The Government and Czech Refugees
It is difficult to resist the conclusion that the Cabinet is acting rather shabbily in the matter of financial support for Czech refugees. Immediately after Munich the Govern- ment promised a loan of £4,000,000 for the purpose of settling refugees from the Sudetenland in the remaining areas of Czecho-Slovakia. This was in addition to the gift of £4,000,000—a generous act for which full credit has been given—earmarked for migration and settlement outside Czecho-Slovakia. After the occupation of Prague it was clear that the loan could no longer be used for its original purpose, and the Government completely withdrew it. Since then, owing to the greatly increased number of fugitives from the former Czecho-Slovakia, the original gift of £4,000,00o has proved inadequate. Refugee workers urge that the Government may reasonably be called on to provide a further L2,000,000. That submission is based in the first place on the fact that it is only the occupation of Prague which has enabled Ministers to escape the necessity of implementing their promise of a loan, and in the second on the debt of gratitude to the Czech people which the Govern- ment acknowledged in September. There are other con- siderations. The Government has been relieved of the necessity of making a £4,000,000 loan, the security for which in the political circumstances existing was distinctly pre- carious. There was also a certain pledge to defend the frontiers of Bohemia and Moravia as fixed at Munich in September, 1938. The payment of L2,000,000 instead of what the honouring of that bond might cost does not seem excessive.
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