883.05/416

The Secretary of State to the Chargé in Great Britain (Atherton)

No. 1046

Sir: Reference is made to the Department’s telegraphic instruction No. 346 of December 22, 1931, 4 p.m.,4 informing you of the views of the British High Commissioner at Cairo, as reported by the [Page 623] American Minister to Egypt, relative to the Department’s request for the High Commissioner’s assistance in procuring the appointment of an additional American judge on the Mixed Courts of Egypt.

In amplification of the statement in the telegraphic instruction under reference, that the records of the Department indicate that the British Government has on more than one occasion taken an interest in or intervened in the appointment of judges, there is enclosed for your information and such discreet use as you may consider desirable, a memorandum prepared in the Division of Near Eastern Affairs5 describing in detail the evidence found in the Department’s records, of the activities of British officials between 1906 and 1921 in connection with the appointment of American judges to the Mixed Courts of Egypt.

Your attention is particularly called to the quotation from the British Foreign Office’s note of October 12, 1920,6 in which it is maintained that the British Government had advised the Egyptian Government “to proceed forthwith to the appointment of an American judge to succeed Judge Tuck”, and to the reference to a note of June 22, 1921, from the British Embassy at Washington,7 informing the Department that Mr. Ellery Cory Stowell, who had been nominated in the Secretary of State’s note of May 10, 1921,8 was unacceptable to the British Government.

The above-mentioned incidents alone would appear to leave no doubt as to the direct part taken in the past by the British Government in the general question of the appointment of a judge of American nationality, as well as in connection with the nomination of particular individuals.

Very truly yours,

For the Secretary of State:
W. R. Castle, Jr.
  1. Foreign Relations, 1931, vol. ii, p. 148.
  2. Not printed.
  3. Foreign Relations, 1920, vol. ii, p. 226.
  4. Not printed; see note of September 20, 1921, to the British Ambassador, ibid., 1921, vol. i, p. 915.
  5. Ibid., p. 914.