Nov. 5.
THE public are not as a rule thrilled by. the doings of the League of Nations; but an exception may well be made in the case of the Fifth Conimittee charged with the rescue and distribution of the refuses whom the upheaval in Russia and Turkey has cast upon the world. The work that has actually been done in the direction strikes one as literally amazing. That it is due to the energy and resource: fulness of one man alone, namely Dr. Nansen, no one connected with the League would deny. In his honour the Committee passed a special resolution—at a meeting held early last September—which may well be quoted:—"Phe Fifth Committes feels it its duty to pay a wholehearted tribute to the High Commissioner Dr, Fridtjo€ Nansen, both for the yeensing devotion of which for more than four years he has given roof, in assisting: refuseees of every nation, and for the high qualities which he has displayed in the earrying out of his onerous duties.
"The Committee would record the fact that, with very limited means his disposal, Dr. Nansen has saved from misery and often from death hundreds of thousands of human beings, and would render him the lgvateful thanks duc to him a a benefactor of humanity; it relies on his continuance of the work on behalf of the refugees.
And the resolution oes on to recommend the adoption of the Council's decision taken in June, to transfer the future charge of the employment, emigration and settlement of refugees to the International Labour Office, with a grant of Frs, 200,000 for necessary expenses.
Some extracts from the report placed before the Committee will prove generally interesting.
reler to pass refugees, who consisted of Russians, Greeks and Armenians, into the countries willing to admit them, a system of identity certificates, which were in fact a League of Nations passport, was adopted. These, having proved beneficial to the Russian refugees, were extended to over 800,000 Armenian refugees and were adopted in principle by Albania, Bulgaria, Esthonia, France, Great Britain, India, Liberia and Switzerland. The report continues:—
Some idea of the economy of the methods pursued may be obtained from the fact that 30,000 refugees in Constantinople have been evacuat~ ed to 45 different countries, at an expenditure of about £1 per head. Thousands of refugees have been transferred from destitution Bulgaria, Germany, Poland, Roumania and other countries to productive employment in America, Belgium, France, ete.
The work of the evacuation of Asia Minor has been completed, but there remain about 820,000 Armenian refugees for whom provision is not yet made, The Fifth Committee decided to deal, in this report, only with those Armenians who came outside the special scheme for establishing'a national home in the Caucasus; for those, the sum of 50,000 gold franes was suggested.
The Russian refugees, numbering approximately 1} millions, still pre= sent a serious problem and it is on their behalf that a further sum of
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.