Speech #800189726

That is necessary if the Marshall plan is to function as the American Congress and Government hope It will. Further down on the same page will be found the statement that among 520.00 ablebodied displaced persons more than 60 percent have skills. An official document of the State Department of the United States. a department with lobbyists swarming around this Chamber at this time lobbying for the pending bill. states that 60 percent of 520.000 they checked have skills. and that 677.000 additional workers are needed by immigration if the Marshall plan is to succeed. Thus. Mr. President. in Europe alone. according to our State Department. there is evidence that the major part of the population in the camps we maintain for displaced persons can be absorbed into Europes industry or agricultural life. If we do not make the Marshall plan work. if it does not function as we expect it will. if it is not possible to get the manpower. we will be asked next year for additional money. If we take the official documents of the American Government. showing the requests of other countries for labor by immigration. there is no necessity in the world for the passage of the pending bill. Arthur Caldwell. Australian Immigration Commissioner. recently stated. as quoted in a New York Times article. "If we could bring 200.000 adult and junior workers here tomorrow. Australia would give them all work within a week." Another newspaper article bears this headline "South America wants 7.000.000 immigrants in 10 years." Robert Prigent. Minister of Population in France. declared recently. "Unless we Impc t 3.000.000 workers within next 10 years. France cannot survive." Mr. President. those are requests for millions of immigrants. They can be absorbed in Europe. and they are asking that they be absorbed there. If the displaced persons desire to work and better their condition.. I want to know why they do not stay In Europe. cooperating under the Marshall plan. If they would make good citizens of the United States. why is it that the countries which are asking for immigrants do not take them? Why are we asked to take people whom Australia and other countries will not permit to come within their borders? Why is it that the missions go there and pass these people y. if they would make good. substantial American citizens? To say that the displaced persons have nowhere else to go except to the United States. as the displaced persons lobbyists say. is simply to disseminate misinformation. in my opinion. The real solution of the displacedpersons problem is to requil2 the beneficiaries of the Marshall plan. especially the French- and British Empires. with their vast unsettled areas. to accept these people as immigrants as i condition precedent to granting these nations additional loans. This would be a popular and constructive feature to add to the Marshall plan. Mr. President. I submit that if any attention in the world had been given to that plan as a condition to granting loans to those countries--they say they need the immigrants. they say they have to have themwe would have had this problem settled. All this Government has to do now is to make demand that they take these people. and the displacedpersons problem. will be settled. There will be a solution. and. mind you.