President Roosevelt on Friday (April 1) announced that the United States will offer asylum to political refugees from all countries. The country, he declared would welcome representatives of all oppressed minorities.

While Mr. Cordell Hull, the Secretary of State, has invited nine European countries, the Dominions, and all the American nations to join in creating a committee to discuss the subject this the movement of refugees, and the American decision to permit refugees to enter this country is not dependent upon the committee's action.

There is no doubt that President Roosevelt's action will meet with a warm, popular response in this country. At the same time it must be noted that it represents a sharp change from recent general policy. For the past fourteen years there have been serious restrictions upon immigration; so much so that not more than about 140,000 persons have been allowed to enter the country annually as against the earlier average of 1,000,000. During some of the depression years after 1930 the United States actually lost more aliens, through their returning home, than it gained through immigration.

There have been numerous cases recently in which political refugees who entered the United States improperly have been deported to the countries from which they have escaped. Others have been threatened with such deportation and at the last moment have managed, with great difficulty, to obtain permission to go to some other land. From the Manchester Guardian.