EFFECTS OF REFUGEE MOVEMENTS Broadly speaking, the general features of these movements of population may be summarized as follows : The great emigration of Russian political refugees was, in the first instance, regarded as an almost unmixed evil both for Europe and for the refugees themselves. Their great suffering was not, in the early stages, compensated by any considerable political or economic gain. This is not equally true, however, of the move ment of population in the Balkans and in the Near East. These movements have at least done a great deal towards the effective unmixing of the populations in these areas. The mixture of popu lations has led to so much political trouble in modern times that this unmixing process must be regarded as a very considerable advantage.
Further, in certain countries the influx of refugees, while at first it appeared to be a disaster, is in the long run proving to be a source of strength. This is particularly true of Greece, where, thanks to arrangements which will be mentioned shortly, the refugees were absorbed very quickly into the economic system of the country, where they have immensely increased the agricul tural production and have imported industries hitherto unknown. There is no doubt that they have thus much improved the political position of Greece by giving it a homogeneous and vigorous new population and by increasing the economic wealth of the nation as a whole. It appears probable that the same result will in due course happen in Bulgaria, though there the process has been much slower, as the refugees showed less inclination to accept their exile as definitive and to settle down in new homes, than those who went from Asia Minor to Greece.
Another result of general importance which has followed the movement of population caused by the war is that Asia Minor has been left almost exclusively to the Turks. Hitherto inhabited by a very mixed population, including elements which continued the traditions of the ancient civilization of Byzantium, there are now few of these elements left. Furthermore it should be noted that the Russian emigration, which, as already stated, was re garded as an unmixed evil for the refugees and for the countries offering them hospitality, is, under the guidance of the League of Nations and the International Labour Office, beginning, in certain countries, especially France, to constitute an important recon structive economic factor.
These changes, whether they be good or evil, have only come about at the cost of terrible suffering to all the individuals con cerned. This is true even of those who have been moved under treaties of exchange though of course their sufferings have been much less than those who fled before invaders. It is the personal
aspects of refugee movements which generally dominate the minds of people when they consider refugee questions ; and no doubt these personal aspects are of supreme importance, not only on account of the claim of the refugees to the humanitarian sym pathy of every civilized man and woman, but also because it is the personal problems of individual refugees, which, when they are taken collectively, make up the economic problems which their movements cause. And the economic problems brought upon the Governments of Europe by refugee movements since the war have been of great importance. In many countries they have seriously over-flooded the labour market, and in a number of centres the arrival of vast masses of strangers, wholly destitute and unable to find employment, threw a great burden on the financial re sources of the States to which they came, whose Governments, un willing to see them die of starvation, were literally obliged to fur nish them with doles from their national funds. This part of the problem is, however, much affected by the so-called Treaties for the Exchange of Population, on which, therefore, it is necessary to say a word.
Treaties of Exchange.—Under these treaties, the most im portant of which are the Greco-Turkish and the Greco-Bulgarian, impartial committees, consisting of one representative from each Government and two or three impartial experts appointed by the League of Nations, supervise or actually carry out the transporta tion of the persons moved from one country to the other, value their property, keep an exact record of it and establish their claim for this value against the Government of the country to which they go. These treaties of exchange have worked with varying success. So far as the Greco-Turkish Treaty is concerned, its principal and most necessary effect was to make room in Greece, by the removal of 350,000 Turks, for a great part of the incoming flood of refugees, who found in the evacuated Turkish properties fields and houses ready for their use. Without this treaty of exchange, and without a refugee settlement loan floated under the auspices of the League, the absorption of the Greek refugees into productive employment in their motherland could never have been done. On the other hand, the fate of the Turks transported under the treaty from Greece into Turkey and in the absence of such a loan, appears to have been less happy. Official information cannot be had, but it is obvious that the arrival of 350,000 refugees in a country whose total population does not exceed five millions, must necessarily impose a heavy burden on its resources already straitened by many years of war.