The memorandum of the British Government opposing the questionaire. comprising 230 questions submitted to it by the Permanent Mandates Commission is widely discussed here in League circles.
The memorandum which expresses the greatest objection to hearing petitioners in any form from the mandated territories, is regarded as a new interpretation of the relations between the Mandatory Powers and the League.
A large number of diplomats and statesmen from various governments were present at the League session when the secretary of the League read the memorandum of the British Foreign Office. Keen interest was displayed in the contents of the document which termed the hearing of petitioners as urged by the Mandates Commission as “dangerous and useless” and expressed the conviction that on the basis of the British Government’s experience with its colonies, written petitions from complainants in the mandated territories and brief questionnaires from the Mandates Commission are sufficient.
The memorandum is the one which the British Government promised in September, when Sir Austen Chamberlain asked the Council not to make any decisions regarding the commission’s proposal to hear certain petitioners personally and to require the mandatory powers to answer a questionnaire containing 230 questions until after the mandatory powers had an opportunity to present their observations. Foreign Minister Briand opposed the proposals of the commission with equal vigor.
The British memoranduce says that after studying from the juridical joint of view the administration mandates as defined in Article 22 of the Covenant, it finds that the annual report which the mandatory power must send to the Council must deal with the administration as a whole and not on all points in detail, and that it is the Council and not the Mandates Commission that has the right of decision regarding the administration of the mandates.
Unable to understand why the commission cannot by examining written documents see whether the petitions are well founded, the British Government considers the questionnaire goes into all details of Government administration, exceeding greatly that which is necessary for the commission and which is compatible with the intentions of the Covenant and the rules approved by the Council.
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