Evening star., 1948-08-29
.oRefuge
FOrHunanS?

L w ANNA uSS
For Humans?
Continued From Page CID
declaration, instruction, order ol
decision Of any officer Of the
United States which denies, re.
stricts, impairs or questions the
right of expatriatlon is declared in.
consistent with the Fundamental
principles of the Republic"
Discussing this statute Edwir
Borchard, an American authority
on international law, has said:
Little Left of 1868 Law
That it is impossible to consider
repatriation except as an incident
of change of abode, is evidenced
in the history of the policy. When
immigration is denied to many peo-
pie their inherent right to lib
erty' and the pursuit of happiness
is strictly confined to enjoyment al
home"
Steadily tightening immigration
restrictions, especially in the last
so years, lend weight to this COM
ment. There seems to be little tan
gible remaining of the noble pur-
pose expressed in the 1868 law. The
debate over the displaced persons
bill is evidence of that.
New questions of the rights of in
dividuals under international Law
may be raised if the United Nations
General Assembly, which is to meet
next month in Paris, should accept
the international Declaration oi
Human Rights as drafted by the
United Nations Commission o.
Human Rights.
| Among the rights affirmed BY
the commission were:
Every one has the right to free
dom of movement and residence
within the borders of each State
Every one has the right to leave
any country, including his own.
Every one has the right to seek
and be granted, in other countries,
asylum from persecution.
Russia Keeps Its Women
No one shall be arbitrarily de-
prived of his nationality or denied
the right to change his nationality,
1t does not seem likely that any
such declaration as this would meet
with the favor Of Soviet Russia, no
matter what other countries might
think of 1t.
The United States, Great Britain
and others have been making futile
efforts to persuade the Soviet Union
to permit Russian wives Of their
citizens to leave Russia. Last May
Chile filed complaint with the
United Nations. accusing the Soviets
of violating fundamental human
rights" by refusing to permit womer
in this category to leave. The Rus
slams protested the request of Chile
that the complaint be placed or
the agenda of the September meet
ing. If the General Assembly takes
up the question anyway a precedent
may be set.
This attitude on the part OF
Soviet Russia points up the funda-
mental world conflict over the ma
ture of man. 1t is difficult to see
how the application of the rights Of
political and religious asylum can
be enlarged on a world basis until
this conflict Is resolved. There are
no indications this resolution is In
sight. In fact, the trend appears
to be toward fuller, understanding
Of the vast gulf between the totali-
tartan and democratic concepts.
| Earlier this month at Lambeth
England. a committee of bishops OF
the worldwide Anglican commu-
Mon. made this remarkable state
ment:
World Must Choose
THE most highly organized; con-
sistent. powerful and destructive
form Of secularism is beyond doubt
dialectical materfalism and the type
OF communism in which 1t Is EN-
bodied. This is perhaps the one
live alternative to the Christian in
depreciation of man. Between the
two there can be no compromise
and 1t seems to be increasingly
probable that 1t is between these
two that the world must choose.
Neutral positions may not long be
tenable."
Only a few days ago John Foster
Dulles, q Presbyterian lay leader
and foreign policy adviser to the
Republican Party, told the World
Council Of Churches at Amsterdam
that Premier Stain and Russian
leaders reject the concept of moral
law and hold that human beings
have. no God-given rights.
1t may be that the nations viii
continue to grant asylum in special
cases, but 1t appears that the mo-
tive for such action will be increas-
ingly less the moral principle in
volved and increasingly more politi-
cal expediency.
fBy Special Advancement With the
D. Loats post-Dispsteh)