862i.01/34: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Wallace) to the Secretary of State
[Received 10:33 p.m.]
116. It is understood that both the A and the B mandates will come up for final consideration at first favorable opportunity at next meeting of the Council of the League of Nations which will take [Page 88] place on February 21 at Paris. According to information received, the Council is under pressure from interested parties, but is anxious to bring mandates into accord with the Covenant. American views may be reasonably expected to receive consideration of Council. Your oil note to the British Government92 is, of course, known to the Council, but I am informed that as the note has not been presented to them officially they cannot act on it.
I venture to submit for the Department’s consideration the following: In disposition of German possessions overseas we claim joint and equal rights with the four Great Powers. Before the Council can confirm and define any given mandate our consent must be obtained if not already given. We should in any case register formal protest against Council’s action of December 17 last in defining the terms of the Japanese mandate over former German islands, including Yap, lying north of the equator.93 As set forth in the mandate, this action rested on agreement between the Principal Allied and Associated Powers to confer the mandate upon Japan, when in fact the Principal Allied Powers had been notified of our dissent.94
- Note of Nov. 20, 1920, Foreign Relations, 1920, vol. ii, p. 669.↩
- See note of Feb. 17, 1921, from the Secretary General of the League of Nations, p. 118.↩
- See telegram no. 1136, Nov. 9, 1920, to the Ambassador in Great Britain, vol. ii, p. 263.↩