The regulations forbidding alien refugees to take paid work in
this country are intelligible enough, but the anomalies they sometimes lead to may well provoke reflec- tion—and perhaps some modification of policy. In one rural district in England there are about a hundred refugees, most of them skilled artisans, many of them carpenters. A firm of building contractors in a town not five miles away wrote last week to a customer : " We are sorry for the delay and slow progress in carrying out our work for you, but we are finding it exceedingly difficult to obtain more carpenters. We have made several applications to the Labour Exchange, and have been told there were none registering, but we were promised men would be sent along to us as soon as they became available."
Ordinary common sense would suggest that a refugee might at least be given a temporary job till the Employment Exchange could provide an Englishman. Why not let refugees register on the understanding that they are only recommended to employers when no suitable English labour is available? * * * *
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