Lord Pauncefote to Mr. Hay.
Washington, February 27, 1902.
Sir: In my note dated April 28, 1892, I had the honor, by direction of the Marquis of Salisbury, to notify to your Government the decision of Her Majesty’s Government that the British protectorate of Zanzibar, including all the dominions of the Sultan, both on the island and on the mainland, should be placed under the terms of Article XCI of the act of Brussels from the 6th of April, 1892, within “the zone of prohibition of alcoholic liquors.”
Since that date the territories under British protection in East Africa have from time to time been reorganized. They are now constituted under the respective titles of the British Central Africa Protectorate (formerly styled Nyasaland), the protectorate of Zanzibar, the East Africa Protectorate (comprising among other districts the mainland dominions of the Sultan of Zanzibar, the Sultanate of Witu, and the adjacent territory extending northward to Kismayu), and the protectorate of Uganda.
In order to avoid the possibility of any misapprehension as to the position of these territories with regard to the stipulations of the Brussels act respecting the trade in distilled liquors, I am directed by His Majesty’s principal secretary of state for foreign affairs to notify to your Government, as being one of the signatory powers of that instrument, that each of the aforesaid protectorates is and remains placed within the zone of total prohibition, under Article XCI of the Brussels act, and, further., that it has now been decided to place the British Somaliland Protectorate within the same zone.
I have, etc.,