883.05/242
The Secretary of State to the Minister in Egypt (Howell)
Sir: The Department acknowledges the receipt of your despatch No. 97, of June 16, 1922, with which you transmitted a copy of a communication [Page 109] from the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, referring to previous correspondence concerning the terms of this Government’s consent to the indefinite prolongation of the Mixed Court arrangement and requesting an assurance that this Government does not seek a privileged position with respect to the conditions under which it may withdraw from the arrangement and that it will not withdraw without having given notice of its intention one year in advance of its withdrawal.
You may assure the Foreign Office that the Government of the United States does not seek a privileged position in this matter and that, in the absence of such modifications in the existing arrangement as would render it doubtful whether American citizens could obtain in the Mixed Courts the same impartial justice now administered in those Courts, this Government will not withdraw from the Mixed Court arrangement without having given notice of its intention so to do at least one year in advance of its actual withdrawal. In this relation you may again refer to the terms of the President’s Proclamation of March 27, 1876, and particularly to the two paragraphs of the Proclamation which read as follows:
“And whereas satisfactory information has been received by me that the government of Egypt has organized other tribunals on a basis likely to secure to citizens of the United States in the dominions subject to such government the impartial justice which they now enjoy there under the judicial functions exercised by the minister, consuls, or other functionaries of the United States, pursuant to the said act of Congress approved June 22, 1860:
“Now, therefore, I, Ulysses S. Grant, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the power and authority conferred upon me by the said act, approved March 23, 1874, do hereby suspend during the pleasure of the President the operation of the said act approved June 22, 1860, as to the said dominions, subject to the government of Egypt in which such tribunals have been organized, so far as the jurisdiction of said tribunals may embrace matters now cognizable by the minister, consuls, or other functionaries of the United States in said dominions, except as to cases actually commenced before the date hereof.”
In this connection it may be stated that the reservation made by this Government in signifying its consent to the indefinite prolongation of the Mixed Court arrangement was made in contemplation of the proposal, at that time under consideration, for a radical reorganization of the Mixed Courts.
I am [etc.]