852.48/276: Telegram
The Consul at Geneva (Bucknell) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 4—5:42 p.m.]
273. My telegram 272, November 4, 5 p.m.56 Report answers three following questions in the affirmative:
- 1.
- Is refugee population in Republican Spain in need of food relief?
- 2.
- Are the refugees differentiated from native civil population?
- 3.
- Can a scheme be devised whereby food supplies provided would be distributed to the refugees and the refugees only?
The report agrees that the winter peak of refugees set by the Government at about three million seems a probable approximation.
It advises against setting up an independent organization for relief distribution if only because of time factor and recommends:
- (a)
- Utilization and reenforcement of existing Government medium of communication enlisting collaboration and assisting expansion of all voluntary relief organizations such as International Commissary for the Assistance of Child Refugees in Spain, the Society of Friends and the Swiss Relief.
- (b)
- The appointment of a relief commissioner working in close collaboration with the Spanish Government to supervise and energize the refugee relief organization. Such commissioner would probably need a deputy at Barcelona, Madrid and Valencia, a small central office and a staff of about eight Spanish speaking inspectors equipped with light vans. Some augmentation of existing motor transport facilities would be essential to ensure efficiency of distribution.
- (c)
- The ration proposed by the Spanish Government appears to represent a bare but fair minimum.
- (d)
- Report stresses urgency and magnitude of problem and states that even under the most favorable conditions it would take considerable time to get any relief scheme into full swing and that present private organizations cannot do more than touch the fringe of the problem. While asking that such organizations receive increasing support report urges that no time be lost in obtaining help from governments and especially from nations with surplus stock of wheat, dried fish, skimmed milk, cocoa and other essential supplies.
- (e)
- Attaches Spanish Government’s financial proposals in a separate memorandum in which Government asks for relief amounting to 476,000 pounds per month; hopes that the League of Nations will lend this assistance offering to give in return most formal assurances that the saving on its own expenditure which may be brought about by such assistance will be wholly employed in improving the diet of that part of the civil population which is suffering most severely through reduction of its standard of living; suggests that the humanitarian purposes to be met should be supported by gifts but that the Government would be prepared, insofar as the 476,000 pounds could not be provided by gifts, to arrange a credit operation on the security of promissory notes principal and interest of which might be paid off within period of 10 to 15 years from the close of the war.
I learn in confidence that Pickett of the Friends Service Committee has cabled the Secretariat to the effect that he has been informed, presumably by Secretary Hull and Norman Davis, that while the American authorities agree that a relief commissioner should be appointed they fear that his appointment by the League might give an impression of partiality toward the Government side and that they have suggested that since the Friends Service Committee is an impartial organization it should be asked by the League to make the appointment. Pickett added that if this were done he was assured of ample continued supplies. From what I have been able to learn the Secretariat agrees that the appointment should not be made by the League and I understand that Avenol57 feels that the League’s connection with the project should terminate with the publication of the Bray–Webster report. The Secretariat feels, however, that it would be difficult for the League to make such a request of a private organization particularly as there are other private organizations active in Spain. If it is desired that the appointment be made by the Friends Service Committee, however, they believe that the request could better be made by the Spanish Government. The Secretariat feels strongly that the Commissioner should be an American.