Australian Government - Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Advancing the interests of Australia and Australians internationally

Australian Government - Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Advancing the interests of Australia and Australians internationally

97 Department of External Affairs to Australian Delegation, United Nations

Cablegram [UNY] [1] 198 CANBERRA, 2 September 1946

MOST IMMEDIATE SECRET

Your UN.351. [2] International Refugee Organisation.

In view of heavy Australian contribution proposed and our substantial commitments for UNRRA we prefer to withhold final view on question of Australian participation in IRO pending examination by Interdepartmental committee.

2. Regarding the scale of contributions, Treasury concur in view that it is unnecessarily confusing to adopt a separate scale for IRO at this stage pending report from United Nations Contributions Committee and our view is that further action on scale of contributions should be deferred until Contributions Committee has made its report.

3. Treasury also comment that provision of $60 In. for large scale re-settlement in first financial year appears optimistic in view of present shipping shortages.

4. Please inform Secretary General of view in paragraphs 2 and 3.

1 Whereas cablegrams from the Delegation to Canberra were routinely prefixed 'United Nations' or 'UN', Canberra copies of cablegrams to New York were prefixed 'UNY' only spasmodically. The 'UNY' prefix was used regularly as a reference in replies from New York, and has been added in square brackets throughout this volume.

2 Dispatched 9 August, it expressed the view that the proposed financial contributions for the new organisation were inequitable and the estimated expenditure unduly large.

[AA:A18383/238, 861/1, i]

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