340.1115A/1049: Telegram
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Kennedy) to the Secretary of State
[Received July 2—8:07 a.m.]
1926. For Assistant Secretary Long. Status of the Washington is approximately as follows: first class—550 sold out of 1200 available, tourist—650 sold out of 700, steerage—200 sold out of 200, that is 1400 sold out of a total of some 1900. These figures are as of last night. Today the first class is selling better than the tourist class. It looks like we might have about another couple of hundred which makes a total of about 1600. Now as to the British refugee children. As under the immigration law nobody can pay the fares of an immigrant, the possibility of sending a couple of hundred children who cannot afford to pay is out of the question. I called Shakespeare17 representing the British Government’s evacuation scheme and offered to take care of at least 100 refugees but he informed me that administratively they could not put any children on the boat. We have several families [Page 138] now who can afford to pay their way but in most cases we will have to send either a nurse or mother along with them, children in some cases being as young as 7 months old. There is not going to be any great number of these cases, but we are working hard to get the boat as nearly filled as possible. Is there any objection to my giving permission to mothers or nurses if absolutely necessary to enable the children to sail?
- Geoffrey Shakespeare, British Under Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs.↩