862q.01/9: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in France (Herrick)35
222. Your 283, July 12, 7 P.M.
When the Memorandum of July 8, relating to the French mandates for Togoland and the Cameroons was handed to the French Ambassador at Washington, the Department had not received full revised text of mandates, which were enclosed with your despatches No. 208436 and 2086 of June 30, 1922. You will make this clear to M. Poincaré when handing him Memorandum in the sense of the following:
My Government has now received a full text of the note from the Foreign Office to the Embassy dated June 28, 1922,37 regarding the mandate for the Cameroons, together with the text in full of the draft treaties for the Cameroons and Togoland and the text of [Page 152] the mandates as now proposed by the French Government for those territories.
With respect to the suggestion of the French Government that the phrase “subject to the supervision which would be necessary for the maintenance of good administration” be included in Article 7 of the mandates, my Government, as heretofore been pointed out, feels that such a limitation would cast a doubt on the efficacy of the entire Article. If the French Government insists on its retention in the mandate, my Government would consider it necessary that there should be inserted in the Convention between the United States and France relative to this mandate the Article which was proposed for insertion into the conventions respecting the mandates for Palestine and for Syria and the Lebanon, namely, the following:
“Subject to the provisions of any local law for the maintenance of public order and public morals, the nationals of the United States will be permitted freely to establish and maintain educational, philanthropic, and religious institutions in the mandate territory, to receive voluntary applicants, and to teach in the English language.”
It is gratifying to my Government to note that it is in accord with the French Government with regard to other points relating to the form of the mandate and the convention between the two Governments. There is no objection to the French Government’s suggestion with respect to the recital concerning the Treaty between the United States and Germany. It is understood that, in accordance with that suggestion, the recital would read as follows:
Whereas benefits accruing under the aforesaid Article 119 of the Treaty of Versailles were confirmed to the United States by the Treaty between the United States and Germany, signed on August 25, 1921, to restore friendly relations between the two nations.
As has heretofore been stated, my Government considers that there is no substantial difference in the text of Article 1 of the convention as originally proposed by the French Government and the English text proposed by my Government, and the same seems true with reference to the language now proposed by the French Government. Either expression in the French text is acceptable to my Government.