THE REFUGEE TRAGEDY
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR]
Sta,—The article in your last issue by Sir John Hope Simpson will cause many of us to wish that Great Britain had been as active in the service of the refugees as Czechoslovakia or France.
The most suggestive part of the article however is that in which he refutes the suggestion that the admission of refugees will reduce the amount of employment available for nationals of the receiving country.
The problem of the refugees is now so great that a detailed enquiry into this question would be most valuable.
I think it would be found that the reception of refugees, selected subject to certain standards of age, education, health, and character and under suitable limitation of employment, will not diminish the employment available to nationals, but will rather increase it.
Were such an enquiry undertaken it might well be shown. that the addition to any community of a body of young, strong, active and industrious people, with a long life before them, was not a doubtful liability but a definite asset, particularly when it is remembered that they would constitute an addition to the most valuable age groups and that their adolesence and education has imposed no charge on the country receiving them.
An enquiry into the results of controlled immigration might well be initiated by the Conference at Evian and form a valuable basis on which countries might base their policy towards
refugees.—Yours faithfully, HERBERT BUTCHER. House of Commons Library.
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