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Experts’ Body Favors Philippines As Haven for Refjgees; Report to Be Aired at Parley Here

October 12, 1939
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A favorable report on prospects for settlement of refugees from Central Europe in the Philippines has been turned in by an experts’ commission sent to the islands by President Roosevelt’s Advisory Committee on Refugees, it was learned today.

The report, which was completed several days ago, will be considered by the President’s committee, which is headed by James G. MacDonald, at a meeting in New York on Friday and will be transmitted to officers of the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees when they meet at the White House on Oct. 16 and 17 on President Roosevelt’s invitation.

Manuel Quezon, president of the Philippine Commonwealth, indicated before the commission sailed from Manila last March that his Government was agreeable to accepting refugee immigration if the commission found the Commonwealth would support them. At the time, he mentioned a figure of 10,000 as the number he believed the islands could accommodate.

The experts’ commission included O.D. Hargis, chairman, agricultural expert of the Goodyear Rubber Company, who conducted experiments on the island of Mindanao; Dr. Stanton Youngberg, director of the Philippine Bureau of Agriculture; Dr. Robert L. Pendleton, for many years advisor to the Government of Siam; Captain Hugh Casey, of the United States Army Corps of Engineers, and Dr. Howard F. Smith.

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