June Very unwelcome news reaches us with reference to the colony of Russian refugees in Chinese territory. It will be recalled that, last autumn, the League of Nations was led to interest itself in their case and appointed Dr. Greig of Kirin its delegate in the Far East to study the question of their repatriation, The first essential was, of course, that the League should obtain from the Soviet Government some suarantee of safe conduct for the refugees to their old homes: without that, they would never be induced to return to. Russia, Negotiations were accordingly opened by the League, but, after several months, have come to nothing. The Soviet apparently is not interested in making any arrangement with the League. From Moscow's standpoint this is, perhaps, natural enough, Russia is not yet a member of the League; she is recognizes by only two or three of the Powers composing it; and an application for safe conduct for the refugees may appear to her as an indirect insult, implying that without it they can' only expect imprisonment or worse. Against this, the League's position is only that of a go-between, These exiled Rus~ sians fled from their country to a large extent through misiruid~ ance; there is no place for them in China, or anywhere else that can be seen; but being fugitives, they are naturally afraid to 0 back without some knowledge of what they are sooing to; it would greatly improve Soviet Russia's prestige in the eyes of the world, which it would be idle to pretend is not in need of—re= ition, if she extended to these unhappy and for the most part quite harm ing lows people a help= while the newly ement between and Tis offers a possible way of escape. The situation as regards the Russian refugees remains much the same as ever it was, only to this extent worse, that it ly ineveasingly dificult to support those who can find no work to do.
There are certainly some who can never s0 back, until Bolshevism changes altogether: they fought hard against it and are proscribed. But these are the people who, having more educat and initiative than the others, have managed to find employment: The great majority of refugees, we think it would be correct to say, Ulindly followed their leaders. There was no very rear reason why they should fly from Russia and there is less why they should not return, But as it has been estimated that there are some 50,000 of them scattered about China, it is, as often pointed out, utterly beyond the power of any private organization to send them back. The Refugee Relief Committee of Shanghai has really done wonders. It has somehow managed to keep its soup kitchens going; it has repatriated some
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