867n.01/442
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain (Houghton)
Sir: The Department desires to confirm its telegram of even date33 informing you that it would be prepared to authorize you to proceed to the exchange of ratifications of the Palestine Mandate Convention upon receipt, in official form, of the suggested reply from the Foreign Office to the questions raised in the Department’s instructions Nos. 631 and 68 of April 21 and June 23, 1925, respectively, regarding the rights of the United States and its nationals in Palestine pending the entering into force of the Convention signed December 3, 1924.
If, therefore, the Foreign Office addresses you a note in the form indicated in the enclosure to Mr. Sterling’s letter of September 29, 1925, as a reply to the Embassy’s memoranda of May 4 and July 3, 1925, based respectively on the Department’s instructions above mentioned, you may address an acknowledgment to the British Foreign Office in the following sense:
I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of Your Excellency’s note of . . . . . ., 1925, in reply to the Embassy’s note of December 19, 1924,34 and memoranda of May 4 and July 3, last, relative to the position of American nationals in Palestine prior to the entering into force of the Palestine Mandate Convention signed December 3, 1924.
In reply I am directed to inform Your Excellency of the satisfaction with which my Government has noted the sympathetic consideration which has been accorded the communications which I had the honor to address to you on this subject, with a view to finding a mutually satisfactory basis for the settlement of the questions at issue. I take pleasure in informing you that my Government has authorized me to convey to Your Excellency its acquiescence in the suggestion that as regards the questions of principle which have arisen with respect to the status of the capitulatory rights of American citizens in the mandated territory of Palestine pending the coming into force of the Convention each government should take note of the view held by the other. Further consideration of this question is rendered unnecessary, as far as Palestine is concerned, in view of the practical steps [Page 226] which His Majesty’s Government, on behalf of the Palestine Government, has indicated its readiness to take in the individual cases which the Embassy has had the honor to bring to Your Excellency’s attention. Upon the exchange of ratifications of the Convention the situation will be automatically regularized.
In conclusion, I am directed by my Government to inform Your Excellency that, as a result of the present exchange of notes, I shall be pleased, at your convenience, to proceed to the exchange of ratifications of the Palestine Mandate Convention of December 3, 1924.
I am [etc.]
- Evidently refers to telegram No. 308, Oct. 12, 6 p.m., not printed.↩
- Not printed; see telegram No. 473, Dec. 17, 1924, 4 p.m., to the Ambassador in Great Britain, Foreign Relations, 1924, vol. ii, p. 202.↩