882.5048/233: Telegram

The Chargé in Switzerland (Moffat) to the Secretary of State

19. Legation’s 17, February 7, noon.18 Drummond telephoned this noon that he had just appointed Dr. Cuthbert Christy, a wellknown African explorer and expert in tropical medicine, as your [sic] League member on the Liberian Inquiry Commission in the place [Page 341] of Meek. Christy has already left Geneva in order to complete his arrangements and sail next week from Rotterdam on the same ship as Johnson. Sir Eric said that he had long regarded the appointment of any Britisher as excluded but that despite an intensive search he could not find any other qualified candidate who would agree to accept service on the Commission or who could leave on short notice. He asked me to say that he had been greatly impressed with Christy’s personality and could guarantee that his inquiry would be unbiased and independent of any political considerations. Sottile18a stated that the Liberian Government might not like the selection and wished his name submitted to Monrovia for agreement; Drummond refused to do so (see Carter’s telegram from Geneva of December 17)19 telling Sottile that Liberia had asked the League to appoint a member and that in the circumstances any objections would give rise to a suspicion that Liberia did not desire the Commission to operate.

Parenthetically Christy told Sir Eric that the Commission could in all probability continue to function if necessary, even after the onset of the rainy season.

The following is a biography of Dr. Christy as complete as I was able to transcribe it over the telephone:

1898 to 1900 senior medical officer in Northern Nigeria; 1900 to 1901 special medical officer in Bombay for plague; 1902 member of Uganda Sickness Commission; 1903 Assistant Lecturer Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine; 1903 to 1904 studied sleeping sickness in the Congo; 1906 visited Ceylon; 1906 to 1909 in Uganda and East Africa; 1909 to 1910 in Nigeria, the Gold Coast and Cameroons; 1911 published a technical book on African rubber industry; 1911 to 1914 in the Congo making a natural history collection on behalf of the Belgian Government; during the war worked on malaria and sleeping sickness in Mesopotamia, the Sudan and the Congo; 1919 Royal Geographical medal for exploration in Central Africa; 1925 to 1928 in Tanganyika; 1928 to 1929 collecting in French Equatorial West Africa.

Drummond added that he must be well known to the eminent specialists in the Department.

Moffat
  1. Not printed.
  2. Liberian representative at Geneva.
  3. Not printed.