contributions as they can, in the perspective of their economic and social circumstances, to accept refugees for settlement and finance the ever increasing costs of this operation. The British Government is ready to play its role in this collective effort: we shall accept for settlement over the coming months a further ten thousand refugees, bringing our total commitment to approximately fourteen thousand. My Government has also decided, subject to the approval of the United Kingdom Parliament, to make a further £5 million available for dealing with the refugee problem in
South-East Asia over the next twelve months.
Let me make it perfectly clear, to you and to all the delegations present, that my Government does not condemn the Government of the Peoples' Republic of Vietnam when it allows
That is a charge its citizens to leave if they wish to. which we can bring with more force against other totalitariar regimes, although it is clearly easier for a person of some wealth to leave Vietnam than for a poor peasant farmer. What we condemn are the policies which seem expressly designe to force them to leave, and the unbelievable callousness whic
can condemn tens of thousands to death at sea.
Mr Secretary-General,
In the course of these two days, you will hear many
ideas and many proposals,
We shall not resolve all the
aspects of this tragedy before we leave.
But I look to you,
and to your summing up, to give us a clear direction for the coming months. I believe that that direction must contain
at least the following elements.
Firstly, we must introduce some order into the flow of refugees from the Vietnamese Government.
We must find a way
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