UBRA2Y AECHIV3SK

[Communicated to th e Council C. 173. M. 64. 1926. VI. and Members of th e League.] p m ^83.]

Geneva, March 12th, 1926.

LEAGUE OF NATIONS

PERMANENT MANDATES COMMISSION

EIGHTH SESSION (EXTRAORDINARY)

COMMENTS SUBMITTED BY THE ACCREDITED REPRESEN­ TATIVE OF FRANCE ON THE COMMISSION’S OBSERVATIONS WITH REGARD TO THE REPORT ON THE SITUATION IN AND THE LEBANON IN 1924 AND THE PROVISIONAL REPORT ON THE SITUATION IN THESE TERRITORIES IN 1925.

The accredited representative of the French Government has no intention of availing himself of the right conferred on him by Article 8 of the Commission’s Rules of Procedure and of going through all the various points touched on by the latter in its report to the Council, which for the first time extends to all the questions relating to the exercise of the mandate for Syria and the Lebanon, and which was drafted after a long verbal debate pursued with an earnest desire to arrive at the truth and to give due weight to all the factors in the questions under consideration. The Commission has done its work with a conscientiousness which the accredited representative cannot sufficiently praise. He thinks it essential, however, that on certain points his observations should be submitted to the Council at the same time as the report. 1. The reasons for which the Commission has not yet received all the documents which it desired regarding facts or allegations, some of which only came quite recently to the knowledge of the Commission and of the accredited representative, were explained during the verbal debate. But a misapprehension may be created by the passage in the report which refers to the “deeper causes of an unrest which had in no way been brought out in the reports for preceding years”. The silence of the previous reports on this point is due to the fact that no unrest existed to which they could draw attention, nor was there anything to point to the existence of deeper causes which might have led up to and given warning of the events of 1925. The fact that certain petitions expressed a great number of general grievances, most of them very vague, should not, in the accredited representative’s opinion, cause any misapprehension on this point. Most of these petitions came from a group which is systematically hostile to the mandate and states the position according to its own biased views. The fact that its allegations have not been supported by protests coming directly from Syria is not due only, as the accredited representative has had occasion to observe, to the fact that the population, being still under the influence of the former Turkish regime, is afraid of making complaints. Certain elements in Syria and the Lebanon have never hesitated to do so. But they are not so ready to make complaints as a group which was formed specially to combat the mandates for Syria and the Lebanon and for Palestine and which remains unalterably hostile to these mandates, as was proved by the conditions which it desired to impose on M. de Jouvenel, whose first endeavour had been to try to understand the aspirations of the opposition and reconcile them with the policy of the Mandatory. The events of 1925 appear to the accredited representative, as he explained to the Commission, to be the result much less of fundamental causes of discontent denounced by the petitioners but to which, as stated above, attention could not be drawn in the Mandatory’s previous reports, than to the purely incidental cause of the Druse rebellion which the systematic opponents of the mandate endeavoured to exploit by stirring up all the elements of agitation and disorder and thus extending the disturbance which none the less remained comparatively restricted.

S- d- N. 750 (F) 750 (A). 3/26. Imp. Kundig. Publications of the League of Nations VI.A. MANDATES 1926. VI.A. 3. 2. As regards international relations, the accredited representative wishes to point out that he was unable to declare that the Conventions which had been concluded or which were to be concluded by the mandatory Power with Turkey and which make purely local modifications in territorial boundaries, would be communicated for approval to the League of Nations. Such a communication, which is not provided for in Article 3 of the Mandate, could only be the communi­ cation stipulated in Article 18 of the Covenant of the League of Nations. 3. The report very rightly draws attention to the moderating influencé that would be exer­ cised on group rivalries and personal ambitions by the existence ôf à stable and permanent regime particularly as regards the territorial organisation {of the mandated countries. But the accredited representative wishes to point out that the delay in the establishment of such a regime can hardly be imputed to vacillation or to lack of continuity in the policy of the Mandatory. On the contrary the previous reports to the League of Nations on the situation in Syria anti the Lebanon have explained how their territorial organisation has been carried out on a system the main outlines o{ which were decided upon as soon as the autonomous States were created in 1920. Some bond had to be established between them with a view to the settlement of questions or common interest to countries which were to constitute a single Customs and monetary unit. As early as 1921, after an investigation and enquiries which lasted several months, it was decided that a Syrian Federation should be created comprising all the States except the Lebanon, which did not wish to form a federation with its neighbours. Affairs of common interest to the Lebanon and Syria were to be settled by a system of agreements between the Lebanon Government and the Syrian Federal Government. The Syrian Federation was created in 1922 and its powers were extended in 1923. It is true that it was dissolved at the end of 1924, but this was in response to the wishes of the majo­ rity of the inhabitants of the interior, who, through their elected assemblies, asked that and should be amalgamated into a Syrian State, whereas the Alaouites demanded a relaxa­ tion of the somewhat close bond which the Federation had eventually established. To replace the latter, a looser common organisation was to be created uniting the States of Syria, of the Alaouites and of the Jebel Druse and having the same relations with the Lebanon as the Federation had had. This organisation has not yet been set up owing to the events of 1925 and, above all, owing to the necessity of settling the relations between the States by means of an organic law. This would certainly have taken less time had it not been for the determination of M. „Paul-Boncour, who presided over the Commission appointed to draw up the organic law to provide in the fullest and most liberal manner for the co-operation of the native authorities as laid down in Article 1 of the Mandate. Lastly, M. de Jouvenel decided to call upon the elected representatives of the popula­ tions to decide what the internal organisation of the States and their mutual relations should be. There appears, then, to be little evidence of sudden reversals or changes of policy; rather has there been gradual development and the adaptation, with due regard to the wishes of the parties concerned, of an organisation which—as the High Commissioner was careful to point out during the whole of the first period—was of a provisional character and subject to subsequent amendment. The fact that amendments could be introduced, and were introduced, in this system was not therefore intended to take public opinion in Syria and the Lebanon by surprise or to keep it in a state of unrest. 4. Similarly, the accredited representative feels bound to point out that the necessary modifications introduced in the judicial organisation of the mandatory States were not the outcome of changes in policy but of the necessity of providing for the transition of Syria and the Lebanon from the regime of the capitulations to a regime of sovereignty in judicial affairs. The mandatory Power found in these countries a confusion and a great variety of jurisdictions, which are also characteristic of all the other countries formerly under Ottoman rule. Since the coming into force of the mandate in September 1923 enabled the capitulations to be suspended and thereby made it possible to close those tribunals which derived their authority from numerous sovereignties formerly existing in the country, the only tribunals in Syria and the Lebanon—apart from the courts- martial, before which soldiers alone are justiciable, except when a state of siege is proclaimed— have been the regular native tribunals, which administer justice in the name of the local sovereign Power. In order to be able to hear cases in which foreigners are concerned, some of these courts have received French magistrates engaged in the service of the national Governments of the country. It is true that in 1925 special native courts were established, in which a number of French judges sat, to try persons who had taken part in the rebellion. It cannot be maintained, however, that this exception—which was only allowed because it was desired to avoid handing over agitators to the courts-martial—has led to any confusion in the minds of and inhabitants of the Lebanon who are subject to the jurisdiction of these courts. In reality, the judicial organisation which they now possess is much simpler than that of the Ottoman regime or of the period imme­ diately following the war and is now beginning to afford them much surer guarantees than those they obtained from the courts to which they could formerly apply.

5. The accredited representative is glad to note that, after a long and exhaustive discussion, the Commission has disposed of the myth that the monetary policy of the Mandatory was to drain the mandated territories of gold.

The accredited representative cannot, without making his observations as long as the minutes of the oral discussions themselves, deal with all the Commission’s criticisms regarding different points in the execution of the mandate. He feels bound to point out, however, that the sequence of events does not justify the statement that the mandate appears in the eyes of the Syrians to be “gradually” changing into a system of direct administration. The evolution that is taking place—■ characterised as it is by the steady growth in the organisation of native powers and the gradual transference to the national governments of the services common to all which were at first adminis­ tered by t h e High Commissioner—is moving rather in the opposite direction. M oreover, although it may be true that the officials appointed to execute the mandate have not always held that community of traditions and of policy which would have helped them in their task, yet it should be remembered how new that task was and how little time there had been for the function to create the organ. Lastly, although certain of the police powers, which are held by the High Commissioner, and under him by the general in command of the troops of occupation, may have appeared to the Commission excessive, they are really more than explained by the difficulties peculiar to the envi­ ronment and circumstances in which the mandatory Power had to act. The accredited representative is bound in fairness to say, however, that the Commission itself has largely appreciated these difficulties, and by so doing, by appreciating the points of view of the opposing parties and by doing justice to the policy pursued by M. de Jouvenel, has done what it could to help the Mandatory in its work. It has thereby shown how to combine its supervision with a spirit of co-operation, on which, as it states, its work should in part be based. It is this spirit of co-operation which inspires the Mandatory Power itself in its relations with the League of Nations. (Signed) Robert de Caix. Geneva, March 12th, 1926.