A.—sd.

Transfer in the Budget for 1937. Additional money was required to meet —(1) the cost of the Extraordinary Assembly held in May last, and (2) the cost occasioned by the hiring of a hall for the meeting of the Eighteenth Assembly owing to the non-completion of the new Assembly Hall, which, when the Budget for 1937 was framed, it was hoped would be completed in time for the Eighteenth Assembly. The Council, having noted the situation, passed the following resolution (Document C. 438, 1937, X) : — " The Council — Authorizes the following transfer within Chapter I of the Budget for 1937 : " 20,000 Swiss francs from Item 3, ' Conferences,' to Item 1, 'Assembly'." Council Committee for the Settlement of the Assyrians of Iraq. Document C. 439, 1937 : This relates to the replacement of a Spanish national by the national of another State consequent on Spain's having ceased to be a member of the Council. Roumania was invited to fill the vacancy, and her representative agreed to this. Council Procedure : Report of the Committee. A small Committee of five persons has been considering certain points in connection with Council procedure, and its report (Document C. 395, 1937) was laid before the Council, which approved it. The findings of the Committee are of academic interest only. In the words of the Rapporteur, their general tendency was to codify an established practice. Constitution, Procedure, and Practice of Committees of the League of Nations. The Chairman introduced his report (Document C. 435, 1937), which concerns the submission for approval by the Council of the rules of procedure drafted by the International Committee of Intellectual Co-operation for its use. These rules (see Document C. 327, M. 220, 1937, XII (Appendix 12) were approved by the Council. The Council then met in public. The proceedings began with a few words of welcome by the President to the new members-— Belgium, Iran, and Peru—and of thanks for the assistance rendered by the States which had recently retired—Chile, Spain, and Turkey. The Council then turned its attention to the following matters Settlement of the Assyrians of Iraq. If you will refer to the report of the New Zealand delegate on the Sixteenth Assembly you will find that he devoted a few paragraphs to this subject when it came before the Assembly for the first tittle in 1935. At a late hour that year a demand was made for a supplementary credit of no less than 400,000 francs, to be followed by other credits in succeeding years, as the League's contribution towards the expenses of settling in Syria, governed under mandate by France, Assyrians (a Christian race) who had fled to Iraq during the war from their mountain home in what was, and still is, a part of Turkey. The Assyrians were then looked upon as "an alien element in Iraq," and as such underwent considerable suffering. In 1935 the future looked bright. Land was available for communal settlement, but it had to be reclaimed and partly irrigated, and financial assistance was needed. The British Government was prepared to find five-twelfths of the cost of settlement, provided its contribution did not exceed £250,000, and also providing that the Government of Iraq contributed a like amount, but £500,000 was insufficient, and, although contributions from private sources were hoped for, there Was a balance to be met. Although many delegates at the Sixteenth Assembly had misgivings, the Assembly voted 400,000 francs, and promised a total contribution of 1,300,000 francs. But the scheme has failed. It will not be long before Syria becomes an independent State under an arrangement similar to that which obtained in Iraq, formerly mandated to the United Kingdom, and there is doubt whether a small minority, such as the Assyrians would form, would, in the changed political conditions, be better off in Syria than it is in Iraq. The story from July, 1936, when the Council approved the abandonment of the plan for the settlement of the Assyrians of Iraq in the Ghab Plains (the Syrian project), to the present day is briefly but admirably told in a report submitted to the Council by the Council's " Committee For the Settlement of the Assyrians of Iraq " (Document C. 387, M. 258, 1937, VII), to which I refer you. The Syrians may be divided into two bodies, those who settled (but not under the auspices of the League) in the upper valley of the Khabur (a settlement which would have become subsidiary to the Ghab Plains scheme), and those who are still in Iraq. As to the former, they will remain in the Khabur Valley, and, as to the latter, they will as far as possible become ordinary citizens of Iraq. But the British Government has had to confess that owing to the political and economic conditions of the modern world it is not possible to settle anywhere a whole community, and, further, that although that Government had applied to every territory under British administration it was without result. It is a sorry story. But the Council could do nothing but listen to one or two sympathetic speeches, including a conciliatory one by the representative of Iraq, who had been called to the Council table, and to pass, on the motion of the Chairman of the Council Committee, the representative of Latvia, a resolution couched in the following terms : " The Council— " (1) Expresses its deep regret that, despite all the efforts of its Assyrian Committee during the last four years, it has not proved possible to carry through a comprehensive scheme for the resettlement outside Iraq of all such Assyrians as have expressed the desire to leave that country ; " (2) Adopts the report of the Committee, and in particular approves the proposals recommended therein for the reorganization of the Khabur settlement on a fully selfsupporting basis, and authorizes the Committee to proceed with their execution ;

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