• The End of- U.N.R.R.A.
On Monday U.N.R.R.A. missions in Europe ceased to exist and only a small body of officials will remain to supervise shipments of supplies which will continue in diminishing quantities till the end of this year. Thus the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, " the first international organisation set up . . . for the purpose of-carrying out a large-scale programme of action," which was brought into being by forty-four nations in November, 1943,and has employed men and women from forty different countries, has • formally come to an end. There have been the inevitable criticisms— of slowness, of the wrong type of personnel, of a concentration on relief at the expense of rehabilitation—but a report issued by the Director-General, Major-General L. W. Rooks, gives some idea of "' the vast amount the organisation has accomplished. The first full shipload of supplies was despatched to Europe two months before V.E. Day, and by the end of its operations U.N.R.R.A. will have delivered £75o,000,000 of supplies to seventeen countries—mainly in southern and eastern Europe. It has cared for war orphans and helped to repatriate the 7,000,000 displaced persons left at the end of the war. In spite of the urgent need to concentrate on food
.A
U.N.R.R. has spent £25o,000,000 on rebuilding the internal economics of the shattered countries, and it has expended altogether three times the amount spent on relief after the first world war. But " the threat of hunger and the possibility of general economic collapse ► remain," and the question now arises : What is to take U.N.R.R.A.'s • place? The International Refugee Organisation—or, rather, its Preparatory Commission, as it is not yet fully functioning—has accepted responsibility for the remaining displaced persons. Presi- dent Truman's signature on Tuesday of a Bill making the United States a member of I.R.O., thereby adding to its funds a contribution of $73,5oo,000 for the next twelve months, will add substantially to the organisation's, scope and prestige. As for economic aid, the chief hope lies with the agreements the countries of of Europe may reach in response to the Marshall speech.
Previous page
