§ Lieut.-Commander FLETCHERasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is satisfied that the work of the Nansen Office can be liquidated by the end of 1938?
§ Viscount CRANBORNEA resolution was adopted by the Assembly of the League of Nations on 10th October which provided that one of the duties of the President of the Governing Body of the Nansen Office should be to draw up at an early date and if possible to submit to the Council at its session in May next a detailed scheme for the liquidation of the Nansen Office. In any event the report is to be in the hands of Governments before 31st July, 1937, in order that the scheme may be considered at the next ordinary session of the Assembly. Pending the receipt of this report and its consideration by the Assembly, it is impossible for my right lion. Friend to express any opinion on the question raised by the hon. and gallant Member.
§ Lieut.-Commander FLETCHERasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the fact that His Majesty's Government itself proposed a grant from the League of Nations for the settlement of Assyrian refugees, he will explain why His Majesty's Government declared that it could not support, or participate in, a loan to settle the Saar refugees?
§ Viscount CRANBORNEThe reason for which His Majesty's Government opposed, at the last Assembly of the League of Nations, the grant of a credit for the settlement of refugees from the1842W Saar territory was that such a grant would infringe the principle which the League had hitherto strictly maintained, namely, that League funds should not be used for the settlement or relief of refugees. As was fully explained by the representative of the United Kingdom, His Majesty's Government are unable to admit that an analogy can be drawn between the grant made by the Assembly in 1936 for the settlement of the Assyrians of Iraq and that which the Assembly made this year for the settlement of refugees from the Saar. In support of his view the United Kingdom representative pointed out that, in making the grant in favour of the Assyrians, the Assembly itself emphasised that the Assyrian question was not a refugee problem.