882.796/43
The British Embassy to the Department of State
Aide-Mémoire
His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom have received the aide-mémoire of the Department of State dated February 17th,62 and have noted with appreciation the action of the United States Government in arranging facilities for British Overseas Airways Corporation aircraft on transport duty to refuel in Liberia.
At the same time His Majesty’s Government observe that in the final paragraph of the Department’s aide-mémoire reference is made to the inherent suspicion of British motives entertained by the Liberian Government owing to “various acts in the past which the Liberians have interpreted as encroachments on Liberian territory from the neighboring British Colony of Sierra Leone”.
His Majesty’s Government think it desirable to point out that in respect of the period covering the last thirty-seven years the facts are as follows:—The undemarcated boundary between Sierra Leone and Liberia was the cause of much friction during the years following 1906 but the matter was settled in 1914. In 1929 the Sierra Leone Government reported that a certain piece of territory which had been regarded as part of the Sierra Leone Protectorate was actually Liberian territory. Proposals for the adjustment of the matter involving the return of the territory in question to Liberia were readily accepted by the Liberian Government who expressed gratification at the “just and even generous attitude of His Majesty’s Government”. Since that date relations between Sierra Leone and Liberia have been normal.