390D.1163/4
The Secretary of State to the Consul General at Beirut (Palmer)
Sir: The Department has received your despatch No. 37 of June 1, 1938, regarding the request of the Christian and Missionary Alliance for your assistance in obtaining permission to construct a church and school building at Tesia, Hauran. You point out that the French authorities in Syria have refused this request on the grounds that “the extension of the activity of the ‘Christian and Missionary Alliance’ in the Djebel Druze might tend to create troubles among the various elements of the population of that region”.
The provision in Article 10 of the Mandate for Syria reading “the activities of these religious missions shall in no way be restricted” is interpreted by the Department to guarantee to American mission groups the right to extend their activities. This interpretation is supported by assurances given the Italian Government by the French Government and extended to the United States in a note from the French Minister of Foreign Affairs to the American Ambassador at Paris dated November 2, 1923.55 The assurances given the Italian Government included the following:
“The French Government gives to the Italian Government the assurance that the object of Article 10 of the mandate for Syria and the Lebanon will not be to prevent the opening of new Italian schools nor to limit the right of these schools to receive pupils from other communities. The supervision of the mandate will be limited strictly to [Page 1046] what is required by public order and a good administration. It adds that there is no intention of authorizing any arbitrary intervention in the internal affairs of any faith.”
Although the above assurances appear to refer particularly to schools, the inclusion of the word “faith” seems to indicate that the paragraph may be extended to cover religious institutions. Furthermore, since the French Government has accepted, in the above quoted assurance, the principle of extension, at least as applied to schools, and since Article 10 of the Mandate does not differentiate between the treatment to be accorded the educational as opposed to the religious activities of mission organizations, it is apparent that the principle of extension is fully applicable to all mission activity.
The right which religious missions enjoy to extend their activities is, however, susceptible of restriction by the Mandatory Power in the exercise of its authority to supervise the missions to the degree necessary for the maintenance of public order and good government. The Mandatory Power may not restrict the activities of missions on any grounds other than those cited. If, therefore, the French authorities had refused to the Christian and Missionary Alliance the right to build at Tesia solely on the grounds that the Mission would thereby be extending its activities and that under the terms of the Mandate the Mandatory Power was authorized to prohibit any extension, you would be justified in protesting the decision. However, since the refusal was based on the provision regarding the maintenance of public order, no grounds are perceived for protesting the decision, in the absence of an indication that the decision was unreasonable or discriminatory.
In view of your description of the Mission’s past activity, and particularly in view of the recent murder of an evangelical missionary in Iraq56 for reasons which appear to have been entirely religious, the Department is inclined to the opinion that the French authorities may not have been unwarranted in their view that public order might be endangered by the erection of the proposed building.
You are requested to follow the situation closely, and to report to the Department any evidence which may appear to you to indicate a discrimination in favor of other missionary groups in your district. In the absence of more cogent reasons than those which have been furnished you by the Mission, you should take no further action in an attempt to persuade the French authorities to rescind their decision.
Very truly yours,
- Foreign Relations, 1923, vol. ii, p. 4.↩
- The Reverend Roger Craig Cumberland, an American Presbyterian missionary, was murdered in Iraq on June 12, 1938.↩