es-
thonia, Finland, Greece, Latvia, Switzer-
! land, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria were
overloaded with Russian refugees and
these countries wanted to get a more
| equitable distribution of the burden.
which was costing them an aggregate of
| 20 900 900 gold francs year, besides
raising dangerous problems of social
and sanitary nature.
England Bears Heavy Burden.
Then, Britain also was paying out
| heavily. One item of 5000 refugees of
the Denikin evacuation alone cost her
81 $50, 900 in 1921. During the next
year the hansen commission settled the
| lot in employment for total expendi-
ture of $350,00o from grant of $780,
900 made by the British for the purpose
| and when the British got back the
money saved they thought Nansen was
too good to be true.
The NanSen commissions toughest
problem began when the refugee task
gradually lost its emergency and polit-
ical aspect and, as the legal status Of
the refugee became defined, developed
into an economic problem.
1t was one thing to keep in touch with
the special refugee official appointed by
| every government and arrange for des-
titute refugees to be fed and lodged
wherever found and quite another to
move from this stage Of palliatives to
the heart of the problem. which was
to enable the refugees to live by their
own work while they were waiting fol-
| repatriation. especially as, obviously. the
great majority of them would be wait
ing for that during the remainder OF
their natural lives.
Employment Agencies Formed.
However, they worked away. They
took census Of the refugees according
| to the professions, set up of1ces in the
capitals Of Central and Eastern Europe
| instituted employment agencies, got
busy in countries willing to receive refu-
gees and give them work.
| But their huge polyglot family re-
fused to diminish. No sooner had they
settled one portion than new additions
flocked in from another portion. AL
through 1921 and 1922 refugees kept on
breaking over the Russian frontier. and
the stream reached flood proportions
again when the Soviet began to pass its
1922 sentences of exile. In the latter
year another 100000 Armenians fed
| from Turkey.
Then there were minor and unbud-
geted-for troubles. A typhus and small
pox epidemic broke out in the Anatolian
camp on the outskirts of CONSTANT
nople and was killing off 500 refugees
a week. The commission rushed aid
there and quickly reduced the mortality
by 80 per cent. Money would run out
at headquarters and Nansen would have
| to appeal to governments and associa-
| lions for special funds, or devise means
of raising a regular revenue, like the
Nansen stamp system. under which each
year every refugee who can afford it has
to buy stamp, the value of which is
gold francs.
Then the American Red Cross and
the French government suddenly cut of
the assistance they had given hitherto
to refugees in Turkey. and in Constan-
tinople $4,000 of them abruptly found
themselves facing death by starvation
Nansen rushed cargo of flour to the
Bosporus while he argued with govern
ments and the Americans.
Americans Invited to Aid.
He got the American relief admins
tration and the American Red Cross to
agree to provision the hungry Constan-
tinople family for four months more on
condition that the League find $150,000
to finance the evacuation of the refugees
to countries where they could find work.
Britain found $4,000, the other so
members Of the League made up the
balance, and the American organi-
cations added SIS, 1000 With the ma
chinery thus oiled the refugees were
moved from ConStantinople and settled
on land and in Jobs in score of differ
ent countries
Meantime, in the course Of getting
down to the brass tacks of the evacu-
alton and resettling of these refugees, it