Foreign Office.

Part of Civil Estimates, Supplementary Estimate, 1938. – in the House of Commons at on 20 March 1939.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mr Philip Noel-Baker Mr Philip Noel-Baker , Derby

I do not want to detain the House, I only want to ask again of the Noble Lord a question I put in Committee. Have any decisions yet been made as regards bringing the new categories of refugees within the scope of the Inter-Governmental Committee on Refugees or the League of Nations High Commission? In Committee I urged upon him that the Spanish refugees ought now to be put under the auspices of the High Commissioner of the League, who is also the new director of the Evian Committee.

Since we had that Debate we have now had a new category of refugees, those who have come from Czecho-Slovakia. There will be a large number of the leaders of Czecho-Slovakia who will now come as refugees from their own country to a foreign land. We all hope that their absence from their native country will be very short. The point is that they will be refugees and will need help and support. I venture to urge once more on the Government that it is a matter of urgent public importance to our own country and to the world that this refugee problem, which is continually extending in new countries, should be dealt with as a single problem and through the organisation which has been set up.