Office of the Historian

711.4115A/37

The British Ambassador (Howard) to the Secretary of State

Washington, March 7, 1928.
No. 119

Sir: I have the honour to refer to your note of August 20th last,55 in which you proposed that the United States Government and His Majesty’s Government should enter upon negotiations for the conclusion of a treaty to accomplish the definitive delimitation of the boundary on certain islands on the East coast of Borneo which are now being administered by the British North Borneo Company in conformity with the Agreement concluded between the United States and Great Britain on July 10th, 1907.56

On instructions from His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, I now have the honour to inform you that the proposals submitted in your note under reference are acceptable to His Majesty’s Government, and that they are willing to enter into the necessary negotiations for an agreement on this question.

In accepting the invitation of the United States Government to conduct these negotiations at Washington, Secretary Sir Austen Chamberlain instructs me to inform you that the following points arising out of my note No. 279 of April 21st, 1926,57 appear suitable for treatment during the coming discussions and will be raised at that time:

(1)
The establishment of an effective United States police post on one of those islands in the vicinity of Turtle Islands which the [Page 986] boundary now proposed by the United States will embrace within American territory.
(2)
The determination of an amount payable to the British North Borneo Company by way of compensation for the lighthouse at present operated by the Company at Taganac Island, which the Philippine Government are prepared to take over and maintain.
(3)
An undertaking from the United States Government that, in the event of any subsequent transfer to a third State of the Islands forming the subject of negotiation, the Islands in question will remain subject to the restrictive provisions respecting fortification attaching to them under Article 19 of the Washington Naval Treaty.58

I have [etc.]

Esmb Howard
  1. Ibid., p. 779.↩
  2. Ibid., 1907, pt. ii, p. 548.↩
  3. Ibid., 1927, vol. ii, p. 777.↩
  4. Treaty between the United States of America, the British Empire, France, Italy, and Japan, signed Feb. 6, 1922; Foreign Relations, 1922, vol. i, pp. 247, 252.↩