The statement made at the last: meeting of the Central Committee formed for the relief of destitute Russians, that a certain number of them had applied to be sent back to Russia but that the means were not avaible; gives food for thought and desire for action. The Chinese authorities (as need hardly be said) have no funds and the railway people at Harbin will not provide free transport. Upon the whole one does not quite see why they should. But this project of sending back any Russians who can lo persuaded to go to their own country is clearly one on which charity might fasten. There are, we feel sure, plenty of people in Shanghai who would very gladly give money for such a purpose, promising, as it does, some final disposal of the refugee problem. The matter of a passport will hardly present difficulties. Russians have already been repatnated in small numbers from Manchuria and no refugee whom the Soviet might he supposed to "want" would be likely to present himself for entry.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.