711.842/7
The Consul General at Addis Ababa (Wood) to the Secretary of State
[Received July 11.]
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of the Department’s No. 4 of January 9, 19142 in regard to the Order in Council of His Majesty the King of Great Britain establishing a system of Consular Courts in Abyssinia.
In the seventh section of the French treaty with the Ethiopian Empire, signed the 10th of January, 1908, a consular jurisdiction was granted to the French Government and under the most favored nation clause has been extended to all the other foreign powers represented here. The British Consuls in Abyssinia and the Consul-General in Adis Ababa have exercised this right from the very date of said treaty. There was no system in the procedure and criticism in [of] the manner in which cases were conducted resulted in a study of the best system for this country culminating in the aforesaid Order in Council, a copy of which is being mailed the Department under separate cover.2
The French Government passed a special law the 16th of November, 1909 regarding the application of the law in civil and criminal cases before the French consuls in Abyssinia. There was a Royal Decree of the Italian Government dealing with the extension of consular jurisdiction in this country, proclaimed about the same time; and I am informed by the Italian Minister here that his Government intends to issue a special order covering all questions affecting consular rights in Abyssinia. All of the other Powers here hold their consular courts and we have claimed and exercised the same consular rights.
Although not specifically granted in said French treaty all questions between foreigners are adjudicated in the consular court of the defendant. This applies to criminal as well as civil cases. Cases between foreigners and Abyssinians theoretically follow the terms of the said treaty. The Italians have managed to prevent their subjects from being tried in Abyssinian courts for criminal offences. It will be noted in the last part of Section 7 of said French treaty that the Abyssinian Government binds itself to deliver to the Consuls all foreigners arrested. The foreign powers have claimed that their citizens who have committed any offences against other foreigners should be tried by their own consular [Page 231] officials and although the Abyssinian Government has contended to the contrary, still it has allowed this procedure to be established without protest. The Abyssinian courts have thus been shorn of a large part of their sovereign rights and all to the advantage of justice in this country as it is quite impossible for foreigners to secure fair treatment in the Abyssinian tribunals as now constituted. The delays are innumerable and for almost any trivial cause; the corruption of the officials is recognized by everybody.
Some of the leading Abyssinian officials date all of their troubles with the foreigners to the signing of the French treaty and they are determined to refuse to renew the part granting extraterritorial jurisdiction. This struggle will not take place for four years but it can be easily foreseen that the British, French and Italian Governments will not relinquish what they now have, obtained partly by the French Treaty and partly from established usage. It has been for this reason most difficult to convince the Abyssinian Ministry that our proposed treaty does not contain any absolute extraterritorial rights but only conditional. I am quite convinced, however, that the majority appreciate the distinction but for certain political reasons the Minister of Foreign Affairs desires that we not insist on a ten-year treaty but only a four, so as to end with or about the time of the expiration of the French treaty. In my opinion we will lose nothing by such a concession and the Abyssinian Government will be under moral obligation to assist us in many ways.
I have [etc.]