[Communicated to the Members Official N o.: O. 5. 1935. I. of the Council.]
Geneva, January 5th, 1935.
LEAGUE OF NATIONS
PROTECTION OF MINORITIES
SIXTH ANNUAL COMMUNICATION CONCERNING THE RESULT OF THE EXAMINATION OF PETITIONS BY MINORITIES COMMITTEES 1934
NOTE BY THE SECRETARY-GENERAL.
In accordance with the terms of paragraph 4 (ii) of the Council resolution of June 13th, 1929, the Secretary-General has the honour to circulate, for the information of the Members of the Council, copies of the letters communicated to them during the year 1934 under paragraph 4 (i) of this resolution. The following are the letters in question : Page 1. Letter from the Representatives of Panama, Australia and Italy concerning a Petition from Baron S. Perenyi, President of the “ National Hungarian Federation ” (document C .615.1933.I)...... 3 2. Letter from the Representatives of Mexico, China and Czechoslovakia concerning a Petition from M. B. S. Nicolas, dated August 18th, 1933 (document C.483.1933.1) 4 3. Letter from the Representatives of France and Poland concerning a Petition from Mme. Véhibé Hayati Hulussi, of Janina (document C.404.1932.1) ...... 5 4. Letter from the Representatives of Italy, Australia and Spain concerning (1) a Petition presented by M. Motzkin, President of the “ Committee of Jewish Dele gations ", and M. Margulies, President of the Jewish Party in Czechoslovakia, on behalf of the said Committee, of the " American Jewish Congress ” and a certain number of Jewish Institutions in various countries, and (2) a Petition from the Jewish Club of the Diet of the Polish Republic (documents C.315 and C.438.1933.1) 12 5' Letter from the Representatives of Panama, Denmark and France concerning a Petition from M. Ernst Pleschke (document C.624.1933.1) ...... 13 6. Letter from the Representatives of Portugal, Poland and Denmark concerning Petitions of the Bulgarian Monastery “ Zograf ” and of the Russian Monastery St. Panteleimon, on Mount Athos (document C.591.1932.1) ...... 14 7- Letter from the Representatives of France, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Mexico and Spain concerning Petitions from M. Graebe, M. Utta and M. Pant, M. Franz and M. Jankowski (documents C.306, C.498, C.500 and C.647.1932.1; C.193, C.260, C.688 and C.689.1933.I ; C. 153,0.174 and C.532.1932.I ; C.621.1933.1 ; C.404.1933.I) 15 8- Letter from the Representatives of France, Denmark and Mexico concerning a Petition from M. Emeric Prokopy, dated June 1931 (document C.44.1932.I) . . 22 9- Letter from the Representatives of Mexico, Denmark and Spain concerning a Petition from M. Pelensky, Deputy (document C.612.1932.1) ...... 26 I0- Letter from the Representatives of Panama, Australia and Italy concerning a Petition from the Committee of the Jewish Community of Praszka (document C.692.1933.1) 26 Iz- Letter from the Representatives of Panama, Argentine and China concerning a Petition from M. Alfred Wertheimer, of Bratislava (document C.31.1934.1) . . 27 I2, Letter from the Representatives of Panama, the United Kingdom and Portugal concerning a Petition from M. Arvay Arpad and M. Daroczy Kiss Lajos (document C.612.1933.I)...... 28
*N"' 25° (ï\)_i5o (A.) 12/34. Imp. Kundig. Page 13. Letter from the Representatives of Mexico, Denmark and Poland concerning a Petition from Dr. Leon de Deak and nine other persons (document C.493.1933.I) 29 14. Letter from the Representatives of Panama, the United Kingdom and Denmark concerning a Petition relating to M. Emeric Dôczi (document C.639.1933.1) . . « 15. Letter from the Representatives of Denmark, China and Italy concerning a Petition from M. Z. Pelensky (document C.540.1933.1) ...... 33 16. Letter from the Representatives of Panama, Czechoslovakia and Portugal concerning a Petition, dated September 20th, 1933, from the Bulgarian Monastery “ Zograf ”, on Mount Athos (document C.17.1934.1) ...... 34 17. Letter from the Representatives of Panama, Denmark and France concerning Petitions from M. Anghel Stoyanoff (documents C.646, C.659.1933 and C.153.1934.1) . . 36 18. Letter from the Representatives of Australia, Czechoslovakia and Portugal concerning a Petition from M. 0 . Essayan (document C.23.1933.1) ...... 3 7 19. Letter from the Representatives of France, Denmark and Poland concerning a Petition of Mgr. Neophyte and certain other Prelates (documents C.431.1932.1 and C .432.1932.I)...... 38 20. Letter from the Representatives of Mexico, the United Kingdom and Denmark concerning a Petition from Dr. André Gaal (document C.433.1933.I)...... 40 21. Letter from the Representatives of Mexico, Australia and Spain concerning a Petition from Dr. Pal Gabor and Dr. Lazlô Deszô (document C.601.1930.1) 41 — 3 —
r L e t t e r from the Representatives of Panama, Australia and Italy concerning a Petition from Baron S. Perenyi, President of the “National Hungarian Federation”.
U nder the Council resolution of October 25th, 1920, a Minorities Committee, of which w e have had the honour to be members, was called upon to examine a petition from Baron S. Perenyi, President of the “ National Hungarian Federation ”, Budapest, concerning the situation of the H u ngarian minority in Transylvania, and the observations of the Roumanian Government thereon (document C.615.1933.I).
1. Subject of the Petition.
The petitioner alleges that, during the first half of 1933, in consequence of anti-revisionist demonstrations in Roumania, minority citizens of Hungarian origin were victims of organised attacks by a section of the Roumanian population in various Transylvanian villages, and suffered physical injury and damage to property. The authorities, he asserts, did not take sufficiently drastic action during these incidents, and, indeed, left their promoters unpunished in the majority of cases, which, in the petitioner's view, means that there is reason to fear a repetition. Place names and specific facts are mentioned in support of these allegations. The most serious incident occurred, he says, on May 28th last, at Turda, a town with a predominantly Hungarian population, to which, on the occasion of an anti-revisionist demonstra tion, a large number of Roumanian mountaineers from the surrounding country were conveyed free of charge by special train. When the mountaineers were returning to their villages, they compelled the engine-driver to stop at the Hungarian village of Cornesti (Sinfalva), and, led by the son of the Roumanian priest, they looted the houses of well-to-do Hungarians. The Unitarian minister, Thomas Arkossy, had to be taken to hospital at Cluj in consequence of the rough handling he suffered. Furthermore, Alexander Hadju, a farmer aged 65, died of his injuries, after seeing his house attacked and his family maltreated. The petitioner gives the names of several other victims of violence. Two hours later, he states, the attackers stopped at the Hungarian village of Borrév, where less serious incidents took place. According to the petitioner, the Roumanian authorities prosecuted only two young men, and the captain of the gendarmerie took the view that, apart from a few broken windows and damaged articles of furniture, the incidents were not at all serious. The petitioner adds that the Hungarians affected had done nothing during the anti-revisionist demonstrations that could justify violent reprisals.
2. Summary of the Roumanian Government’s Observations.
The Roumanian Government formally denies all the petitioner’s allegations as to the vexatious or violent character of the anti-revisionist demonstrations organised all over Roumania in May last; these, it asserts, proceeded in the most complete order and calm. In support of this statem ent, it quotes extracts from articles published in Hungarian minority newspapers at the time. As for the incidents at the village of Cornesti, the Government asserts that they did not in any way arise out of the demonstrations in question. It states that a dispute arose in connection with a dance in which both young Roumanians and young Hungarians took part. Hearing of this, the Magyar members of the parish council hastened to chastise the young Roumanians, who then decided to organise a demonstration against their assailants, with the support of Roumanians from the surrounding villages. Returning from the Turda demonstration on May 28th, they went down at 4.35 p.m. to Cornesti, where brawls developed and windows were broken. The demon strators then resumed their train journey at 5.30 p.m. In connection with this incident, the Roumanian Government desires to specify that, with regard more particularly to the death of Alexander Hadju, his widow stated, at the enquiry held on the spot by the authorities, that it was true that her husband had died on the evening of May 28th, but that he had died of a disease from which he had been suffering for twelve years. She further stated that the demonstrators had not even approached the deceased’s house. Moreover, the minister Arkossy himself said that his removal to hospital was not due to any attack upon him that day. The Government also wishes to deny that the authorities did not take the immediately necessary steps to restore order. On the contrary, a detachment of gendarmerie was quickly sent to the spot, and, in the Government’s view, the speed with wrhich this was done must be regarded as a guarantee of adequate safety for the future. It adds that, in consequence of the enquiry conducted locally, the notary and the m ayor of Cornesti were suspended from their offices, and the furda public prosecution office promptly arrested twenty-four persons who were suspected of being the ringleaders of the attack. The damage done was estimated at the enquiry at about 1,000 Swiss francs.
3. The Committee’s Examination.
At the meeting which it held on January 19th, 1934, the Committee concluded that the action taken by the Roumanian authorities against the aforesaid ringleaders, and the proceedings instituted against certain offenders, make it clear that the Roumanian Government thought it necessary to prevent members of the majority from again resorting to reprehensible practices. Committee further desires to state that, apart from specific cases connected with the incidents — 4 — in question, which called for its attention as coming within the sphere of the protection of minorities, thepetition also embodies certain complaints having no connection with the protection of minorities as specified in the Treaties, but rather possessing a controversial character. In view of this circumstance, and of the information given by the Roumanian Government regarding the punitive action it has taken, the Committee thought it proper to close the examination of this question without bringing it to the Council’s attention. The Council’s resolution of June 13th, 1929, paragraph 4 (i), provides that, when the members of a Minorities Committee have finished the examination of a question, without asking that it be placed on the Council’s agenda, they will communicate the result of their examination by letter to the other Members of the Council for their information. We have accordingly the honour to request you to communicate the contents of this letter to the other Members of the Council for their information. (Signed) R. A . A m a d o r , Geneva, February 21st, 1934.
(Signed) K e i t h O f f i c e r , London, February 22nd, 1934.
(Signed) Tomaso P e r a s s i , Geneva, February 16th, 1934.
2. L e t t e r f r o m t h e R epresentatives o f M e x i c o , C h i n a a n d C zechoslovakia c o n c e r n in g a P e t i t i o n f r o m M . B. S. N i c o l a s , d a t e d A u g u s t i 8 t h , 1933.
Under the Council resolution of October 25th, 1920, a Minorities Committee, of which we had the honour to be members,1 was called upon to examine a petition from M. B. S. Nicolas, dated August 18th, 1933, concerning the situation of the Assyrians in Iraq (document C.483.1933.1). This petition having been submitted to the urgent procedure provided for in the Council resolutions in force, the Iraqi Government did not have an opportunity of submitting its observations on the subject before the first examination of the document in question. When this examination was made, a Committee of which we were also members dealt with a petition from Mar Shimun, “ Catholicos ” Patriarch of the Assyrians, concerning the same question (see document C.479.1933.1). The Committee having asked that the question dealt with in this petition should be placed on the Council’s agenda, it was decided that, pending the discussion of this question before the Council, the examination of M. B. S. Nicolas’s petition should be held over, During the examination of this question by the Council, the latter adopted, on October 14th, 1:933, a report by the representative of Spain (see Minutes of the Seventy-seventh Session of the Council, page 1646) providing for the constitution of a Committee to prepare and carry out a plan for the settlement outside Iraq of Assyrians expressing the desire to leave the country. It was further stated in this report that the portion of the Assyrian population which remained in Iraq would be regarded as a minority to which the provisions of the Iraqi Declaration on the protection of minorities would apply. In view of the new turn taken by the question of the situation of the Assyrian population of Iraq, the Committee of which we were members considered that there was no need for it to pursue the examination of M. B. S. Nicolas’s petition. It found, moreover, that the Committee of the Council mentioned above w'as anxious to ensure the strict application, as regards the population in question, of the guarantees stipulated in the Iraqi Declaration on the protection of minorities. It regarded, in particular, as evidence of this intention the provisions, contained in the resolution adopted by that Committee on October 31st, 1933 (see Annex I to the Report of the C om m ittee for the Settlement of the Assyrians of Iraq, document C.69.1934.VII). In view of the foregoing considerations, the Committee decided, at its meeting on January 18th, 1934, to close the examination of the petition in question without bringing it to the notice of the Council. The Council resolution of June 13th, 1929, paragaph 4 (i), provides that, when the members of a Minorities Committee have finished the examination of a question without asking that it be placed on the Council’s agenda, they will communicate the result of their examination by letter to the other Members of the Council for their information. We have therefore the honour to I request you to communicate the contents of this letter, for information, to the other Members of I the Council. ,
(Signed) F. C a s t il l o N a j e r a , Paris, February 20th, 1934
( Signed) V. K. Wellington K 0 0 , Paris, February 20th, 1934
( Signed ) K ü n z l -J i z e r s k ÿ , Berne, February 19th, 1934
1 The Committee originally consisted of the representatives of Mexico, the Irish Free State and Norway. Thc two latter were replaced, after the last elections to the Council, by the representatives of China and Czechoslovakia- — 5 —
3 L e t t e r f r o m t h e R epresentatives o f F r a n c e a n d P o l a n d 1 c o n c e r n i n g a P e t i t i o n
f r o m M m e . V é h i b é H a y a t i H u l u s s i , o f J a n i n a .
Under the Council resolution of October 25th, 1920, a Minorities Committee, of which we had the honour to be members and which, further, included the representative of Germany, exam ined a petition, dated September 1st, 1931, submitted by Mme. Véhibé Hayati Hulussi with regard to her own position and that of her children under age, together with the Greek Government’s observations thereon (document C.404.1932.I). In her petition, Mme. Hayati Hulussi demanded the return of property which, she alleged, had been seized by the Greek authorities on the basis of the provisions of the Convention concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations, signed at Lausanne on January 30th, 1923. The first point which the Committee had to decide was whether Mme. Hayati Hulussi and her children were to be considered as liable to exchange or whether, as she herself asserted, they had been duly exempted from such exchange. As in the present instance the elucidation of this point gives rise to quite unusual difficulties, we feel bound to dwell at some length upon the more important elements prior to the petitions, both general and particular, affecting the position of the afore mentioned persons as regards their nationality.
I. Historical Outline. (a) The Lausanne Convention of January 30th, 1923, provided for the compulsory exchange of Turkish nationals of the Greek Orthodox religion and Greek nationals of the Moslem religion. A Mixed Commission, consisting of four members representing each of the contracting parties and three neutral members chosen by the Council of the League of Nations, was entrusted with the various operations required by the exchange. The only persons excepted from the exchange were the Greek inhabitants of Constantinople and the Moslem inhabitants of Western Thrace. In virtue of a statement issued by M. Caclamanos, Greek representative at the Lausanne Conference, such exemption was, however, extended to Moslems of Albanian origin in Greece. (b) On December n th , 1924, the Council of the League of Nations, with the consent of the representatives of the two States concerned and basing its action upon a report by M. Quinones de Leôn, Rapporteur for the question of Moslems of Albanian origin in Greece, invested the neutral members of the Mixed Commission with the character of mandatories of the Council for the protection of the minority concerned. The reasons which prompted this decision are set out in the following passages of the above-mentioned report by M. Quinones de Leôn: “ The settlement of the problem of the exchange of populations should be left entirely in the hands of the Mixed Commission. By the terms of the Minorities Treaty, however, it is the duty of the League of Nations to see that the exchange is not applied to persons who ought to be exempted. As both the Mixed Commission and the League thus have duties to fulfil in regard to tw'o matters which are closely akin, it would be most desirable that the closest possible co-operation should be established between the Commission and the organs of the League. . . . “ In my view, the best procedure would be for the Council to request the neutral members of the Mixed Commission for the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations to agree to act as the mandatories of the Council for the protection of this minority in Greece. . . . The new responsibilities of the neutral members will not add appreciably to their work or affect the methods of procedure followed by the Commission or Sub-Commissions, unless —as is highly unlikely—the Greek or Turkish members disagree with the Chairmen of the Sub-Commissions for Epirus and Macedonia, whom the three neutral members will probably entrust with the execution of this particular part of the work. If this should occur, the Chairmen of the Sub-Commissions wTould report to the neutral members of the Commission, and, if the latter failed to settle the dispute, they wrould refer it to the Council of the League, which is responsible in the last resort for the protection of minorities.’’2
(c) In a letter dated August 12th, 1925, M. Ekstrand, on behalf of the neutral members of the Mixed Commission, asked the Secretary-General for fuller information regarding the mandate with which the Council had invested them under its decision of December n th , 1924. At the same time, he submitted to the Secretary-General a statement of the manner in w'hich the mandate was interpreted by the neutral members themselves. In his reply, dated August 24th, 1925, the Secretary-General reproduced almost word for word the interpretation set out in M. Ekstrand’s letter and informed M. Ekstrand that, in his opinion, the duties of the mandatories of the Council were as follows: “ (1) To give decisions as to the origin of the Moslem population, in order to secure the exemption from exchange of persons entitled to such exemption, should the mandatories be convinced that, if it were not admitted, the scope of the Convention on the Exchange of Populations would be extended beyond that accepted by the Greek representative in his declaration concerning this Treaty 3 at the Lausanne Conference, and hence in a manner contrary to the provisions of the Minorities Treaty.
„ The representative of Germany having ceased to participate in the work of Minorities Committees since C 0 2er I5th, 1933, this letter has been signed by two members only of the Committee. 3 5ee Official Journal of the League of Nations, February 1925, page 234. The reference is to the Minorities Treaty concluded with Greece. — 6 —
“ (2) To inform the Greek Government of the names of persons whose exemption from exchange they have thus secured and at the same time to direct its attention to the fact that such persons should consequently enjoy the same rights as other Greek citizens.” 1
(d) On May 20th, 1926, the Legal Section of the Mixed Commission, acting under powers which the latter had delegated to it, unanimously decided that the widow Véhibé Hayati Hulussi and her children, residing at Janina, were to be regarded as liable to exchange. On the other hand, the mandatories of the Council, at a meeting held on the same day, decided by a majority vote that the aforementioned persons were to be exempt from exchange. The latter decision was transmitted to the mandatories’ agents in Epirus for communication to the person concerned and to the local authorities. It was also notified by telegram to the Greek Ministry for Foreign Affairs. (e) On July 23rd, 1926, the Greek Legation in Switzerland addressed a letter to the Secretary- General protesting against the above-mentioned decision of the mandatories. To this letter was attached a copy of the note of protest which the Greek Government claimed to have addressed in this connection to the Chairman of the Mixed Commission. (/) The above-mentioned letter of the Greek Legation having been communicated by the Secretary-General to the neutral members of the Mixed Commission, M. Hans Holstad furnished the Secretary-General, in a letter dated September 9th, 1926, with certain particulars regarding the decision taken. In his letter, M. Holstad explained the circumstances in which the neutral members had arrived at their decision, which he justified more especially by the terms of the Secretary- General’s letter to the aforesaid members dated August 24th, 1924. As regards the note of protest mentioned in the Greek Government’s letter, M. Holstad stated that the neutral members had only had cognisance at the time of an unaddressed and unsigned copy which had been handed to them by one of the Greek members. This document, he said, had been neither registered nor discussed. (g) On September 21st, 1926, an extract from M. Holstad’s letter of September 9th was communicated to the Greek Legation in a letter from the Director of the Minorities Section. No further communication from the Greek Legation on this subject was afterwards received by the Secretariat. II. Summary of the Greek Government's Observations. In its observations, dated April 18th, 1932, the Greek Government disputed the validity of the decision taken by the mandatories of the Council to the effect that Mme. Hayati Hulussi and her children were not liable to exchange. According to the Greek Government, the neutral members had exceeded their powers in re-opening a case already settled by a unanimous vote of the Legal Section, which acted in virtue of powers delegated to it by the Mixed Commission and whose decision was final. The Government claimed that the mandatories of the Council were only competent in cases of disagreement among the members of the Sub-Commissions and had no authority to revise unanimous decisions. The Greek Government therefore argued that the petitioner should be deemed to be liable to exchange in accordance with the unanimous decision of the Legal Section of the Commission, and that her appeal under the principle of the protection of minorities should therefore not be entertained.
III. Examination of the Case by the Committee. 1. The Committee held its first meeting on May 21st, 1932, and, from the outset, devoted the whole of its attention to the preliminary question of liability to exchange as raised by the case of the petitioner. In order to elucidate this point, it instructed the Director of the Minorities Section to write to the Secretary-General of the Mixed Commission at Constantinople, asking him whether, in the opinion of that Commission, Mme. Hayati Hulussi and her children were or were not to be regarded as liable to exchange under the Lausanne Convention. In reply to this communication, the Secretary-General of the Mixed Commission informed the Director of the Minorities Section that the Legal Section’s decision was final in so far as the Commis sion was concerned. Nevertheless, he added, the Commission had not provided Mme. Hayati Hulussi and her children with the passports issued to those liable to exchange. To the letter from the Secretary-General of the Mixed Commission was attached a statement in which M. Holstad, one of the neutral members of the Commission, argued that the mandatories were competent to deal with cases already unanimously settled by the Legal Section. If the mandatories action, he pointed out in this connection, was to be restricted to cases in which it had been impossible to reach agreement among the members of the Mixed Commission, the mandate with which they had been invested by the Council would have added nothing to the powers which they previously possessed as neutral members of the Commission, since they were already entitled in that capacity to act in all disputed cases the consideration of which was assigned to the plenary Assembly.
2. I n dealing with the legal difficulties raised by the question of competence as su m m arised above, the Committee endeavoured to deduce from the practical considerations involved in the situation the material necessary to enable it to reach a decision regarding Mme. Hayati H u lu ssi’s liability to exchange; in its opinion, these considerations appeared to point clearly to the following conclusion. in whatever capacity the neutral members of the Mixed Commission may have acted in the case regarding the petitioner, whether it was as mandatories of the Council or members of
1 See document C.458.M.169.1925.I. — 7 — the Mixed Commission, it would appear that, from a practical point of view, their decision should be regarded as valid and final, as their preponderance among the members of the Commission assured them de facto, if not de jure, a deciding voice in the settlement of questions of nationality. The Committee instructed the Director of the Minorities Section to communicate this point of view verbally to the permanent Greek delegate and to ask him whether his Government would be prepared to accept it. 3. In reply to the above communication, the Greek delegate informed the Committee that his Government maintained its former attitude— viz., that the question whether Mme. Hayati Hulussi and her children were liable to exchange had been finally settled by the unanimous decision of the Legal Section of the Mixed Commission. The Greek Government was, indeed, still of opinion that the validity of that decision had not been affected and could not be affected by the subsequent decision of the mandatories, as the power of the latter to intervene was confined to cases in which it had not been possible to reach a unanimous decision. It was on that understanding that the Greek Government had accepted the Council resolution of December n th , 1924, under which the neutral members had received their mandate. That Government could not now consent to a wider construction being placed upon that mandate, and considered that the Secretary-General was not competent to formulate the interpretation embodied in his letter to M. Ekstrand, dated August 24th, 1925. The Greek delegate subsequently confirmed this view to the Minorities Section following a new enquiry into the whole question by the Government's legal service. In reply to a question by the Minorities Section, he added that his Government was not contemplating any action for the expulsion of Mme. Hayati Hulussi and her children. 4. In consideration of the facts summarised above, which in themselves are evidence of the quite exceptional character of the legal problems raised by Mme. Véhibé Hayati Hulussi’s petition, the Committee, which was unable to reach any conclusions regarding the substance of the question, desires to make the following observations: [а) Any attempt to appraise, on the basis of the minorities stipulations, the measures of confiscation taken in regard to Mme. Véhibé Hayati Hulussi is dominated by the following pre liminary question: Which of the two conflicting decisions regarding the petitioner's liability to exchange is to override the other— that of the Legal Section of the Mixed Exchange Commission or that of the neutral members of the Commission ? (б) This preliminary question—which is a matter of the interpretation of the texts governing the respective powers of the organs of the Mixed Commission for the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations—lies entirely outside the Committee’s competence. (c) Within the limits assigned to their action by Article 12 of the Treaty with Greece, the members of the Council composing the Minorities Committee would not have been able to bring the matter before the Council itself without accepting, at least by implication, one of the interpre tations placed upon these texts. They took the view that they would not be justified in doing this. It is for this reason that none of them decided to place this question upon the Council’s agenda under Article 12 of the Treaty. {A) In coming to this decision, however, the Committee did not intend to pronounce in favour of the contrary interpretation, nor to prejudice in any way the right of the Governments represented on the Council—including those represented on the Committee—to request the Council to interpret its resolution of December n th , 1924, and thus to determine whether, in the present case, the decision of the neutral members should not override the decision taken by the Legal Section of the Mixed Commission. It is subject to the foregoing observation that the Committee, at its meeting on October 14th, I933. decided to close the examination of this question without bringing it to the notice of the Council. The Council resolution of June 13th, 1929, paragraph 4 (*), provides that, when the members of a Minorities Committee have finished the examination of a question without asking that it be placed on the Council’s agenda, they will communicate the result of their examination by letter to the other Members of the Council for their information. We have therefore the honour to request you to communicate the contents of this letter, for information, to the other Members of the Council. (Signed) J. F o u q u e s-D u p a r c, Paris, February 5th, 1934.
(Signed) Tadeusz Gw ia z d o w sk i, W arsaw, February 25th, 1934.
C.212.1934.I. [Extract.]
Note by the G r e e k G o v e r n m e n t on the Ca se of M m e . V é h ib é H aya t i H u l u s s i, W id o w .
I. Racial Status of Mme. Hulussi. 1. Mme. Véhibé, widow of Havati Hulussi, is the daughter of Hayri Patchanda and Nakié, born Kamber Agha. 2- The Hulussi family is of Jewish origin. — 8 —
(See letter No. 50950, dated July 7th, 1932, from the Secretary-General of the Mixed Commission for the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations to M. Azcarate,1 Annex II, Minutes of the meeting of May 18th, 1926, of the Mandatories of the League of Nations for the protection of the Moslem minority of Albanian origin in Greece: “ 4. Widow Véhibé Hayati Hulussi, sister of Hassan Patchanda, exchanged. Widow of Hayati Hulussi, Jew, brother of Chefkati, exchanged. With four children.” See also, in the same letter No. 50950, Annex III, Minutes of the meeting of May 20th, 1926, of the Mandatories of the League of Nations for the protection of the Moslem minority of Albanian origin in Greece : (а) M. Holstad’s vote: " . . . The husband’s family was Jewish when the father was converted to Islam (б) M. de Lara’s vote: “ . . . The family of the husband of Widow Véhibé Hayati Hulussi came from Berat, in Albania, and, being Jewish, was converted to Islam ”, (c) M. Widding’s vote: " . . . her children are of Jewish race; her late husband's brother was found to be exchangeable by the Sub-Commission, and was exchanged into Turkey, like other Jews of the Moslem faith ”.)
3. The Patchanda family is of Greek origin. (See, in the same letter No. 50950, Annex I, Minutes of the hundred and eighth plenary meeting, of May 20th, 1926, of the Mixed Commission for the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations: “ . . . She (Nakié, mother of Véhibé) is the widow of the late Patchanda, who was held to be exchangeable inasmuch as he was a Greek by origin who had embraced Islam, and for that reason the son of the late Patchanda Haïri, having been examined on two separate occasions by the Fourteenth Sub-Commission, was unanimously declared to be exchangeable ”.
See also, in the same letter No. 50950, Annex III : (a) M. H olstad’s vote: "... Widow Véhibé Hayati Hulussi is the daughter of an Albanian mother and a father whose ancestors were Greeks converted to Islam ". (b) M. Widding’s vote: "... Widow Véhibé Hulussi is, as regards her personal status, of a Greek family converted to Islam. Her brother was declared exchangeable after two examinations by the Sub-Commission, and has been exchanged ”.)
4. The Kamber Agha family appears to be of Albanian origin. (The above-mentioned documents afford no further details on this point, doubtless because Widow Hulussi’s origin on the maternal side could not influence her personal status— see M. W idding’s vote: “ . . . In accordance with the theories of the Mixed Commission, which holds that origin is transmitted through the male parent . . . ”)
5. The Mixed Commission for the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations, by its decision No. 31 of March 24th, 1927, laid down the following general principle as a basis for deter mining the personal status of widows for purposes of exchange (see the Mixed Commission’s aforesaid letter No. 50950) : “ The exchangeability of widows will be considered according to their personal status, except when they have children under age (under 18) at the time of their examination by the Commission, in which case they will share the fate of their children under age.”
6. In view of the above, and since Widow Hulussi has children under age, of Jewish origin, she must be treated in the same way as they are treated, and consequently she must, like them, be exchanged. II. M ain Points in the Question.
7. On March 31st, 1925, at a plenary meeting, the Mixed Commission for the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations adopted the following resolution (see aforesaid letter No. 50950 from the Mixed Commission) : “ The Assembly decides to authorise the Legal Section to give final decisions on cases of Albanian origin submitted to the Mixed Commission, whenever none of the members of that Section requires that the decisions to be taken be explicitly ratified by the plenary Assembly.”
8. In virtue of this resolution, the Legal Section of the Mixed Commission, consisting of M. Widding (Chairman) and one Greek and one Turkish member, unanimously decided on May 20th, 1926, that WTidow Hulussi and her children were exchangeable. 9. On the same day, however, on which the Mixed Commission, through its representative organ, the Legal Section, reached a definitive decision on the case in question, the Mandatories
1 Note by the Secretary-General. — This letter, to which reference is made in the letter to the Secretary-G eneral from the representatives of France and Poland reproduced above (Chapter III, § i), is kept in the archives of the Secretariat at the disposal of the Members of the Council. of the League of Nations for the protection of the Moslem minority of Albanian origin in Greece —namely, the three neutral members of the Mixed Commission—decided by a majority (M. Widding voting against, and M. Holstad and M. de Lara voting for) in favour of excepting Widow Hulussi and her children from the exchange. 10. The Greek Government then protested, in a letter No. 2 8 0 8 , dated July 23rd, 1926, from th e Greek Legation in Switzerland to the Secretary-General of the League of Nations,1 against this view taken by the Mandatories. It added in that letter that " it would be exercising an unquestionably established right if it proceeded to remove the person in question from its territory ; none the less, in deference to the Council of the League, whose neutral members were still Mandatories at the time when they took this strange decision, it has resolved to suspend that measure until the case has been finally settled." From that time onwards the question remained in suspense, and the Greek Government, in accordance with its declaration, did not expel Widow Hulussi from Greece. What is more, last year, when two of her children—Hafizé, then 16 years old, and Ahmed, aged 15—went to Constantinople on business, they were allowed to return, although they were exchangeable, and to continue to reside in Greece until the question concerning them should be finally settled. 11. On September 1st, 1931, Widow Hulussi made an application to the League, in regard to which the ordinary procedure in minority questions was followed. The text of this petition and the Greek Government’s observations upon it—in which, on the ground that she was exchangeable, it denied the petitioner’s right to rely upon the minority provisions—are contained in document C.404.1932.I. 12. The members of the Minorities Committee that examined the case in question announced, in a letter dated February 5th and 25th, 1934, contained in document C.118.1934.1, their decision to close the examination of this question without bringing it to the notice of the Council. In the Greek Government’s view, certain points in this letter call for further elucidation. As some of these points seemed to arise out of a statement by M. Holstad, the Greek Government obtained that document (which is, in fact, letter No. 50950, several times referred to above) and its annexes, that afford remarkable support to the Greek Government’s own arguments. It is in the light of these data, which have the additional advantage of proceeding from one of the Mandatones opposed to the Greek case, that the main lines of this note have been laid down.
III. Remarks on Part I I I of Document C.118.1934.1.
13. On Section 1.—The Greek case is already known—namely, that the Mandatories were not competent to pronounce against a unanimous and final decision of the Legal Section, acting in the exercise of powers delegated by the Mixed Commission. This thesis is based on the actual text of M. Quinones de Leôn’s report, which established the mandate of December n th , 1925 [Official Journal of the League of Nations, 1925, page 234) : "... The new responsibilities of the neutral members will not add appreciably to their work or affect the methods of procedure followed by the Commission or Sub-Commissions, unless—as is highly unlikely—the Greek or Turkish members disagree with the Chairmen of the Sub-Commissions. . . . ”
Against this view, M. Holstad’s statement puts forward two arguments : (a) That the above-mentioned report was interpreted by letter No. 2/45690/37781 of August 24th, 1925, from the Secretary-General of the League of Nations to the Manda tories (document C.458.M.169.1925). (b) That the Mandatories held that their mandate would be inoperative “ if they had to confine themselves to intervening in cases which were in dispute between the two delegations, seeing that, as neutral members of the Mixed Commission, they had every opportunity of pronouncing an opinion in such cases that had to pass through the plenary Assembly, of which they formed part ”. The first of these two arguments has already been refuted by a Greek observation which is reproduced in the closing letter of the Minorities Committee (Part III, paragraph 3). As for the second argument, which the Committee seems to have taken into account, and which was not advanced in M. Holstad’s initial letter No. 489 of September 9th, 1926 (Annex IV to letter N°- 5°95°)> it is only an argument in appearance ; for cases disputed between the two delegations [ Greek and Turkish) are not the only possible cases of disagreement. It is also possible (indeed, it has happened) for disagreements to arise between the Greek and Turkish members on the one side, 1 ^le neutrals on the other. In such a case the neutral members, being in a minority as against the united votes of the Greek and Turkish members (Articles 11 and 12 of the Convention of January 30th, 1932, concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations), have not the power to enforce their opinion. This is exactly the situation with which the mandate of December n th , 1924, made it possible to deal. Up to that date, all action had been governed by the Exchange Convention of 1923, hat was concerned solely with the interests of the Greeks from Turkey and the Turks from Greece, which were safeguarded respectively by the presence of neutral members on the Mixed Commission. Agreement between the Greek and Turkish delegations could relate only to these interests ; and, consequently, the placing of the neutral members in a minority did not cause any inconvenience.
,, 1 ^ ote by the Secretary-General. — This letter is kept in the archives of the Secretariat at the disposal of the Members of the Council. — 10 —
But when the question of the protection of Moslems of Albanian origin in Greece arose, and a third factor—the Albanian element—had to be considered, it was thought that the interests of this element would be better safeguarded by creating a special organ, the Board of Mandatories, to give a decision if ever the neutral President of a Sub-Commission found himself in a minority. Thus, in the case of disagreement referred to above, the neutral members, acting as mandatories of the League, would be entitled to give a ruling contrary to the decision reached by the Greek and Turkish members, even though the latter happened to form a majority. This is what the Greek Government holds to be the true meaning of the mandate of December nth, 1924. It also believes that the Secretary-General’s letter of August 24th, 1925, can be explained in the light of this interpretation without an attempt to give it a wider scope. On the other hand, the Legal Section’s decision of May 20th, 1926, precludes, not merely all legal possibility, but even the usefulness of a subsequent appeal to the Board of Mandatories. According to the a contrario argument drawn from the Quinones de Leôn report, the mandate does not apply when a Sub-Commission is unanimous ; still less then can it apply when the Legal Section is unanimous, since this Section, composed of the self-same persons as the Mixed Commission, is a direct emanation of the Commission itself. Consequently, the resolution adopted by the Mixed Commission on March 31st, 1925, has caused the unanimous decisions of the Legal Section with regard to certain cases of Albanian origin to become res judicata. 14. At this juncture, a point requires to be cleared up which was not mentioned in the closing letter of the Minority Committee, although M. Holstad refers to it at great length in his statement. M. Holstad’s opinion may be summarised thus : The general basic principle to be followed in deciding the personal status of widows from the standpoint of their exchangeability was only defined in the decision of March 24th, 1927. How then, on May 20th, 1926, could the Legal Section settle the case of Widow Hulussi, whereas, on that very same date, the Mixed Commission deferred its examination of the cases of her relatives, the widows Patchanda ? The answer is very simple. The question of the exchangeability of widows, which was still in suspense in 1926, could be solved in only one of two ways: either on the basis of their personal status, meaning the ethnic status of their fathers or; taking into consideration “ the future of their minor children ”, the basis here being the ethnic status of their husbands. Now it has been demonstrated above that in either case Widow Hulussi could not but be deemed to be exchangeable because her father was of Greek origin and her husband was of Jewish origin. The Legal Section was therefore able, with a perfectly easy mind, to pronounce a unanimous and final decision regarding her exchangeability. The cases of the two widows Patchanda referred to the Plenary Assembly were of an entirely different nature, because neither the competent Sub-Commission nor the Legal Section had been able to reach any decision regarding them (see Minutes of the hundred and eighth meeting of the Mixed Commission). This negative result is perfectly comprehensible because : Mme. Nakié, the widow of Hayri Patchanda, née Kamber Agha, the mother of Widow Hulussi, was alleged to be of Albanian origin on her father’s side, but was of Greek origin through her husband ; and Mme. Nessimé, widow of Moussafer Patchanda (son of the above-mentioned Nakié), née Dino, was of Albanian origin on her father’s side and of Greek origin through her husband.
It was therefore quite natural that, in both cases, the Mixed Commission should suspend judgment until the question of principle had been decided. In that decision a distinction is drawn between widows without minor children and widows with minor children. In the former case, the question is settled on the basis of the father’s status, and, in the latter, on that of the husband’s status. Consequently, on March 31st, 1927, seven days after this decision had been reached, Nakié, whose children were no longer minors, was declared to be non-exchangeable, whereas Nessimé, the mother of minor children of a husband who would have been exchangeable, was declared to be exchangeable although she was of Albanian origin. 15. Ad 2. — The point noted above (ad 1), that the neutral members were unable to impose their own view when the Greek and Turkish delegations on the Mixed Commission were in agree ment, is in itself sufficient rebuttal of any deduction which the Minorities Committee may have drawn from the material data in its possession to the effect that, " in whatever capacity the neutral members of the Mixed Commission may have acted in the case regarding the petitioner, whether it was as mandatories of the Council or members of the Mixed Commission, it would appear that, from a practical point of view, their decision should be regarded as valid and final, as their preponderance among the members of the Commission assured them, de facto if not de jure, a deciding voice in the settlement of questions of nationality ”, 16. Ad 3. One sentence in this paragraph calls for comment. It reads as follows: In reply to a question by the Minority Section, he added that his Government was not contemplating any action for the expulsion of Mme. Hayati Hulussi and her children.”
The words expulsion in this paragraph and " confiscation ” in the following paragraph (4(0)) should be noted, because they are not proper words to describe the exchange methods la i d down in the Convention. The Convention provides that members of a minority are to proceed to the country to which they belong ethnically and that their immovable property is to be liq u id a ted subject to compensation. The essential point, however, is to make it quite clear that the Greek Government in te n d ed to allow the interested party to remain in the country only pending the final settlement of her casi- That is the precise meaning of the statement contained in its letter of July 23rd, 1926, to the — II —
Secretary-General of the League of Nations, and that is clearly the only meaning which can be attached to the sentence quoted from the closing letter of the Minorities Committee. 17. Ad 4 (b). — This paragraph calls for comment. The Legal Section alone is an organ of the Mixed Commission. The neutral members of this Commission do not in themselves constitute an organ within the Commission. They were merely formed, for a certain period, into a special body, the Board of League of Nations Mandatories for the Protection of the Moslem Minority of Albanian Origin in Greece. The action of this Board (the members of which were at the same time members of the Commission) was parallel to, though distinct from, the action of the Commission itself.
IV. Comments on Certain Other Documents. 18. As stated above, the Greek Government has just taken note of the Mixed Commission’s letter No. 50950 of July 8th, 1932, w ith its annexes. These annexes include the reasoned opinions of M. Holstad, M. de Lara and M. Widding, as expressed at the meeting of the Board of Mandatories on May 20th, 1926. The Greek Government, when formulating the observations contained in d ocu m en t C.404.1932.I, was not in possession of the full text of these opinions, which had also been appended to M. Holstad’s letter No. 489 of September 9th, 1926, to the Secretary-General, since the Secretariat had communicated to it only an extract from the said letter No. 489 (letter 2/53938/37781 of September 21st, 1926, from the Secretariat to the Greek Chargé d’Affaires at Geneva). 19. M. Widding’s vote was based on the actual facts. Widow Hulussi being of Greek origin, and her children of Jewish origin, M. Widding held that they were exchangeable. 20. M. Holstad’s reasoning is as follows :
"... The applicant was married to a person of Albanian provenance. The husband's family were Jews when the father was converted to Islam. The family came from Berat in Albania. As they came from Albania, and as nothing has been adduced to prove the contrary, it must be concluded that the husband was of Albanian origin."
This reasoning is radically unsound. Albanian origin, which is an ethnic tie, has obviously nothing in common with the mere hazard of birth in an Albanian town. Berat was inhabited by Greeks, Turks, Albanians and Jews. The fact that the Hulussi family was a Jewish family residing at Berat is no proof of its Albanian origin. Conversely, not all those persons in Greece who are at present deemed to be of Albanian origin were born in Albania. 21. General de Lara explains his vote in a long statement which differs from the sober argu ments of M. Widding and M. Holstad, in that the author, not content with practical or juridical considerations, launches into a disquisition on theory, illustrated by political aphorisms which are frankly astounding. The Greek Government does not wish to lay itself open to the reproach of having criticised the Mandatories’ votes. It feels bound, however, to draw attention to statements such as this: " In Epirus the population consists entirely of persons whose origin lies in an ethnic Albania, the boundaries of which extend beyond the present political frontiers”—a sentence which the interested party herself quoted in her petition to the League in support of her arguments (see document C.404.1932.I). In stating such an opinion, the writer is seriously encroaching upon matters which are excluded from discussion. There is no need to cite here the long series of debates in the Council and Assembly of the League, during which the principle was more than once confirmed that the question of the protection of minorities must on no account be allowed to become a vehicle for advocating political systems. It does, however, seem to be necessary to demonstrate how absurd the idea is of an Epirus entirely peopled by persons whose origin lies in an ethnic Albania. The results of the last census in Greece (May I5th-i6th, 1928; see official statistics of the Ministry of National Economy) show a total population of 312,634 for Epirus. According to the same census, there are 18,598 Moslems in Epirus and in Macedonia (see the Greek Year-Book, an official publication of the General Statistical Service). This does not in any way mean that all these persons were really of Albanian origin. General de Lara himself refers to Viscount Ishii’s report submitted on March 16th, 1926, to the Council of the League,1 in which mention is made of the Greek Foreign Minister’s declaration to the effect that the Greek Government intended to ask the Mixed Commission to abolish the Epirus Sub-Commission. This declaration meant that the Greek Government was prepared to agree that the Sub-Commission should no longer be called upon to examine any cases which had not, at that date, already been laid before it. Thus, 10,000 Moslems affected by the presumption of Albanian race remained in Greece and formed the so-called “ Moslem minority of Albanian origin in Epirus and Macedonia ’’. But legal presumptions are n°t always borne out by facts. In any case, 16,000 “ Albanians ” (of whom some 2,000 are in Macedonia) out of a total population of 312,000 in the Epirus is a very exiguous basis on which 0 build up a theory like that advanced by General de Lara. . reply to this contention, the Greek Government will refrain from recalling the existence m, , (' southern provinces of Albania, commonly known as Northern Epirus, of a Greek element ich is estimated by non-Greek authorities at 128,050, 119,884 and 128,500 out of respective 0 als of 223,611, 222,299 and 217,110 (see Léon Maccas : La question gréco-albanaise, Paris, erger-Levrault, 1921, pages 4-5). But we cannot help quoting here certain passages from the
page , ''?le ^ Secretary-General. — See Minutes of the Thirty-ninth Session of the Council (Official Journal, April 1926, — 12 — report of the League Commission of Enquiry in Albania (Official Journal of the League, 1923 pages 491 et seq.) : "... The Greek-speaking people of the Arghirocastro region are much more numerous than has been generally admitted. The Albanian authorities have repeatedly given their number as being 16,000, but in the under-prefecture of Delvino alone there are reliably stated to be 15,150 grecophone persons, and, further, almost all the villages between Libochovo along the Greek frontier as far as Psilotera in the east, and on the western side of the Arghiro castro valley, south from that town, are grecophone—that is to say, Greek is their home language. “ According to the estimate of the number of the population made in March 1921 for electoral purposes, there are in the wrhole prefecture of Arghirocastro 33,313 grecophone persons. “ In the district of Chimarra, which was earlier reckoned as part of this province, but is now an under-prefecture of Valona, the population is bilingual to a greater extent than elsew'here. Greek sources give the num ber of the grecophone population which inhabits the villages in the district as 3,685 persons, which is certainly a maximum. “ In any case, it seems certain that the grecophone population in Southern Albania is not less than 35,000 and does not exceed 40,000 persons. “ . . . Out of the whole population of Southern Albania taken as comprising the prefectures of Koritza and Arghirocastro, with the exclusion of the under-prefecture of Pogradets (which has usually been considered as not belonging to ' Northern Epirus ’), but with Chimarra added, the grecophone populations form about i y per cent, or about one-sixth of the whole. ”
This already constitutes a far greater proportion than that shown by the above-mentioned statistics of 1928 for the " Albanians ” of Southern Epirus. Moreover, the passages quoted above from the report of the Commission of Enquiry relate only to the Greek-speaking Northern Epirots, wrhich explains the difference between the figures given by that Commission and those contained in Maccas’ book, which included, in addition to the Greek-speaking population, the bilingual and Albanian-speaking inhabitants with Greek national sentiments. But, in his statem ent, General de L ara does not stop at the politico-ethnical theory regarding the Epirus. Taking a much wider view, he adds: "... Nothing in this family points to an origin other than Albanian, since any attempt to go back through the centuries and through history to determine the Palestinian origin of the Jews of any region would also provide an opportunity of indulging in historical speculations as to the Nordic origin of the whole Albanian population and even of invoking theories regarding the Slav invasions of the Peloponnesus, which would deprive its inhabitants of the claim to be purely Greek at the present historical juncture.”
This line of argument is indeed interesting. Mention is made of a scientific theory which places the Aryan descents on the Balkans in the neighbourhood of the beginning of the second millennium before the present era—i.e., at an epoch not far removed from the prehistoric neolithic period. Then follows an allusion to a well-known but long discredited allegation of Fallmerayer’s to the effect that the Slav invasions of the sixth century radically modified the ethnical character of the peninsula. But it must in any case be recognised that the drawing of a parallel between events which occurred respectively forty and fourteen centuries ago and a conversion which took place only one or two generations ago displays a temerity which is hardly appropriate to a statement of reasons for a vote. This vote nevertheless proved the starting-point of a question with which League departments have been dealing for years, on which valuable time has been spent and regarding wiiich the Greek Government is obliged once again, and we hope for the last time, to put forward observations. 22. In conclusion, the Greek Government would like to add the following remark : It has been seen above th at the Widow Hulussi’s brother and brother-in-law, after being exchanged, are now settled in Turkey and that her children wrent last year to Constantinople. From the point of view of a judicious examination of the question, these facts carry much more weight than a painful accumulation of arguments derived from considerations several of which have no relation to reality.
4. L e t t e r f r o m t h e R epresentatives o f I t a l y , A u s t r a l i a a n d S p a i n c o n c e r n i n g (i ) a
P e t i t i o n p r e s e n t e d b y M . M o t z k i n , P r e s i d e n t o f t h e “ C o m m it t e e o f J e w i s h D e l e g a t io n s ”,
AND M . M a RGULIES, PRESIDENT OF THE JEWISH PARTY IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA, ON BEHALF OF THE
s a i d C o m m i t t e e , o f t h e “ A m e r i c a n J e w i s h C o n g r e s s ” a n d a C e r t a i n N u m b e r o f J ewish
I nstitutions i n V a r i o u s C o u n t r i e s , a n d (2) a P e t i t i o n f r o m t h e J e w i s h C l u b o f t h e D iet
o f t h e P o l is h R e p u b l i c .
Under the Council resolution of October 25th, 1920, a Minorities Committee, of which we h a d the honour to be members, examined, at a meeting held on January 19th, 1934, two petitions, one of which was presented by M. Motzkin, President of the “ Committee of Jewish Delegations ", and M. Margulies, President of the Jewish Party in Czechoslovakia, on behalf of the said Committee, — 13 — of the A m e r ic a n Jewish Congress a n d of a number of Jewish institutions in various countries, and the other by the Jewish Club of the Diet of the Polish Republic, both concerning the situation of the Jewish minority in German Upper Silesia (document C.315.1933.I), together with the German Government’s observations thereon (document C.438.1933.1). The Committee noted that the question dealt with in these two petitions was the same as that raised in the petition of M. Franz Bernheim (document C.314..1933.I), as the German Govern ment points out in its observations. M. Bemheim’s petition was placed on the agenda of the seventy-third session of the Council and was examined by the latter. 1 In these circumstances, the Committee decided to close the examination of the two petitions submitted to it without bringing them to the Council’s attention. The Council resolution of June 13th, 1929, paragraph 4 (i), provides that, when the members of a Minorities Committee have finished the examination of a question without asking that it be placed on the Council’s agenda, they will communicate the result of their examination by letter to the other Members of the Council for their information. We have the honour accordingly to request you to be good enough to communicate the contents of this letter, for information, to the other Members of the Council.
(Signed) A l o i s i , Rome, February 2nd, 1934.
( Signed) K eith O f f i c e r , London, February 2nd, 1934.
(Signed) Lôpez O l i v An , Paris, March 12th, 1934.
5. L e t t e r f r o m t h e R epresentatives o f P a n a m a , D e n m a r k a n d F r a n c e c o n c e r n i n g
a P e t i t i o n f r o m M. E r n s t P l e s c h k e .
In accordance with the Council resolution of October 25th, 1920, a Minorities Committee, of which we had the honour to be members, was called upon to examine a petition from M. Ernst Pleschke, dated June 14th, 1933, concerning his personal situation, together with the observations of the Czechoslovak Government on this subject (document C.624.1933.1). The question submitted to the Committee for examination may be summarised as follows : M. Pleschke complains that, in certain anti-German demonstrations in Czechoslovakia so far back as 1920, he received blows and wounds which, he says, have made it necessary for him to remain under continual medical treatment for a nervous affection ever since and to be treated in a psychiatric institute. These facts, he alleges, have obliged him to abandon his studies and have incapacitated him for work. His application for damages with interest under Czechoslovak law was, he says, rejected by the Ministry of the Interior in 1921 on the grounds that he had submitted his request after the expiry of the time-limit set for the purpose. The petitioner alleges, moreover, that the statement drawn up at the Prague Police Commissariat where he claims that he was asked to make his statement on December 10th, 1920, has disappeared from his file, so that the one document drawn up within the prescribed time-limit has been suppressed. The petitioner finally alleges that he was dismissed from the establishment in which he worked on account of the hostility aroused by his German origin. In its observations, the Czechoslovak Government refutes the petitioner’s allegations. It explains that, if the request for damages and interest was not exam ined by the com petent authori ties in the same way as the requests of other persons belonging to the German minority, that was simply because it was not submitted by the petitioner’s lawyer within the time-limit set by the law of March 18th, 1920. With regard to the petitioner’s allegation that, previous to the submission of the request, on December 10th, 1920, he had made a statement at the Prague Police Commissariat of which an official record was taken, the Government observes that the only statement of M. Pleschke of which any record can be found was made on December 12th, 1920, in the Prague Office for Germans This document, which was submitted on the 16th of the same month to the authorities by the petitioner’s lawyer, does not contain any mention of a statement made at the Commissariat of Police. Moreover, according to the medical report of the Decin Hospital, dated November 20th, 1920, M. Pleschke’s wounds only necessitated three or four days’ treatment and caused not more than ten days’ absence from work. Neither the hospital nor the doctor selected by the petitioner observed a nervous shock capable of preventing him from working. M. Pleschke’s discharge from the Prague Artificial Silk Company was due to the abolition P°sts for reasons of economy and because the results of his work were regarded as inadequate. At a meeting held at Paris on March 16th, 1934, the members of the Committee, after noting, °n the one hand—and apart from any consideration of law—that the petitioner had waited for more than ten years before complaining to the League of Nations, and taking into account, on
1 Official Journal, Fourteenth Year, July 1933 (Part I). — 14 — the other hand, the circumstantial considerations submitted by the Czechoslovak Government concerning each point of the petition, felt that they should close the examination of this question without drawing the attention of the Council to its contents. The Council resolution of June 13th, 1929, paragraph 4 (i), provides that, when the members of a Minorities Committee have finished the examination of a question without asking that it be placed on the Council’s agenda, they shall communicate the result of their examination by letter to the other Members of the Council for their information. We have therefore the honour to request you to be good enough to communicate the contents of this letter, for their information, to the other Members of the Council. (Signed) Belisario P o r r a s , Geneva, April 13th, 1934.
(Signed) Gustav R a s m u s s e n , Geneva, April 24th, 1934.
(Signed) J . F o u q u e s -D u p a r c , Paris, April 30th, 1934.
6 . L e t t e r f r o m t h e R epresentatives o f P o r t u g a l , D e n m a r k a n d P o l a n d c o n c e r n in g
P e t i t i o n s o f t h e B u l g a r i a n M o n a s t e r y " Z o g r a f ” a n d o f t h e R u s s i a n M o n a s t e r y
o f " S t. P a n t e l e i m o n ” , o n M o u n t A t h o s .
Under the Council resolution of October 25th, 1920, a Minorities Committee, of which we had the honour to be members,1 examined two petitions, dated April 20th and 29th, 1932, from the Bulgarian Monastery “ Zograf ” and the Russian Monastery “St. Panteleimon ”, on Mount Athos, concerning certain questions relating to the expropriation of their rural properties (document C.591.1932.I). The question to which the above petitions relate may be summarised as follows : 1. In May 1930, a Minorities Committee, consisting of the representatives of Cuba, Canada and France, concluded its examination of a number of petitions from three minority communities on Mount Athos—the Monastery “Zograf”, the Monastery “St. Panteleimon” and the Skite (Hermitage) of St. Andrew—concerning the expropriation by the Greek authorities of certain properties and dependencies (métoques) belonging to the communities in question. From the statements made by the Greek Government during the examination of these petitions, the Com mittee was able to establish certain points winch are set out in the letter addressed by its members to the Secretary-General on May 15th, 1930, for the purpose of informing the other Members of the Council of the result of their work (see Official Journal of the League of Nations, July 1930, page 829). These points included the following: (1) that the sum payable by way of compensation to the monasteries would be equal to the real value of the property on the date of expropriation, so that there might be no change in the assets of the monasteries; (2) that the sum in question would be deposited, in conformity with agreements to be concluded between the Government, the National Bank of Greece and the Mount Athos community, in the form either of cash or of securities, at the National Bank of Greece, as an inalienable fund, the several monasteries being entitled only to such proportion of the interest as accrues to them; (3) that, pending the final valuation of the métoques, an “ expropriation rent ” based on a provisional valuation of the métoques would be paid to the communities concerned ; and (4) that the provisional valuations fixing the said expro priation rent were subject to any modifications resulting to the advantage of the monasteries, from a difference between the expropriation rent and the interest on the amount as finally assessed. 2. In their petitions of April 20th and 29th, 1932, the Monasteries of “Zograf” and “ St. Panteleimon ” pointed out, in the first place, that, according to the Agrarian Law, the court competent to decide their cases had valued three of their métoques at an extremely low figure, which they were quite unable to accept. They stated that the Greek Government had itself admitted that the valuation was unfair, as, on February 17th, 1932, it had obtained Parliament’s approval for a Bill providing that new valuations should be made by special commissions, each consisting of two members appointed respectively by the Ministry of Agriculture and the community concerned, any disagreement between the members being finally settled by the President of the Salonika Court of Appeal. This procedure was open to any monastery which stated in writing, within two months from the promulgation of the law, that it agreed to arbitration by this judge; otherwise, the deci sions of the above-mentioned court would continue to hold good. The petitioners protested against these provisions, which they viewed as a comminatory procedure for the purpose of forcing upon them the irrevocable decision of an arbitrator in whose choice they had not participated. In conclusion, they asked that, in accordance with the undertakings entered into by the Greek Government, the latter should pay in full the real value of their properties on the date of expropriation. In its observations with regard to the foregoing assertions, the Greek Government stated , in particular, that the sole object of the law to which the petitioners had taken exception was to safeguard, as far as possible, the interests of the monasteries, which would be able to put forw ard
1 ,î.he Committee originally consisted of the representatives of Guatemala, Poland and Germany. The representa tives of Guatemala and Germany were subsequently replaced by the representatives of Portugal and Denmark. — 15 — their claims in the commissions set up by the law. The Government also pointed out that the principles laid down in the law in question for the valuation of the properties were the principles recommended by the petitioners themselves. In this connection, it quoted the following passage from the law :
“ Each property shall be valued on the basis of the average net income in kind during the period of ten years preceding the expropriation or leasing of the métoques. For this purpose, the information furnished by the monasteries on the basis of their official or other records shall be taken into consideration in the first instance. The unit price per oke of produce shall be the price of this produce on the market at the time of the arbitration.”
3. After its first meeting, during which it examined the various points which have just been summarised, the Committee addressed a letter to the Greek representative asking for supplementary explanations, to which he replied in a letter dated September 1st, 1933. In this communication, the Greek representative, after pointing out that the object of the law passed by the Greek Parlia ment was to enable the monasteries concerned to take part in the valuation of their expropriated properties, renewed the assurance that “ the compensation payable for expropriation will be assessed on the basis of the real value of the expropriated properties ”. The Committee considered that this assurance complied adequately with the essential conditions of the settlement for which provision had been made in the exchange of correspondence preceding the closing of the examination of the original petitions of the monasteries concerned (see above). It therefore felt that there was no necessity, at the present stage, for any of its members to follow up the matter, and decided to close the examination of the question without bringing it to the notice of the Council. The Council resolution of June 13th, 1929, paragraph 4 (i), provides that, when the members of a Minorities Committee have finished the examination of a question without asking that it be placed on the Council’s agenda, they will communicate the result of their examination by letter to the other Members of the Council for their information. We have, therefore, the honour to request you to communicate the contents of this letter, for information, to the other Members of the Council. ( Signed) Professor Dr. L o b o d ’A v il a L im a , Berne, May 5th, 1934.
(Signed) G ustav R a s m u s s e n , Geneva, April 19th, 1934.
(Signed) Ladislas K u l s k i, Geneva, April 9th, 1934.
7. L e t t e r f r o m t h e R epresentatives o f F r a n c e , t h e U n i t e d K i n g d o m , D e n m a r k , M e x i c o
a n d S p a i n c o n c e r n i n g P e t i t i o n s f r o m M . G r a e b e , M . U t t a a n d MM. P a n t , F ra n z a n d J a n k o w s k i.
In virtue of the Council resolution of October 25th, 1920, a Minorities Committee was appointed in February 1932 to consider two petitions relating to the position of the German minority schools in Poland—in the voivodies of Poznan and Pomorze (M. Graebe’s petition) and in certain other parts of Poland (M. U tta’s petition), respectively. This Committee consisted of the representative of France (Chairman) and the representatives ot the Irish Free State and Panama. In view of the importance of the questions entrusted to this committee for examination, affecting as they did the whole of public and private education throughout Poland, the President of the Council, in the exercise of his powers under the resolution of June 13th, 1929, invited the representatives of Spain and the United Kingdom to join the committee. Subsequently, the representatives of the Irish Free State and Panama were replaced by the representatives of Denmark and Mexico. The Committee’s proceedings continued throughout the years 1932 and 1933, as numerous supplementary petitions dealing with subsidiary questions or with certain special aspects of problems already under consideration had been addressed to the League in the meantime. . . The Committee wishes to make it clear that these repeated supplementary petitions, each of ch entailed a fresh consultation of the Polish Government and hence a further delay, have prevented it from completing its enquiry more quickly. Furthermore, owing to the importance and complexity of the problems raised, the Committee has felt it necessary to take all proper safeguards, 0 ask the Polish Government for additional information, and to consult legal authorities in the countries represented. — i6 —
The data on which it now has to pronounce are to be found in the following thirteen documents:
Document C. 153.1932.1, containing a petition, dated June 23rd, 1931, from M. Utta, concerning the rights of the German minority in the matter of public instruction in certain parts of Poland, together with the Polish Government’s observations thereon. Document C. 174.1932.1, containing a letter, dated January 25th, 1932, from the Polish delegation on the subject of the aforesaid petition from M. Utta. Document C.306.1932.1, containing a petition, dated June 23rd, 1931, from M. Graebe, concerning the rights of the German minority in the matter of public instruction in the voivodies of Poznan and Pomorze, together with the Polish Government’s observations thereon. Document C.498.1932.1, containing a petition, dated January 21st, 1932, from M. Graebe, concerning measures alleged to have been taken by the school authorities regarding the German secondary school at Tczew, together with the Polish Government’s observations thereon. Document C.500.1932.1, containing a petition, dated January 29th, 1932, from M. Graebe, concerning a Bill on private schools and educational establishments, together with the Polish Government’s observations thereon. Document C.532.1932.1, containing M. U tta ’s first supplem entary petition, dated January 22nd, 1932, together with the Polish Government’s observations thereon. Document C.647.1932.1, containing a petition, dated May 5th, 1931, from M. Graebe, M. Utta and M. Naumann, concerning, in particular, (1) the law on private schools, passed on March nth, 1932, and (2) the law on the reorganisation of the school regime, passed on February 27th, 1932, together with the Polish G overnm ent’s observations thereon. Document C.193.1933.I, containing supplementary petitions from M. Graebe, dated October 28th and December 19th, 1932, concerning the measures taken by the Polish authorities in execution of the new school laws. Document C.260.1933.1, containing M. Graebe’s supplementary petition of January 30th, 1933, concerning the measures taken by the Polish authorities in execution of the new school laws, together with the Polish Government’s observations on M. Graebe’s petitions of October 28th, 1932, December 19th, 1932, and January 30th, 1933. Document C.404.1933.1, containing a petition from M. Pant, M. Franz and M. Jankowski, dated March 18th, 1933, concerning the German private Catholic schools in the voivodie of Stanislawow, Malopolska, together with the Polish Government’s observations thereon. Document C.621.1933.1, containing M. Utta’s second supplementary petition, dated March 31st, 1933, together with the Polish Government’s observationsthereon. Document C.688.1933.I, containing M. Graebe’s petitions of July 8th and September 2nd, 1933, concerning the position of the German m inority schools in the voivodies of Poznan and Pomorze, together with the Polish Government’s observations thereon. Document C.689.1933.1, containing M. Graebe’s supplementary petition of September 3rd, 1933, concerning the measures taken by the Polish authorities in execution of the new school laws, together with an aide-mémoire from the Polish Government regarding this petition.
It will be seen from the foregoing list of documents that the petitions in question concerned :
(1) Minority public education in the voivodies of Poznan and Pomorze, where Article 9 of the Polish Minorities Treaty,1 which deals with public education, is applicable ; (2) Minority public education in certain other parts of Poland. In this case, the Committee was not concerned with the provisions of Article 9 (which are applicable to German-speaking Polish nationals only in that part of Poland which was German territory on August 1st, 1914) ; (3) Minority private education. As regards the minority private education covered by Article 8 of the Treaty, the distinction made in the case of public education is superfluous, as the legal position is the same throughout Poland.
1 Article 9 of the Polish Minorities Treaty :
" Poland will provide in the public educational system in towns and districts in which a considerable proportion of Polish nationals of other than Polish speech are residents adequate facilities for ensuring that, in the primary schools, the instruction shall be given to the children of such Polish nationals through the medium of their own language. This provision shall not prevent the Polish Government from making the teaching of the Polish language obligatory in the said schools . . . The provisions of this article shall apply to Polish citizens of German speech only in that part of Poland which was German territory on August 1st, 1914." — i 7 —
I. Minority Public Education in the Voivodies of Poznan and Pomorze. a General Data regarding School Attendance.
Before entering upon a critical examination of the provisions governing minority public education, the petitioner compiled a statistical table of attendance at the German schools, with the object of demonstrating that minority education in the two voivodies was not “ adequate According to his statistics, out of 35,111 German children of school age, there were:
(a) Attending the German public minority schools ...... 16,085 (b) Attending the German private minority schools ...... 3,208 (c) W ithout access to any German s c h o o l...... 15,818
The statistics given by the Polish Government regarding the education of these 35,000 children of school age in the two voivodies differ little from the petitioner’s statistics on points (a) and (b) :
(a) According to the Government's statistics, the number of children attending the German public schools is 14,943, and not 16,085; (b) The number of minority children attending German privateschools is5,266, and not 3,208; (c) But, whereas the petitioner asserts that 15,818 children have no access to German schools, the Polish Government gives the following particulars of the educational position of the remaining 15,000 children :
Children attending bilingual schools or receiving German teaching or religious teaching in G e r m a n ...... 11,773 Children taught at h o m e ...... 256
According to these figures, therefore, the number of German minority children who are receiving no instruction in their own language is barely 3,000, and not 15,000. The explanation of this considerable difference is that the minority children reckoned by the petitioner as receiving no teaching in German included those attending bilingual schools or Polish schools in which German is only partially taught. For its own part, the Committee cannot regard a curriculum in which the use of the minority language is limited to certain subsidiary subjects as providing “ adequate facilities ” within the meaning of Article 9 of the Treaty. In order, however, to avoid a misunderstanding which might arise out of these statistics, and which M. Graebe’s petition would tend to substantiate, the Committee desires to point out that the provision of “ adequate facilities ” is obligatory upon the State, under Article 9, only “ in towns and districts in which a considerable proportion of Polish nationals ” belonging to minorities “ are residents
B. Legislation governing Public Education.
The essential enactment governing minority public education in the voivodies of Poznan and Pomorze is the Polish Decree of March 10th, 1920. This Decree provides for the establishment and upkeep of a minority school or public class in every commune in which there are not fewer than forty children belonging to the minority. Article 8 of the Decree, however, gives the proper authorities power to m aintain a m inority school, even if the num ber of minority children in the commune falls below that figure. Notwithstanding this discretionary power, which, he asserts, is not used, the petitioner complains of a system of regulations which is based upon the smallest administrative unit, and has the effect of depriving the children of the German minority of teaching in their own language m many cases where they are sufficient in numbers to justify it. He contrasts these regulations with those introduced by the general Act of February 17th, 1922, which provides for the establishment of one school for forty children in the education area. On the basis of Article 9 of the Treaty with Poland, the Committee finds that the territorial unit taken in the Decree of March 10th, 1920, as the basis for the establishment and upkeep of a minority public school is, indeed, the commune, and not, as the text of the Treaty says, the “town and district moreover, it is the actual number (forty children) which is taken into account, and not the proportion of the minority population. Does it follow from this that the Polish Decree must a priori be regarded—as the petitioner seems to suggest—as not correctly applying Article 9 of the Treaty ? Subject to the results of the application of this Decree, which will be considered later, the Committee feels called upon to make ne following remarks :
1. The adoption of the actual number of forty children per commune as a basis corresponds to a legislative provision which exists in several countries subjected to minority clauses. — i8 —
2. While in some districts this method of calculation may yield results less favourable to the minority than the Treaty clause, in others it may lead to the establishment of minority schools when a strict interpretation of the clause in Article 9 of the Treaty would not require the State to establish them. 3. It would certainly be presumptive evidence of a breach of Article 9 if it were found that the territorial unit taken as basis (i.e., the commune) had been arbitrarily fixed so as to exclude the minority from the enjoyment of a right to which it was entitled. The Committee has not, however, found sufficient evidence to justify this conclusion. 4. Lastly, the Polish Government, according to the information it has furnished to the Committee, is voluntarily making efforts to correct the hard cases that have arisen in consequence of the numerical criteria, established by the Decree of March 10th, 1920:
(a) By not closing a minority school unless the number of minority children in the commune has been below forty for two consecutive years ; (b) By availing itself of the discretionary powers conferred upon it by that decree to maintain, in certain cases, German schools with fewer than forty children (decisions of the Minister of Education in the districts of Koscierzyna, Wejherowo, Dzialdowo, etc.); (c) By, in principle, transferring—when a German school is closed because there are no longer forty minority children in the commune—the children who formerly attended that school to the nearest German schools, and not sending them to the Polish school, unless there are no German schools in the neighbourhood.
5. This seems sufficient evidence on which to reject the conclusion that the Decree of March 10th, 1920, must, prima facie, be regarded as a breach of the provisions of Article 9 of the Polish Minorities Treaty. It is not, however, evidence that Article 9 is being strictly applied. That could only be established by a direct enquiry into the educational position in every one of the towns and districts which are subject to the conditions laid down in that article.
C. Examination of the Application of Article 9 of the Treaty in Individual Cases.
The Committee therefore examined the educational situation of the minority separately in each town and administrative area or “ powiat ”, as the “ powiat ” seemed to it to be the administrative unit corresponding most nearly to the term “ district ” employed in the treaties. In conducting its enquiries, the Committee utilised the statistical table of minority schools given in Annex 16 of M. Graebe’s first petition, rectifying the data therein in the light of the information supplied by the Polish Government whenever such information was available. It also utilised the publication of the Central Statistical Office of the Polish Republic, entitled “ First Provisional Results of the Census of the Population taken on December 9th, 1931 ” (Warsaw, volume published on June 6th, 1932), which gives the percentage of minority nationals in each division. The detailed enquiry conducted by it in the light of these data led it to form the following conclusions : In the thirty-seven towns and districts in the voivodie of Poznan, 66 per cent of the children of the German minority are taught in German, either in the public schools or in private establishments. This general result may be regarded as satisfactory if it be borne in mind that in nine of these districts the proportion of the German population to the total population is less than 5 per cent, and in nineteen less than 10 per cent. This fact confirms the hypothesis put forward in sub-paragraph 2 of the previous paragraph—namely, that, in certain cases, the system of calculation adopted by Polish law has been more favourable to the minority than would have been a rigid application of the criteria laid down in Article 9 of the Treaty. In the twenty towns and districts in the voivodie of Pomorze, the result is less satisfactory. The proportion of the children of the German minority who are taught in their mother tongue would appear to be only 33 per cent. This unfavourable situation is particularly marked in the districts of Dzialdowo, Chelmno and Swiecie, in which, nevertheless, the minority population is 10.2 per cent, 14.6 per cent and 15.6 per cent, respectively, and should therefore, in the opinion of the Committee, be deemed “ considerable ”.1 In the Swiecie district, out of a total of 1,139 German minority children of school
1 By a letter, dated July 19th, 1934» the Polish Government has made the following observations on this point with a request that these observations should be published at the same time as the above letter:
From the context, it seems that the term ‘ considerable ’ is used in the sense that is given to it in Article 9 of the said Treaty of Minorities, which limits the obligation of the Polish Government as regards public minority education to the districts ‘ where is to be found a considerable proportion of Polish nationals speaking a language other than Polish \ The Polish Government cannot admit as correct this interpretation of Article 9 of the said Treaty, and- with regard to this subject, formulates the most express reservations, considering in its opinion that 10 per cent or 15 per cent cannot be regarded as a ccmsiderable proportion. The explanation of the terms— considerable proportion of Article 9 having met with the opposition of the Polish Government, the latter is strongly of the opinion that the letter of closure of the Committee does not, as far as the Polish Government is concerned, alter the sense of Article 9." — i 9 — age, only 182—according to the information supplied by the Polish Government itself—receive instruction in private or public minority schools. The Committee cannot in any of these cases formally conclude that the Minorities Treaty has been infringed. But it is bound to note that in these three districts at least, and particularly in the last-named, the application of the Decree of March 10th, 1920, departs, to the detriment of the minority, from the intentions of Article 9 of the Treaty to such an extent that it felt obliged to draw the Polish Government’s attention to the fact. It sincerely hopes that the Polish Government will use, as it has done in other cases, the discretionary power accorded to it by the said Decree to remedy this state of affairs.
D. Management of Public Schools. In addition to the essential question of school attendance, the petitioner has referred to other matters connected with school management. He asks, for instance, that the minority should be allowed to make suggestions concerning the appointment of head-masters and masters of public minority schools. He also requests that the supervision of the public minority schools should be separate from that of the Polish primary schools and should be entrusted to a special supervisory body; th at the minority should be secured an adequate representation in the organs of the autonomous school administration; that parents’ councils should be formed of members of the minority for each minority school or minority class, and, finally, that a special German head-master should be appointed for each German minority school. The Polish Government has expressed the opinion that the conditions for the transfer of schoolmasters should be the same for all public officials without distinction as to race or language, and that, therefore, there can be no question of withdrawing certain schoolmasters, in whatever measure it may be, from the authority of the competent organs. The Committee felt that it was not called upon to study these points in detail, as the first paragraph of Article 9 of the Minorities Treaty concerning public schools contains no provision on the subject.
II. Minority Public Education in Other Parts of Poland.
As regards former Congress Poland to which Article 9 of the Minorities Treaty does not apply ; the scholastic situation has been explained in several petitions from M. Utta. The petitioner, after describing the position under the Russian regime, says that, as soon as the new Polish State was formed, the German scholastic associations were dissolved under a Decree promulgated by the Head of the State on February 7th, 1919. In virtue of this Decree, the Council of Ministers decided, on March 3rd, 1919, to transfer all the property of the German school communities to the political communes, it being understood that German should be maintained as the medium of instruction in the public primary schools and in the schools belonging to the dissolved school communities, if such were the desire of the majority of the pupils’ parents. Moreover, these schools might make use of the land, buildings, etc., which had been attributed to them as German schools. In spite of these guarantees, the petitioner alleged that, of the 560 German schools existing in 1914, only 100 remained in 1931. In its observations, the Polish Government has furnished explanations regarding the situation described by M. Utta, though explicitly reserving its point of view concerning the application of the Minorities Treaty to minority public schools in this part of Poland. The question which the Committee had to decide—since Article 9 does not apply to this part of Poland—was whether the facts referred to by the petitioner were such as to amount to a violation of the equality of treatment imposed, in law and in fact, by Articles 7 and 8 of the Minorities Treaty. The petitioner complains that the Polish authorities have incorrectly applied the Decree of March 3rd, 1919, which refers to German schools in Congress Poland. The fact of applying a general law in such a way that it shall benefit the majority and not the minority would constitute inequality of treatment within the meaning of Articles 7 and 8 of the Treaty. But the measure in question is a special enactment (Decree of March 3rd, 1919) granting the German minority in a given territory certain privileges not enjoyed by the majority. In these circumstances, it would not seem that the alleged incorrect application of this Decree >s such as would constitute a derogation from the equality defined in Articles 7 and 8 of the Polish Minorities Treaty. Consequently, the Committee has not considered whether the petitioner's allegations were or were not correct.
III. Minority Private Education. (Law of March n t h , 1932.)
M. Graebe criticised, even in his first petition, the—in his opinion—tendentious use which the °hsh authorities made of the discretionary power allowed them under the general laws of granting V ^ g to members of the German minority the right “ to establish, manage and control ools ”, Subsequently, this criticism assumed a more detailed form following on the discussion an ^option of a general law on private teaching (Law of March n th , 1932). This law is referred to m several petitions; in particular, those of M. Graebe, M. U tta and M. Neumann (document — 20 —
C.647.1932.I), and that of M. Pant, M. Franz and M. Jankowski (document C.404.1933.I) as regards the voivodie of Stanislawow (former Austrian territory). The changes made by this Law of March nth , 1932, in the former regime are shown in the following comparative table :
Law of March n th , 1932. Decree of January 26th, 1926. Provisions of M ay 23rd, 1^22,
Article 1. — The power to Article 1. — Every request A concession for the estab control and supervise private for official permission to open a lishment or management of a schools . . . shall be vested private school shall be sub private school can only be in the Minister of Public mitted, for examination, to the obtained by one person— Worship and Education, who competent district school in namely, the head master him may delegate his powers to spector. The inspector must, self—and in no case by an the scholastic authorities under above all, express his opinion association applying as an him. on the following points: association. The following documents m ust be attached Article 2. — Any Polish (1) Whether the appli to any request for permission subject may establish a school cant possesses the requisite to establish a private school: provided he : moral qualities; (1) A certificate of (1) Files the statutes of (2) Whether the need for Polish nationality issued by the school defining the whole the organisation of a new the Starost ; organisation of the school, private school or the main the language in which teach tenance of an existing school (2) A certificate from the ing is to be given . . . is sufficiently dem onstrated ; competent Starost or Sta- rosts of the place or places (2) Supplies suitable pre (3) Whether the founda in which the applicant has mises for the school . . . tion of a new school may resided during the previous (3) Is able to prove that affect the organisation of the three years . . . prov the available resources will public schools already in ing that his conduct has be sufficient for the main existence, or whether it may invariably been irreproach tenance of the school ; lead to the closing of neigh able, both from a political (4) Produces a written bouring schools . . . and moral point of view; attestation from the compe (5) Whether the school (3) Diplomas attesting tent State authorities certi will operate under the same the professional qualifica fying that the applicant is conditions of teaching and tions of the applicant for the a person of irreproachable hygiene as the local public said head-mastership ; conduct, both from a moral schools of the same standing. standpoint and in his atti (4) A complete curri tude towards the State . . . culum vitæ of the applicant; Article 4. — The school may (5) A detailed plan of be closed by the supervisory the teaching to be pro school authorities if it is ascer vided . . . tained . . . that the pu (6) Certificates from the pils are being educated in a competent authorities attest manner contrary to the loyalty ing that the school pre they owe to the State, or if the mises are, from a health school has not effectively com point of view, in keeping bated any pernicious influ with existing provisions . ences, from the point of view of education, to which young persons may be subjected . . . Decision of the Curator of Poznan of June gth, 1922, supplementing the above-men tioned provisions:
. . . The teaching staff in these schools must consist of Polish subjects.
(a) The Question of Loyalty.
The petitioners expressed anxiety as to the effect on the minority school of the application of Article 2 of this law, which subordinates the opening of schools to new conditions ; in particular, a condition regarding loyalty, which did not explicitly appear in the previous legislation. They say t h a t several cases have already shown that the fact of belonging to German cultural societies recognised by t h e authorities, or that of not speaking Polish, and even of speaking German at home, aie considered as sufficient proof of lack of loyalty. The petitioners point out that the Minorities Treaty does not subordinate the granting of the rights provided for therein to any — 21 — con d ition as regards the loyalty of their beneficiaries ; and, further, that the preamble of the law in q u e stio n does not define loyalty, and thus leaves the school authorities completely free to judge the loyal spirit of the school concerned and of its teachers. In its observations, the Polish Government states that the meaning of the articles in the law on sc h o o ls and private educational establishments, dealing with the loyalty of the founders and m asters of these schools, is quite clear. Their purpose is to protect young people against all subversive propaganda and to ensure that, in private and public education, the necessary development of their civic qualities will not be neglected. The Government recalls that similar provisions were inserted in the German-Polish Convention relating to Upper Silesia (see Article 98). The Committee was unable to regard the provisions complained of as in principle incompatible with the stipulations of the Polish Minorities Treaty. This obligation of loyalty has, indeed, been recalled in several resolutions of the Assembly of the League. It also appears in Article 93 of the Polish Constitution.1 Nevertheless, any rule making the right of teaching dependent upon obtaining a certificate of loyalty would constitute an infringement of the Minorities Treaty if the manner in which it was applied had the result of depriving the members of the minority of the equal right recognised to them in that treaty of establishing, managing or controlling private schools. Although the Committee did not feel able to formulate a complete definition of loyalty, it wishes to state that, from the point of view of the practical application of the law in question, neither the fact of belonging to a minority nor that of speaking a minority language, nor that of defending the legitimate interests of minorities, can in any circumstances be regarded as constituting a valid reason for calling a person’s loyalty in question. In this connection, reference may be made to Chapter III, Article 12, of the Legal and Financial Convention between Poland and Czechoslovakia, signed at Warsaw on April 23rd, 1925, in which the two contracting parties, while recognising that minorities are bound to observe a loyal attitude to the State in whose territory they are settled, declare that “ the upholding of the rights of minorities shall not be considered as an act of disloyalty towards the State The Committee wishes to add that, while it recognises that the fact of not attaching a statement of reasons to decisions refusing certificates of loyalty is not in itself contrary to the provisions of the Minorities Treaty, the freedom of judgment of the authorities in this respect should, in its opinion, find its natural limits in the provisions of the Minorities Treaty, and particularly in that concerning equality of treatment in law and in fact between the majority and the minorities. The Committee further points out that the probable consequence of the practice of refusing certificates of loyalty without explanation will be that the members of the minority will easily be led to believe that this measure is based on reasons connected with their membership of the minority, and will send to the League of Nations petitions which, when examined by the Minorities Committees, will certainly lead to requests for information as to the reasons for the decisions. In the Polish Administration’s own interest, it would therefore seem preferable that in all cases decisions involving the refusal of certificates of loyalty should be accompanied by a sufficient statem ent of reasons.
(b) Conditions connected with Premises, Resources, Pedagogic Qualifications, etc. The petitioners also state that certain other conditions laid down by the law afford a pretext for refusals of authorisations to open minority schools. These conditions relate, in particular, to the pedagogic qualifications of schoolmasters, to school premises, to means of access to the schools and to the financial resources of the schools. The Committee considers that it is perfectly legitimate to require such conditions, subject to what has been said above with regard to loyalty—namely, that the application of these provisions would constitute an infringement of the Minorities Treaty if they had the result, in practice, of depriving members of the minority of the equal right to establish, manage and control private schools.
(c) Introduction of the Polish Language in Certain Branches of Teaching in M inority Schools. The petitioners have also complained of the use made by the Polish school authorities of Article 5 of the Law of March n th , 1932,2 in order to introduce the language of the State into private minority schools in the teaching of history, geography and sometimes arithmetic. The Polish Government replied that the relevant decisions were taken with a view to the more effective application of the school curriculum, for the inspectors had observed that minority children were not sufficiently acquainted with Polish. In taking these decisions, the authorities had only been actuated by the children’s own interests. Nevertheless, as a result of a request made by the members of the Chamber of Deputies belonging to the German minority, the Minister of Education has ordered that, in minority schools, geography and history should be taught in German.
1 ' It is incumbent on all citizens to respect the legitimate authority, to assist it in the performance of its task and to discharge conscientiously the duties entrusted to them by the nation or by the competent authorities.”
2 Article 5 reads as follows : “ The Statute must indicate in what language instruction is given. In schools where this language is not that of the State, the subjects in which instruction is given in that language must be such as to enable young people to acquire an accurate knowledge of the language of the State.” — 22 —
(d) Granting of School Concessions to Legal Entities. Lastly, in connection with the measures taken by the school authorities with regard to the German secondary school at Tczew, a question of principle was raised—namely, whether it was legitimate for the State to grant concessions for the founding of schools to private individuals only and to refuse them to legal and moral entities. The Polish Government has informed the Committee that, according to the new Law of March n t h , 1932, the authorisations in question m ay be granted to legal entities as well as to private individuals. The provisions of the new law are therefore in keeping with the request made by the petitioners. The Committee took note of this declaration of the Polish Government.
* * * In view of the foregoing considerations, the Committee has decided to close the examination of these petitions without bringing them to the attention of the Council. The Council resolution of June 13th, 1929, paragraph 4 (z), provides that, when the members of a Minorities Committee have finished the examination of a question without asking that it be placed on the Council's agenda, they will communicate the result of their examination by letter to the other Members of the Council for their information. We have therefore the honour to request you to communicate the contents of this letter, for information, to the other Members of the Council,
(Signed) J. F o u q u e s -D u p a r c , Paris, April 21st, 1934.
(Signed) W illiam M a l k in , London, April 21st, 1934.
(Signed) Gustav R a s m u s s e n , Geneva, May 15th, 1934.
(Signed) F . Ca s t il l o N a j e r a , Paris, April 28th, 1934.
(Signed) L o p e z O l iv â n , Berne, April 27th, 1934.
8. L e t t e r fr o m t h e R epresentatives o f F r a n c e , D e n m a r k a n d M e x ic o c o n c e r n in g a P e t it io n fr o m M. E m e r ic P r o k o p y , d a t e d J u n e 193 i .
Geneva, May 18th, 1934.
Under the Council resolution of October 25th, 1920, a Minorities Committee, consisting of the representatives of France, Denmark and Mexico1 was called upon to examine a petition from M. E. Prokopy, dated June 1931, concerning the cultural associations of the Hungarian minority in Yugoslavia, together with the observations of the Yugoslav Government on the m atter (document C.44.1932.1). For the sake of greater clearness, the Committee, after recapitulating the previous history of the question, will deal in turn with :
(1) The concrete cases mentioned by the petitioner; (2) The questions of principle regarding the minority associations raised by the petition.
Previous History. A petition relating to the “ Private Associations of the Hungarian Minority in Yugoslavia 1 was submitted by M. Prokopy on September 8th, 1930. The observations on the matter commu nicated by the \ ugoslav Government, together with a list of Hungarian cultural associations in Yugoslavia (document C.62.1931.1), were deemed to be satisfactory by the Minorities Committee set up to deal with this question, 2 which decided to close the examination of the petition without bringing it to the notice of the Council (see Official Journal of the League of Nations February 1932’ page 309). The Yugoslav Government referred to this decision in the observations attached to M. Prokopy s present petition. It stated that it had nothing to add to its previous a c c o u n t of the position of the associations in question and would rely on the conclusions of the previous Committee. r However, the new Committee found that, in addition to the points dealt with in the letter ?i°TrC which it was not, of course, called upon to re-examine—this second petition from M. Prokopy set forth new facts and particulars which required further investigation. It accordingly
1 The Committee originally consisted of the representatives of France, Germany and Peru. 2 This Committee consisted of the representatives of Venezuela, Poland and Spain. — 23 — asked the Yugoslav Government for additional information concerning these new facts and particulars, which the latter was good enough to furnish, notably in a memorandum dated October 15th, 1932, supplemented by various communications on special points. These circumstances, and the necessity for clearing up in the light of these additional observa tions certain somewhat confused allegations made by the petitioner, explain the duration of the Committee’s work, which has been proceeding from 1932 to 1934.
I Points dealt with by the Committee and Information furnished at its Request by the Yugoslav Government.
A. Suppression of Various Hungarian Cultural Associations. (a) “ Hungarian Association for the Education of the People ” (at Vrsac). Value of property, according to the petitioner: 18,000 crowns. (b) “ Hungarian Young People’s Educational Club ” (at Vrsac). Value of property, according to the petitioner: 15,000 gold crowns. The Government states that it has been unable to obtain any information regarding these associations, either from the Vrsac archives or from persons holding public offices at the time. They presumably constituted a section of the Casino, the members of which divided up the property to prevent its being distributed by the State among associations which do not pursue objects contrary to the unity of Yugoslavia. (c) “ Hungarian Choral Club ” (equipment and furniture : 20,000 gold crowns, according to the petitioner). The Government states that this club, which used the premises of the Vrsac Casino, was dissolved in 1919, by order of the Minister of the Interior; that, as soon as Yugoslavia was formed, its members, neglecting their musical activities, began to work against the unity of the State. The club’s property was divided up in 1920 by a special decision of the Minister of the Interior among existing associations which pursue exclusively cultural aims. (d) “ Independent High School Society ” at Subotica. This society was founded in 1899 by the secondary-school teachers. Its object was to organise scientific lectures from time to time for the benefit of poor students; it had no statute. Its regular activities ceased in 1902, and, after 1918, none of its members who remained in Yugoslavia attempted to reconstitute it. (e) “ Hungarian Amateurs' Association ” at Subotica. The Government has been unable to obtain any information regarding this association. It may be another name for the Music Lovers' Society, whose members did not take any steps to have it reconstituted after the war. (/) “ The Cecilia Society There is no record of the existence of this society, whose activities have not, in any case, been continued. [g) “ Catholic City Club ” at Novisad. [h) “ Catholic Suburban Cultivators’ Society ” (Novisad). The Government explains that the authorities did not interfere with the activities of the Catholic Central Association, which was founded in 1908, and the Catholic External Association, founded in 1902, until the Law of January 6th, 1929, on the protection of public safety and order m the State, was applied to them. They were then dissolved, together with a large number of denominational societies pursuing, in one way or another, political or other aims. In 1931, the first-named association was authorised to resume its activities under the name of the “ Central Catholic Club and Reading Club ". No request to this effect has been made by the Catholic External Association.
(0 Hungarian School and Mothers’ School Society ” at Crvenka. The Government states that this society no longer exists owing to the death of most of its members. The school building and furniture have been taken over by the State and are at present used as premises for the primary school and Young Men’s Christian Union. M. Ken-Ziga, the pastor at Crvenka and former president of the association, is in charge of its archives. No request °r its reconstitution has so far been submitted. (•') Reading Society ” at Temerin. According to the Government, this society, which was founded before the war, is still in existence.
— Hungarian People's Club ”, Temerin. The Government states that this club has never existed. W Civilian Club ”, Temerin. The Government states that its activities were suspended in 1909. — 24 —
(m) “ Artisans’ Choral Society ”, Temerin. As this society did not possess statutes, it was dissolved in 1929. It did not subm it statutes to the authorities for their approval. (n) “ Civilian Club of Murska-Subota. ” This club is stated never to have existed. (0) “ Independent Club of Curug. ” This club existed until April 6th, 1927. In accordance with its statutes, its property was handed over to the School Committee to be administered and disposed of as the latter thought fit. The amount realised by the sale of superfluous articles (321 dinars) was paid to the school fund, while the books were kept in the school archives. The club had no liquid assets and the petitioner's allegation regarding its illegal spoliation is incorrect. (ft) “ Hungarian Casino of Vrsac.” The Government states that, contrary to its statutes, this casino engaged in political activities directed against the unity of the State. In the speeches made on its premises, the sovereignty of the Yugoslav State over that district was represented as being merely temporary and attempts to undermine the established regime were encouraged. As the casino’s subversive activities were continued in spite of the repeated warnings of the prefect of the town, and as it openly abstained from participating in the celebration of the national feasts, the local authorities were obliged, in accordance with the provisions of Circular No. 1508, prom ulgated by the Hungarian Ministry of the Interior in 1875, which were still in force, to propose to the Royal Ministry of the Interior that the casino should be dissolved, and this was done by Decision No. 13973 of December 26th, 1919. (q) Library of the Royal Hungarian School of Vrsac. With regard to the transfer to the State, as alleged by the petitioner, of this library and the school building in which it was housed, the Government has furnished the following particulars: The school in question was a public one, and, although it was a State institution, it received an annual subsidy of 10,000 crowns from the town of Vrsac. The building, which was owned by that town, became State property, without compensation, since it continues to be used for the same purpose. The library was taken over at the same time as the school after the liberation of the country. It was then found that a large number of volumes included in its collection had disap peared. On February 26th, 1919, the Director of the school proposed that a certain number of Hungarian volumes of no scientific value should be sold. The other works (history or literature) were carefully kept and are still in the library. The proceeds of the sale—which was authorised on February 22nd, 1926, by the Ministry of Education—amounting to a sum of 3,336 dinars, were paid into the principal State Fund on February 5th, 1929. The library is at present used by the teaching staff of the school. (r) Pancevo Casino. According to an extract from the Land Register, mentioned in the annex to the petition, the ownership of this casino was transferred to the “ Srpska Citaonica ”. In this connection, the Government pointed out th at no association bearing the official name of “ Hungarian Casino of Pancevo ” had ever existed in that town, and that, consequently, no property could have been registered under this name. A detailed enquiry revealed the existence of an association whose official name was “ Panczovai Tarsaskei ”, which owned the property in question. This association was not exclusively Hungarian, its members including several Serbs. After the change in the regime, the Hungarians were in a minority, since most of them, chiefly officials, had left Pancevo. The remaining members of the association accordingly decided, on July 22nd, 1922, to change its name to “ Pancevacki Drustveni Krug ” and to amalgamate with the “ Srpska Citaonica ”, which was pursuing practically the same object, the joint association being known as “ Srpska Citaonica u Pancevu ”, The property was legally registered under this title by means of documents in good and due form. As in the past, the association comprises members of both nationalities, (s) Casino of Murska-Subota. The Government explained that the officers of this casino themselves decided to dissolve it, The Committee asked why this decision had been taken and what was the nature of the charitable associations to which the proceeds of the sale of its property had been handed over. The Govern m ent informed the Committee that the members of this association were mainly Hungarian officials who were living, merely on account of their duties, in the town, the population of which consisted of Yugoslavs, and, after the change in the regime, they went back to Hungary. At the present time, the population of Murska-Subota consists of 3,511 Yugoslavs and 29 Hungarians, and it was solely on this account that the remaining members of the association decided to dissolve it. As all it possessed in the way of property was a few pieces of furniture and some bookcases and their sale would have produced a very small amount, it was decided, in spite of the statutes and in the absence of a Hungarian association at Murska-Subota, to transfer these articles to the “ People’s Reading Room " in that town ( “ Narodna Citaonica u Murskoj Suboti ” ). This is a non-political association which all citizens without distinction of race or religion may join.
B Other Questions considered by the Committee. (a) The petitioner stated that the Yugoslav authorities had refused to approve the statutes of twenty-one Hungarian associations, including the Hungarian League of Nations Association in Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav Government observed that it was not in a position to reply to — 25 — vague allegations ; it reasserted that the Yugoslav authorities had never prevented the establish ment of new minority associations and had always allowed them to be formed when the statutes subm itted to them for approval were in accordance with the law. As regards the Hungarian League of Nations Association, its statutes were approved on June 26th, 1931, and, like the German League of Nations Association, it is still in existence. (6) The petitioner asserted that a considerable number of Hungarian associations were no longer purely Hungarian owing to the forced admission of a large number of members belonging to the majority. The Government explains that the societies in question are mostly firemen’s or athletic associations which have had a mixed membership since their foundation, or which became mixed at a later date as a result of the voluntary admission of Yugoslav members for reasons of civic, social and athletic solidarity. Further particulars were given regarding the following cases : (1) The Voluntary Firemen’s Association of Bogojevo consists of thirty-four members, all of Hungarian nationality, with the exception of the secretary of the commune, a Yugoslav, who presides over the association in virtue of the existing statutes. (2) Dr. Djura Nokolic, a barrister of Sombor, whom the petitioner describes as one of the most uncompromising Serbian leaders under the Hungarian regime, already belonged to the Voluntary Firemen’s Association of Sombor, of which he has been secretary since 1899. (3) The Voluntary Firemen’s Association of Senta receives a permanent annual subsidy from the municipality, in addition to the monthly sum granted to certain of its executive organs, as to other regular employees of the municipality. The Managing Committee of the association includes only five members of Yugoslav nationality, all the rest being Hungarians. (4) The Voluntary Firemen’s Association of Veliki Beckerek was founded in 1872, partly by Serbs and partly by Germans, who then formed the chief elements of the population of that town. A large number of Hungarians subsequently joined this association, which, as it is anxious to obtain a municipal subsidy, has always (since 1890) appointed the mayor of the town as its President. (5) The Athletic Club of Sombor was founded under the Hungarian regime by Serbian and Hungarian citizens, Dr. Kosta Popovic being one of its Serbian founders. The increase in the number of members of Yugoslav nationality is the natural result of the increase in this element of the population—25,740 Yugoslavs out of 32,121 inhabitants of the town. (6) The majority of the members of the Workers' Athletic Club at Veliki Beckerek are of Hungarian nationality, as are also its Managing Committee, of whom only five out of eighteen are of Yugoslav nationality. (7) Only one member of the Managing Committee of the Nautical Club of Veliki Beckerek is a Yugoslav. This club included some Serbian members under the Hungarian regime. Its present President has held th at office for the last tw enty years. (8) The first President of the Fencing Club at Veliki Beckerek was, under the Hungarian regime, a Serb. This club, the majority of whose members were of Yugoslav nationality, has ceased to exist.
II. Questions of Principle concerning the Treatment of Minority Associations.
From the point of view of general principles, the Yugoslav Government defined the rules by which it is guided in dealing with minority associations in its memorandum of October 15th, 1932. The Committee noted the following passage in particular:
"... The Yugoslav authorities do nothing either to prevent the foundation of Hungarian cultural associations or to impede the activities of those already in existence when these are kept within the limits of the authorised statutes. The law regarding associations of September 18th, 1931, whereby the previous legislation on the matter was slightly modified, lays down conditions for the establishment of associations in general in all parts of the Kingdom. These conditions are the same for all citizens without distinction of race or religion, and provide for cases in which the authorities have the right to dissolve existing associations. Within the limits of this law and of previous legislation, Hungarian cultural associations may carry on their activities in law and in fact and develop normally without let or hindrance, provided they observe their statutes and pursue their proposed aim. Only in cases where these associations go beyond their statutory activities or are no longer in a position to pursue them, or where their activities are directed against the State, public or social order are the competent administrative authorities empowered by the said law to dissolve them. However, cases of the dissolution of such associations are extremely rare, as is shown by the list of concrete cases in regard to which additional information has been furnished ...”
The Committee noted this statement with satisfaction, and takes the following view of the matter: (a) In no case is a minority or a person belonging to a minority justified, by virtue of the Pr°tecti°n provided under the Treaties, in evading the duty of loyalty which is incumbent upon 1 citizens of the State, whether they belong to minorities or to the majority. (b) In no case can the fact that a person belongs to a minority or speaks a minority language or defends the legitimate interests of a minority, constitute a valid reason for doubting his loyalty. — 26 —
These two principles embody the essential part of the doctrine which the Minorities Committees have constantly endeavoured to uphold regarding the equal treatm ent of minority associations. The present Committee is gratified to note that the Yugoslav Government subscribes to these principles. It trusts that the Government will draw the attention of the local authorities to them as often as may be necessary so that the latter may always adopt them in practice when applying the laws and regulations governing cultural associations to minority associations. In view of the foregoing considerations and bearing in mind the circumstantial information furnished by the Government concerned on all the points raised in the petition, the Committee, at its ninth meeting, held at Paris on March 16th, 1934, decided to close the examination of the question without bringing it to the notice of the Council. The Council resolution of June 13th, 1929, paragraph 4 (i), provides that, when the members of a Minorities Committee have finished the examination of a question without asking that it be placed on the Council’s agenda, they will communicate the result of their examination by letter to the other Members of the Council for their information. We have therefore the honour to request you to communicate the contents of this letter, for information, to the other Members of the Council.
(Signed) J . F o u q u e s -D u p a r c ,
(Signed) Gustav R a s m u s s e n ,
(Signed) F. Ca s t il l o N a j e r a .
9. L e t t e r fr o m t h e R epresentatives o f M e x ic o , D e n m a r k a n d S p a in c o n c e r n in g a P e t it io n fr o m M. P e l e n s k y , D e p u t y .
Under the Council resolution of October 25th, 1920, a Minorities Committee, composed of the representatives of Mexico, Denmark and Spain, examined at a meeting held on March 16th, 1934, a petition from M. Pelensky, D eputy to the Polish Diet, concerning the new statute for private schools and educational establishments (document C.612.1932.I). The law introducing the new regime for private schools in Poland is that of March n th , 1932, wThich formed the subject of petitions from M. Graebe, M. Utta and M. Naumann (see document C.647.1932.1) and M. Pant, M. Franz and M. Jankowski (see document C.404.1933.1). These petitions were submitted for study to another Minorities Committee, which comprised, in addition to the members of the present Committee, the representatives of France and the United Kingdom, and which decided, on March 15th, 1934, to close the examination of the petitions without bringing them to the notice of the Council. The reasons which led that Committee to take this decision are set forth in the letter which its members sent to you for communication to the other members of the Council, in accordance with paragraph 4 (i) of the resolution of June 13th, 1929. For the reasons stated in the above-mentioned letter, which apply also to M. Pelensky’s petition, we have decided to close the examination of this petition without bringing it to the notice of the Council. In virtue of the above-mentioned resolution of June 13th, 1929, we have the honour to request you to communicate the contents of the present letter, for information, to the other Members of the Council. F. Ca s t il l o N a j e r a , Geneva, May 29th, 1934.
Gustav R a s m u s s e n , Geneva, May 19th, 1934.
L ô p e z O l iv â n , Geneva, May 19th, 1934.
10. L e t t e r fr o m t h e R epresentatives o f P a n a m a , A u s t r a l ia a n d I ta ly c o n c e r n in g a P e t it io n fr o m t h e Co m m it t e e of t h e J e w is h C o m m u n it y o f P r a sz k a .
Under the Council resolution of October 25th, 1920, a Minorities Committee, co m p o sed of the representatives of Panama (Chairman), Australia and Italy, examined a petition, dated June 26th, 1933, from the Committee of the Jewish community of Praszka, in connection with the situation of the Jewish minority at Zawisna, Rosenberg and Landsberg (document C.692.1933 ^)' 27 —
The information at the disposal of the members of the Committee did not seem to them to be of such a nature as to warrant their drawing the Council’s attention to the matter. They have accordingly decided to close the examination of the petition. The Council resolution of June 13th, 1929, paragraph 4 (i), provides that, when the members of a Minorities Committee have finished the examination of a question without asking that it be placed on the Council’s agenda, they will communicate the result of their examination by letter to the other Members of the Council for their information. We have, therefore, the honour to request you to communicate the contents of this letter, for information, to the other Members of the Council. (Signed) Belisario P orras, Paris, June 13th, 1934.
(Signed) Keith O f f ic e r , Geneva, June 6th, 1934.
(Signed) Tomaso P e r a s s i, Geneva, June 6th, 1934.
11. L e t t e r f r o m t h e R epresentatives o f P a n a m a , A r g e n t in e a n d Ch in a c o n c e r n in g a P e t it io n fr o m M. A l f r e d W e r t h e im e r , o f B r a t is l a v a .
In virtue of the Council resolution of October 25th, 1920, a Minorities Committee, composed of the representatives of Panama, China and the Argentine, was called upon to examine the petition, dated September 13th, 1933, from M. Alfred W ertheimer, of Bratislava, concerning his personal situation, with the Czechoslovak Government’s observations thereon (document C.31.1934.I). The points raised in the petition may be summarised as follows: The petitioner stated that he had been a Czechoslovak national since the dismemberment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. As'an ex-officer, he had presented himself in May 1919 at the Czechoslovak Legation at Vienna in order to engage voluntarily for service in the Czechoslovak Army. He had been enrolled in the 72nd Infantry Regiment at Bratislava and fought against the Hungarian Bolshevists. He had been maliciously accused of treason and desertion, and the enquiry into his case had been closed, for lack of proof, by the military Parquet after he had undergone seventy days in custody. The petitioner alleges that the charges brought against him made use of the fact that he was a Jew. His arrest and detention had caused him physical, moral and material damage, but his claims to compensation and redress for these wrongs had been dismissed without any legal reasons being stated. He added that m any Austro-Hungarian officers in a similar position to his had been incorporated in the Czechoslovak Army and pensioned according to their rank, while the refusal of his application for incorporation had deprived him of the benefits of a pension. The petitions addressed in the matter to the competent authorities down to 1932 had had no result. The Committee, having ruled out immediately among the facts adduced by the petitioner those which occurred prior to the putting into force of the Czechoslovak Minorities Treaty, found it desirable to consider whether the subsequent facts could be said to constitute discriminatory treatment against a member of a minority. In this respect, the detailed explanations furnished by the Government concerned regarding the reinstatement of M. Wertheimer in the Czechoslovak Army and the question of compensation or the right to a pension claimed by him seemed to the Committee to be satisfactory. These explanations showed that the action for defamation of character taken by M. Wertheimer against the persons who denounced him in 1919, and that taken against the Czechoslovak State with a view to obtaining damages for his detention, were dismissed by the Courts of Bratislava and Prague, and that the Supreme Court of Prague confirmed their judgments. The Government pointed out, in connection with the claims for compensation for detention, that there were no legal provisions on which the granting of compensation of that kind could be based. Moreover, M. Wertheimer, who, before acquiring Czechoslovak nationality, was simply an ensign in the reserve of the Austro- Hungarian Army, could not claim admission to the Czechoslovak Army as an officer with the rights attaching to the rank of regular officer. Furtherm ore, he had not applied to be incorporated in the forces on the active list, and, even if he had done so, his application would have been refused, as he had served with the army of an enemy State after the Revolution. The Government states, lastly, that it never paid any attention to the fact that the petitioner belongs to the Jewish race, and that the authorities would have acted in the same manner in regard to any other person in similar circumstances, in accordance with the legal provisions in torce. The Committee was unable, on the basis of the information at its disposal, to conclude that he action of the authorities in regard to the petitioner had been contrary to the provisions of ^ riicles 7 and 8 of the Czechoslovak Minorities Treaty, and consequently decided to close the examination of this petition without bringing the question to the attention of the Council. —■ 28 —
The Council resolution of June 13th, 1929, paragraph 4 (i), provides that, when the members of a Minorities Committee have finished the examination of a question, without asking that it be placed on the Council’s agenda, they will communicate the results of their examination by letter to the other Members of the Council for their information. We therefore have the honour to request you to communicate the contents of this letter to the other Members of the Council for their information. (Signed) Bélisario P o r r a s, Paris, June 18th, 1934.
(Signed) José Maria Ca n t il o , Geneva, June 7th, 1934.
(Signed) Hoo Chi-Tsai, Geneva, June 7th, 1934.
12. L e t t e r from t h e R epresentatives o f P a n a m a , t h e U n it e d K in g d o m a n d P ortugal c o n c e r n in g a P e t it io n fr o m M. A r v a y A r p a d a n d M. D a roczy K iss L a jo s .
Under the resolution of October 25th, 1920, a Minorities Committee, composed of the representatives of Panama, the United Kingdom and Portugal, was called upon to examine a petition from M. Arvay Arpad and M. Daroczy Kiss Lajos, dated August 12th, 1933, concerning the prohibition of the newspaper Erdelyi Magyar Szo, published at Oradea-Mare, together with the Roumanian Government’s observations on the matter (document C.612.1933.1). Appealing to Articles 8 and 9 of the Roumanian Minorities Treaty, the petitioners complained of the following grievances : On August 10th, 1933, the police of Oradea-Mare, acting on telephonic instructions from the Ministry of the Interior, are said to have seized the copies of the paper in the press, destroyed the printing formes and prohibited the future publication of the Hungarian minority organ, Erdelyi Magyar Szo. The Prefecture of Police, the petitioners state, refused to serve them with the prohibition order in writing or to communicate to them the text of the order issued by the Ministry in question. The petitioners assert that this refusal made it impossible for them to have recourse to the competent Roumanian judicial authorities. They concluded that, in treating them in this way, the authorities intended to silence a Hungarian minority organ whose aim it had been to defend the rights of the minorities. At a meeting held on January 17th, 1934, the Committee had before it the observations of the Roumanian Government, dated October 23rd, 1933, from which it appears that the newspaper in question was prohibited owing to the campaign of slander and vilification which it had pursued against the country, in spite of a warning given two months earlier by the Ministry of the Interior. As regards the allegation that the object of the measure taken was “ to silence a Hungarian minority organ ”, the Government points out that some 104 newspapers and 81 periodicals, including eight daily papers in the town of Oradea-Mare alone, are at present appearing in Transylvania in the Magyar language. Although this information appeared to it prima facie to warrant the closing of its examination, the Committee nevertheless decided to single out from among the petitioners’ allegations the point regarding the impossibility of their obtaining legal redress from the courts in the absence of a written decision on the part of the administrative authorities with regard to the prohibition. In the desire to obtain a full knowledge of the facts before expressing an opinion, the Committee decided, at the above-mentioned meeting, to request the permanent delegate of Roumania to submit information which would enable this allegation to be cleared up. The Committee was gratified to receive this information in a letter from the Roumanian delegate, dated May 9th, 1934, accompanied by legislative texts. According to the provisions applicable to the matter—Article 107 of the Roumanian Constitution and Article 2 of the Law on Administrative Disputes, dated December 29th, 1925—the judicial authorities are not competent to pass judgment on the acts of the Government or on orders of a military nature. Moreover, as the decisions of the Ministry of the Interior relating to public order are strictly confidential, they are never communicated to the persons concerned. On the other hand, as the prohibition is an actual fact which is self-evident, the responsible directors of a newspaper the publication of which had been prohibited or suspended may apply to the courts, which will decide whether the measure complained of is in the nature of a Government act. If it is not proved to be of such a nature, the judicial authorities would undoubtedly grant the newspaper the legal satisfaction to which it would then be entitled. Having regard to the whole of the information at its disposal, the Committee has reached the conclusion that the circumstances accompanying the fa c ts of the present case do not constitute an infringement or risk of infringement of the relevant provisions of the Roumanian Minorities Treaty. Consequently, the Committee, at a meeting held on May 18th, 1934, decided to close the examination of the question without bringing it to the notice of the Council. The Council resolution of June 13th, 1929, paragraph 4 (*), provides that, when the members of a Minorities Committee have finished the examination of a question without asking that it b6 placed on the Council’s agenda, they will communicate the result of their examination by letter to the other Members of the Council for their information. We have, therefore, the honour to request you to communicate the contents of this letter, for information, to the other Members of the Council. (Signed) Belisario P o r r a s , Paris, June 18th, 1934.
(Signed) William M a l k in , Geneva, June 8th, 1934.
(Signed) J. L obo d ’A v ila L im a , Geneva, June n t h , 1934.
13. L et t e r fr o m t h e R epresentatives o f M e x ic o , D e n m a r k a n d P o l a n d c o n c e r n in g a P e t it io n fr o m D r . L e o n d e D e a k a n d N in e O t h e r P e r s o n s .
Under the Council resolution of October 25th, 1920, a Minorities Committee, composed of the representatives of Mexico, Denmark and Poland,1 was called upon to examine a petition, dated January 31st, 1933, from Dr. Leon de Deak and nine other persons, concerning the question of the Roman Catholic Church at Senta, together with the observations of the Yugoslav Govern ment thereon (document C.493.1933.I). The questions raised in this petition and the observations thereon by the Yugoslav Government may be summarised as follows : I. Subject of the Petition. The petitioners state that 87.38 per cent of the population of the town of Senta profess the Roman Catholic religion and are for the most part of Hungarian nationality. They further state that, in 1911, owing to the increase in the number of the faithful and as a result of the destruction by fire of St. Stephen’s Church, the Municipal Council, in agreement with the Catholic Church Association, decided to build a new church of monumental character, and for this purpose voted a grant of 200,000 crowns. According to the petitioners, the town then placed at the disposal of the Church Association, in exchange for the ground on which the church which had been burnt down formerly stood, a site in the middle of the central square. After the departmental authorities had confirmed this decision, the administrative authorities and the Archbishop of Kaloczâ are said to have ratified the contract for the exchange in 1914 and it was recorded in the Land Register. The petitioners state that, as a result of the great war and the subsequent monetary depreciation and shortage of labour and materials, the building of the church, which had already reached a very advanced stage, was stopped. After the transfer of sovereignty, the Yugoslav Government, being anxious, according to the petitioners, to ensure the preponderance of the Serb elements belonging to the Orthodox Church, appointed the members of the Senta Municipal Council without any election. This council, of which three-quarters of the members were then Orthodox Serbs, is said to have ordered the immediate demolition of the still unfinished building. The Catholic members of the Council lodged an appeal with the Minister of the Interior, and it is claimed that, by a Decree issued in 1922, they secured the cancellation of the above-mentioned decision. The petitioners state that, on July 8th, 1923, after the building had been hastily and pro visionally got in order, the parish priest, accompanied by thousands of the faithful, attempted to take possession of the church in order to consecrate it in accordance with the bishop’s instructions, but was confronted by the prohibition of a police officer and had to yield to force. Later, a petition is said to have been addressed to the President of the Council of Ministers, M. Korochetz—himself a Catholic priest—but without result. It is stated that M. Korochetz even advised the deputation of the Church Association concerned to abandon the plan for a church in the central square of the town, so as to obviate resistance by the Orthodox inhabitants of Senta. II. Summary of the Observations of the Yugoslav Government. In reply to the petitioners’ allegations, the Government makes the following observations : The dispute between the Catholics (25,996 out of the 32,044 inhabitants of Senta) and the Orthodox inhabitants of the town is a purely local affair, and the authorities have taken action only in cases for which provision is made in the law. As the former Church of St. Stephen was burnt down in 1911, and as the construction of the new building was not started until 1914, the Government deduced that the building of a monumental church was neither urgent nor justified. On February 7th, 1919, the municipality of Senta was constituted in accordance with the |egal provisions then in force. The council—which managed the affairs of the town until 1921— included only twenty-five members belonging to the Orthodox religion out of a total of seventy. Notwithstanding the existence of this Catholic majority, the Council did not think it necessary to raise the question of the construction of the church. In 1921, after considering a reasoned report by the representative of the Orthodox population, fie municipal council—including the Catholic members—decided not to authorise the proposed uuding on the spot previously chosen, since the Orthodox population resented as an insult to
1 This Committee was originally composed of the representatives of Mexico, Germany and Poland. — 30 — its religious feelings the resolution taken at a time (1911) when no international appeal procedure was open to it. The Government adds that, though it is true that, on July 6th, 1922, the Ministry of the Interior cancelled the 1921 decision, the same Ministry, after further consideration, rescinded its cancellation on July 19th, 1923—a fact which was not mentioned by the petitioners. The Government states th at the account given of the incident of July 8th, 1923, in connection with the inauguration of the new building, is inaccurate, since the representative of the police courteously pointed out to the officiating priest that he was not in possession of the authorisation required under paragraph 64 of the “ Grajdanski Pravilnik ” (Municipal Regulations) in force. The construction of a monumental church would have offended the religious feelings of the Orthodox citizens. Being situated opposite their Church of St. Michael, it would, owing to its size, have hidden that church from view. Further, it would be at a distance of one metre from an Orthodox cross which is a century old and is an object of veneration to the Orthodox population. It would therefore have made it impossible for the rites and processions which constitute an essential part of the religious ceremonies to have taken place around that cross. Having regard to the circumstances set forth above, the municipality and the Orthodox parish of Senta are stated to have proposed the following solutions: (1) The construction of a new church on the site of the former building which was burnt down—that is to say, a few metres away from the church under construction, which would enable the approaches to the Orthodox cross to be kept clear—or, alternatively, the grant of an area—which would be expropriated by the municipality—in the centre of the town and which would be adjacent to the parish hall. (2) The grant by the municipality of the sum of 6,500,000 dinars—i.e., approximately 600,000 Swiss francs—which would thus be larger than the grant of 200,000 crowns formerly voted. The Government states that these offers prove that the Senta Municipality desires to respect the rights of the Catholic population of that town. An agreement concluded in 1923 with the Catholic parish, approved by the diocesan Archbishop of Kalocza and sanctioned by th e Ministry of the Interior, could not be put into force owing to the veto of the new Apostolic Administrator of Subotoca, Mgr. Ljudavit Budanovic, who is also said to have refused to entertain, on the ground of inadmissibility, representations that were made to him in 1928 and in which the prefect of the Joupanie of Belgrade took part, with a view to reaching an agreement, there being at that time fifty-three Catholic and twenty-five Orthodox members of the municipal council. The Government finally recalls the counsels of moderation given to the petitioners, as they themselves admit, by M. Korochetz, formerly President of the Council of Ministers and himself a Catholic priest. III. Examination by the Committee. At a first meeting, held on October 13th, 1933, the Committee, after carefully studying the facts, first considered the question whether the Orthodox cross near the Catholic church in con struction—the immediate proximity of which would seem to be a principal cause of the dispute— was not rather of historic and commemorative value than an object of public worship. From the plans and photographs placed before it, the Committee thought it was clear that this cross stood entirely free from the body of the religious edifice, and that its site would not appear to constitute an obstacle to the celebration of the religious ceremonies which are connected with it. The Committee therefore requested the Yugoslav Government to state its views on this subject, and the Government was good enough to do so in a letter, dated January 15th, 1934, in which the following considerations are developed : “ (x) For the faithful of the Orthodox religion, the Orthodox cross is as important in public worship as a church itself. The divine services celebrated around the cross are traditional in the Orthodox religion and the faithful follow them with the same devotion as the services conducted in the churches. “ (2) According to the canons of the Orthodox Church, the religious rites and processions around the cross form an integral part of divine service. It is not only the faithful of the locality who take part in the processions, but also the church associations of neighbouring towns and villages, so that the number of those taking part is much larger. The procession makes its way three times around the cross. The space that would be left free between the cross and the unfinished building intended for the Catholic church would thus not be sufficient to enable these religious ceremonies to be fittingly performed. Moreover, it is to be feared that the religious susceptibilities of the Orthodox would be offended, and this might lead to serious discord between fellow-citizens belonging to the two religions whose duty it is to live together in good understanding and harmony.”
At its meeting on May 16th, 1934, the Committee, in view of the facts mentioned above, considered that it was important that an arrangement should be reached which would ensure respect for the religious feelings both of the Catholic petitioners, who are members of the H ungarian minority, and of the Orthodox part of the population. In this connection, the Committee thought that the offer made by the Senta Municipality, which is mentioned in the Government’s observa tions and according to which those concerned would receive equitable compensation, deserved serious consideration. Being convinced of the Jugoslav Government’s earnest desire that an arrangement should be made which would obviate any possibility of dispute between the two religious elements of — 3i —
the Senta population, the Committee expresses the hope that the Government will be good enough to see th a t the municipality grants a suitable site and that the proposed subsidy of 6,500,000 dinars is paid, so that the church which is required for the needs of public worship may be immediately constructed. The Committee further desires to emphasise its keen appreciation of the sympathetic attitude of the Yugoslav Government and is glad to be able to quote the following statement by that Government : " His Majesty’s Government is always anxious that local disputes should be settled to the satisfaction of the parties concerned, with due regard to their legitimate interests and susceptibilities. It is convinced that the dispute in question will before long be settled in accordance with these views." In view of this promise of an arrangement which it thinks to be fair to those concerned, the Committee considered it could close the examination of this question without bringing it to the notice of the Council. The Council resolution of June 13th, 1929, paragraph 4 (i), provides that, when the members of a Minorities Committee have finished the examination of a petition without asking that it be placed on the Council’s agenda, they will communicate the result of their examination by letter to the other Members of the Council for their information. We have, therefore, the honour to request you to communicate the contents of this letter, for information, to the other Members of the Council. (Signed) Ca s t il l o N a j e r a , Geneva, June 22nd, 1934.
(Signed) Gustav R a s m u s s e n , Geneva, June 28th, 1934.
(Signed) L. K u l s k i, Geneva, June 22nd, 1934.
14. L e t t e r from t h e R epresentatives o f P a n a m a , t h e U n it e d K in g d o m a n d D e n m a r k
CONCERNING A PETITION RELATING TO M. E m ERIC DOCZI.
In virtue of the Council resolution of October 25th, 1920, a Minorities Committee, composed of the representatives of Panama, the United Kingdom and Denmark, was called upon to examine a petition, dated August 18th, 1933, and signed Emeric Dôczi, relating to the expulsion of the said Emeric Dôczi from Roumanian territory, together with the Roumanian Government’s observations thereon (document C.639.1933.1). The petitioner, who stated that he was a member of the Hungarian minority, said that he had lived in Transylvania since 1913 without a break, and that he had his family and owned property there. To the petition was attached a copy of a certificate of nationality, dated February 22nd, 1933, and issued, in accordance with the Roumanian nationality law, by the Municipality of Bihar-Puspôki, his place of residence. As long ago as 1925, the Royal Court of Oradea-Mare was said to have recognised his status as a Roumanian subject and to have confirmed his nationality. An extract from his military service book showing that he had served 111 the Roumanian army as a reserve officer was also attached to his petition. Nevertheless, M. Dôczi stated that, on July 15th, 1933, the Municipal Council of Bihar-Puspôki informed him that, on the basis of a decision by that council, the Ministry of the Interior had ordered his name to be removed from the register of Roumanian subjects, in consequence of which action (he maintained) the police expelled him from Roumanian territory on the 20th of the same month. In its observations, and in the additional information which it communicated on May 14th, the Roumanian Government stated that the decision taken on the proposal of the communal authorities of Bihar-Puspôki to remove M. Dôczi’s name from the register of Roumanian subjects had been quashed, and that, consequently, as the Ministry of the Interior had cancelled the measure taken for his expulsion, he had been able to return to Roumania, where he had resumed j115 ordinary occupations. The Government added, moreover, that the step taken with regard ,? Dôczi was due to the fact that the Roumanian authorities had received documents proving at M. Dôczi had acquired Roumanian nationality in contravention of the nationality law, and , ^ they had referred his case to the competent judicial authorities. Nevertheless, the authorities ad finally decided not to follow up the enquiry into this aspect of the question, and had withdrawn ineir charge. it Mi mee^n§ on May 16th, the Committee noted this information, from which it thought might infer that M. Dôczi, in consequence of the withdrawal of the legal proceedings against lm> continued to enjoy his rights to Roumanian nationality without qualification, with ^lese circumstances, the Committee had decided to close the examination of this question M* bringing it to the notice of the Council and had prepared the letter informing the other sub 6rS °* Council accordingly, when there was placed before it a further letter on the same “ ject from the permanent delegate of Roumania, dated May 29th. This letter contained as ,vi.fnne^ a declaration made and signed by M. Dôczi before the Roumanian authorities together t^e „a t r~nch translation of the declaration. After examining this document, the members of ommittee considered that, in the circumstances, it would be well to attach it in extenso an annex to the present letter. — 32 —
We have, therefore, the honour to request you to communicate the contents of this letter and of the annex in question to the other Members of the Council for their information.
(Signed) Belisario P o r r a s, Paris, July 4th, 1934.
(Signed) William Ma l k in , Geneva, June 26th, 1934.
(Signed) Gustav R a s m u s s e n , Geneva, June 28th, 1934.
* * *
Annex.
L e t t e r fr o m t h e P e r m a n e n t D e l e g a t e o f R o u m a n ia to t h e Se c r e t a r y -G en era l
o f t h e L e a g u e o f N a t io n s . Geneva, May 29th, 1934.
W ith reference to my letter No. 392, dated May 14th, 1934, and previous correspondence concerning M. Emeric Dôczi’s petition, I have the honour to forward you herewith,under instructions from my Government, a photographic copy,1 and also a French translation, of a solemn declaration made and signed by M. Emeric Dôczi on May 14th, 1934, at the Prefecture of Oradea-Mare. As Your Excellency will observe, M. Emeric Dôczi therein declares that he addressed no petition to the Secretariat of the League of Nations. He adds that it is probable that M. de Koever, who was aware of his expulsion from Roumania, may have addressed the petition in question to the Secretariat of the League of Nations “ against the wishes and without the knowledge " of M. Emeric Dôczi. I would venture to add that, the Minorities Section having kindly shown me the original text of M. Emeric Dôczi’s petition, I was able to note that the signature thereon in no way resembles the true signature of M. Dôczi as given at the end of the declaration which I have the honour to forward to you. Everything seems to show, therefore, that we have here a misuse of a signature much resembling a forgery, as is demonstrated both by M. Dôczi’s declaration and by the dissimilarity of the signatures. As regards the presumed author of this act, my Government thinks that M. Dôczi’s declaration constitutes valuable information which could not be disregarded, especially in view of M. de Koever’s activity concerning what is claimed to be protection of minorities and his constant attitude of partiality and bad faith against the Roumanian Government. I should be obliged if you would kindly place the foregoing information before the Committee of Three that is dealing with M. Dôczi’s supposed petition. (Signed) Antoniade. [T ranslation.] Declaration.
The undersigned, Dôczi, Emeric, domiciled in the Commune of Episcopia Bihor, makes the following declaration in regard to the removal of his name from the nationality lists of the Commune of Episcopia Bihor : On July 17th, 1933, Order No. 43774.S. of the Ministry of the Interior, General Police Directorate, dated July 14th, was communicated to me. By that order my name was removed from the nationality lists of the Commune of Episcopia Bihor. Following on that order, the undersigned was to be expelled from Roumanian territory. On July 19th, the police authorities carried out the order and caused me to cross the frontier. I declare that I have not personally brought any proceedings before the Court of Appeal of Oradea against the order whereby my name was removed from the nationality registers, nor have I addressed any complaint to the Secretariat of the League of Nations. It was probably Gustav Kôver who, in his constant desire to bring complaints against the Roumanian State before the League, and being aware of my expulsion from Roumania, lodged this petition against my wishes and without my knowledge. The fact that from July 1933, on which date I might have instituted legal proceedings, and up to the present time, I have not been summoned to appear before the court and no award pronounced in my absence has been notified to me, clearly shows that I never made application to the court in question. In November 1933, I was informed that the Ministry of the Interior had cancelled the decision by which my name had been removed from the nationality registers and that orders had been given for my name to be re-entered on the registers of the Commune of Episcopia Bihor.
1 Note by the Secretary-General. — The photographic copy is in the archives of the Secretariat at the disposal of Members of the Council. — 33 —
Bv decision No. 15 of the Municipal Council of the Commune of Episcopia Bihor, dated December 2nd, 1933, I was again entered on the nationality registers of that commune. In February last, I brought before the Departmental Court of Bihor a claim against the Ministry of the Interior for damages sustained during the whole period of my expulsion from Roumania. My action is entered as No. 912 on the Record of the Court, and judgment will be pronounced on September 17th next. The above us my solemn declaration. Signed at Oradea, May 14th, 1934.
Done in our presence : (Signed) Dôczi, Emeric, (Signed) [Illegible.] domiciled in the Commune Director of the Prefecture. of Episcopia Bihor, Department of Bihor, (Signed) S a b in H a n c e a , Declarant. Clerk in the Prefecture.
15. L e t t e r fr o m t h e R epresentatives o f D e n m a r k , Ch in a a n d I t a l y
c o n c e r n in g a P e t it io n f r o m M. Z. P e l e n s k y .
Under the Council resolution of October 25th, 1920, a Minorities Committee, consisting of the representatives of Denmark, China and Italy,1 examined a petition, dated July 1st, 1933, from M. Z. Pelensky, concerning the situation of the Ukrainian minority in Poland (document C.540.1933.1). The questions dealt with in the petition may be summarised as follows: It is alleged that, in the district of Chelm, the use of the Ukrainian language on public posters and on the signs of private shops and co-operative societies is strictly prohibited. The co-operatives, it is complained, have almost all been closed by order of the authorities. The activities of “ Ridna Chata ”, a Ukrainian association for popular education, are alleged to have been suspended several years ago. The existence of any Ukrainian political organisation is said to have been rendered impossible. Theatrical performances and concerts in the Ukrainian language are not permitted by the authorities. The authorities are said to interfere particularly with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and the Orthodox priests are entirely prevented from giving religious instruction to the young in the Church schools, especially in the Ukrainian language. To these allegations the Government has replied, partly in the observations which it submitted with regard to the petition and which are reproduced in the above-mentioned Council document, and partly in the statements which it has since communicated to the Committee. 1. The use of the Ukrainian language for private shop signs and the signs of co-operative societies is not restricted by any legal provision, those concerned being entirely free in the matter. M. Pelensky’s allegation that the administrative authorities in the district in question have strictly prohibited the use of the Ukrainian language for shop signs is entirely without foundation. 2. As regards the allegation that almost all the co-operative societies have been closed by order of the authorities, the Government refers to the particulars which it had previously supplied and which are to be found in documents C.141.1933.1 and C.232.1933.1. I t has further communicated to the Committee a list of Ukrainian co-operative societies in the Voivodie of Lublin. 3- As regards the “ Ridna Chata " association, the Government states that its dissolution was ordered on account of the fact that its members were engaging in illegal political activities. 4- As regards the Ukrainian political organisations, the Polish Government explains that, when any such organisation has been dissolved, the reason has always been that it was conducting Communist propaganda. 5' The Government maintains that the allegation to the effect that theatrical performances and concerts in the Ukrainian language have been forbidden in the district of Chelm is entirely without foundation. The Committee has had cognisance of a list of the performances and concerts in Ukrainian which were given in the Voivodie of Lublin during the year 1933. 6. The Government points out that there is no " Ukrainian Orthodox Church ” in Poland, the official title of the Orthodox Church is the " Autocephalous Holy Orthodox Church in Poland ”. Ihe latter is autonomous and is governed by a Synod consisting of Orthodox diocesan bishops, f p ^ues^on °f religious teaching in the State schools was settled by a circular of the Ministry °t Education of January 5th, 1927, which was addressed to the responsible officials in each of the school districts in Poland and the text of which has been communicated to the Committee. The
1 The Committee consisted originally of the representatives of Norway, China and Italy. The place of the Norwegian présentative was subsequently taken by th e Danish representative. — 34 — organisation and supervision of religious teaching is in the hands of the religious community concerned, irrespective of creed, throughout Polish territory. In the schools in the district of Chelm the’Orthodox religion is taught by the Orthodox clergy—parish priests, curates or rectors. It is only when the representatives of the clergy are prevented from taking charge of religious instruction that it is entrusted—in agreement with the authorities of the Orthodox Church—to a suitably qualified layman. The Committee wishes to convey its thanks to the Polish Government for the very detailed information which it has kindly supplied. Having examined the very full documentation which has been laid before it, it has decided to close the examination of M. Pelensky’s petition without drawing the Council’s attention to the questions to which the petition relates. The Council’s resolution of June 13th, 1929, paragraph 4 (»'), provides that, when the members of a Minorities Committee have finished the examination of a question without asking that it be placed on the Council’s agenda, they will communicate the result of their examination by letter to the other Members of the Council for their information. We have the honour accordingly to request you to be good enough to communicate the contents of this letter, for information, to the other Members of the Council. (Signed) Gustav R a s m u s s e n , Geneva, June 26th, 1934.
(Signed) W u n sz K in g , The Hague, July 4th, 1934.
(Signed) A l o is i, Rome, July n t h , 1934.
16. L e t t e r fr o m t h e R epresentatives o f P a n a m a , C zechoslovakia a n d P ortugal
c o n c e r n in g a P e t it io n , d a t e d S e p t e m b e r 20TH, 1933, fr o m t h e B u l g a r ia n
M o n a s t e r y “ Z o g ra f ” on M o u n t A t h o s .
Under the Council resolution of October 25th, 1920, a Minorities Committee, consisting of the representatives of Panama (Chairman), Portugal and Czechoslovakia, was called upon to examine a petition from the Bulgarian monastery of “ Zograf ”, on Mount Athos, concerning the renewal of its membership, together with the Greek Government’s observations thereon (document C.17.1934.I). The question submitted to the Committee for examination may be summarised as follows:
Historical Outline. Two Minorities Committees, consisting of the representatives of the United Kingdom, the Irish Free State and Guatemala, examined in 1931 two petitions from the “ Zograf ” monastery and the Russian monastery “ St. Pantéléimon ” on Mount Athos respectively, concerning the renewal of the membership of these communities. The petitioners declared that the Greek Government had for some years taken up an attitude definitely hostile to the admission of new members to the above-mentioned brotherhoods. In support of their allegation, they quoted the case of three candidates for monastic life—one Bulgarian and two Russians—who were stated to have been expelled by the Greek authorities soon after their arrival at Mount Athos. The two communities m entioned above claimed th at the measures adopted by the Greek Government were contrary to the traditional prerogatives guaranteed to the monasteries of Mount Athos by Article 62 of the Treaty of Berlin of 1878,1 and confirmed, so far as the non-Greek minorities are concerned, by Article 13 of the Greek Minorities Treaty. 2 According to the petitioners, these prerogatives entitled the monasteries concerned to admit new candidates free from any interference by the civil authorities. As will be seen from the letters in which the members of the above-mentioned Committees informed the other Members of the Council of the result of their work (see document C.5.1932^’ pages 28-31), these Committees endeavoured, in the first place, to ascertain what was the regime existing at the time of the signature of the Treaty of Berlin with regard to the admission of foreigners into the territory of Mount Athos. The Committees were able to elucidate these points completely in the light of certain extracts from the regulations of the monasteries of Mount Athos of I7®3> which were in force at the time of the signing of the Treaty of Berlin. These extracts, which were inserted in the above-mentioned letters, read as follows:
Article 8. Any person proceeding from abroad or from an Ottoman country to Mount Athos for the purpose of entering a monastery shall previously present his passport to the Governor (kaimakam). Foreigners who are, by this fact, deserving of specially favourable
1 Article 62. The monks of Mount Athos, of whatever country they may be natives, shall be maintained in their fo r m e r positions and advantages and shall enjoy without any exception complete equality of rights and prerogatives 2 Article 13 — Greece undertakes to recognise and maintain the traditional rights and liberties enjoyed by tW non-Greek monastic communities of Mount Athos under Article 62 of the Treaty of Berlin of July 13th, 1878. — 35 —
treatment, shall previously be granted Ottoman nationality under Article 4 of the Ottoman Nationality Act. “ All persons whose passports are in order, and who are not regarded as suspicious persons for any reason, shall receive the authorisation of the kaimakam of the commune to circulate freely on the mountain and to enter the monastery chosen. Immediately after entering the monastery, provided the approval of the prior or administrative authority of the monastery has been obtained, the names of novices shall be entered in the registry of the monastery and notified to the kaimakam and to the commune for purposes of registra tion. After the completion of their novitiate, they shall be registered as monks. “ Suspected persons shall be sent back to their place of origin. “ Article 9. — Novices may only enter the monasteries, ‘ skitai ’, ‘ kellia ’ or hermitages on the conditions set out above. Any infringements of this provision by priors or administra tive authorities of monasteries shall be punished by loss of office, and the new arrivals shall be expelled, or compelled to comply with the requirements of the law. “ Article 10. — Foreigners and other persons who come to the mountain to live as monks shall observe the provisions of Article 8 relating to passports and Article 4 relating to change of nationality. After completion of the registration formalities in the monastery or other establishment chosen, they shall submit to the kaimakam and the commune a duly signed document renouncing their former nationality and undertaking to regard themselves as Ottoman subjects for the period of their sojourn on Mount Athos and to submit to the laws and regulations. They shall deposit their passports at the office of the kaimakam.”
The Committees also took cognisance of certain declarations regarding this question which the representative of the (Ecumenical Patriarchate in Greece had made verbally to the Director of the Minorities Section during his recent visit to Athens. A summary of these declarations also appears in the letters drafted by the members of the Committees for the information of the other Members of the Council. This legal question having been elucidated in such a way as to confirm the contention put forward by the Greek Government in the observations submitted by it with regard to the petitions in question, the Committees examined the explanations supplied by the Government concerning the case of the three candidates for monastic life referred to above. These explanations having been judged satisfactory, the Committees decided to close the examination of the petitions of the “ Zograf ” and " St. Pantéléimon ” monasteries without reference to the Council.
Object of the Petition of the “ Zograf ” Monastery.
In its new petition, the “ Zograf ” Monastery once more claimed the right to admit, without any restriction or interference on the part of the civil authorities, the elements necessary for renewing the membership of the brotherhood, and protested against the systematic refusal which the Greek Government is alleged to have opposed during the last few years to the admission of all Bulgarians desiring to enter the said brotherhood, with the single exception of one octogenarian candidate. Lastly, the monastery requested the League to approach the Greek Government with a view to securing the admission of seven candidates mentioned in a list attached to the petition, three of whom had been refused visas on their passports by the Greek authorities.
Observations by the Government.
The Greek Government’s observations contain a detailed account of the legal and historical foundations on which its right of supervision with regard to the admission of foreigners to Mount Athos is based. It considered, moreover, that the decision of the Minorities Committees which had examined the petitions mentioned above had finally settled the question of principle once more raised by the “ Zograf ” Monastery, and expressed the opinion that this decision had provided a fixed standard for Minorities Committees in pronouncing on concrete cases which might be submitted to them in the future. Referring to the declarations of the representative of the (Ecumenical Patriarchate alluded to above, it observed th at the admission of candidates to monastic life was subject to the authorisation (1) of the monastery concerned, (2) of the Holy Community of Mount Athos, (3) of the (Ecumenical Patriarchate, and (4) of the civil authorities. In this connec tion the Government made the following statement :
“ The Greek Government wishes to state here in the most formal manner that, in cases m which applications for admission have obtained the first three authorisations, it only refuses its own authorisation in cases of exceptional gravity. On the other hand, it cannot, on any pretext, even if for its part it sees no objection, permit the admission of persons not possessing the authorisation of one of the religious institutions mentioned above—the monas tery, the Holy Community and the (Ecumenical Patriarchate—for it cannot attach more importance to its own security than to the extremely delicate task devolving on it as sovereign Power, as the result of which it is responsible for watching closely both over the rights of the monasteries and over the prerogatives of the high religious institutions on which they depend.”
As regards the case of the seven Bulgarians mentioned in the list attached to the petition, the vernment stated that it had peremptory reasons for opposing the admission of these candidates, e whom it declared to be a well-known revolutionary. As regards the three candidates to — 36 — whom the Greek authorities had refused, according to the petitioners, to give visas on their pasJ ports, the Government pointed out : (i) that two of them were completely unknown both at Mount Athos and at the Greek Legation at Sofia, (2) that the third was in reality a former monk expelM in 1905 for very serious offences rendering his return impossible under the monastic rules themselves In examining the petition and the Government’s observations which have just beet summarised, the Committee held that, as regards the question of principle connected with M right of supervision of the civil authorities over the admission of foreigners to Mount Athos, ij must unreservedly accept the doctrine conclusively laid down by the Committees which examine: the previous petitions on the same question. It considered, moreover, that the Greek Govern, ment, in its observations, had supplied satisfactory explanations regarding the concrete case mentioned by the petitioners. The Committee accordingly decided that there was no need W any of its members to draw the Council’s attention to the question dealt with in the petition Paragraph 4 (i) of the Council resolution of June 13th, 1929, provides that, when the member; of a Minorities Committee have finished the examination of a question without bringing it to tie notice of the Council, they will communicate the result of their examination by letter to the other Members of the Council for their information. We would accordingly ask you to be good enougl to communicate the contents of this letter to the other Members of the Council for their information.
(Signed) Belisario P o r r a s, Paris, August 9th, 1934.
(Signed) Rod. K ü n z l -J iz e r sk ÿ , Berne, July 24th, 1934.
(Signed) Professor Dr. L. d ’A v i l a Lima, Berne, July 23rd, 1934.
17. L e t t e r fr o m t h e R epresentatives o f P a n a m a , D e n m a r k a n d F r a n c e concerning
P e t it io n s from M. A n g h el St o y a n o f f .
In accordance with the Council resolution of October 25th, 1920, a Minorities Committee, composed of the representatives of Panama (as Chairman), Denmark and France, was called upon to consider two telegraphic petitions and a supplementary statement, dated respectively September, October and November 1933, from M. Anghel Stoyanoff relating to the situation of the Bulgarian minority in the Southern Dobruja, together with the observations on the subject submitted by the Roumanian Government (documents C.646.1933.I, C.659.1933.I and C.153.1934.I). The object of these petitions was to draw the attention of the League of Nations to certain acts of persecution and terrorism to which the Bulgarian minority is said to have been subjected by the Kutzo-Vlach settlers. These acts are alleged to have taken place chiefly in the town of Dobritch (Bazardjik), where two Bulgars are said to have been killed, and in th e v illa g e of Konai, In the latter, a band of armed Kutzo-Vlachs is alleged to have committed every kind of violence against the Bulgarian population in consequence of the murder of the son and daughter of a Kutzo-Vlach settler in the village of Saranebi. The petitioner, in citing the names of the victims, refers to four murders, four cases of serious wounding and many cases of pillage, beatings and other excesses. The authorities, according to him, aided and abetted these excesses, subsequently arresting a few Bulgars in order to deceive public opinion. The petitioner further states that Bulgarian students have been ill-treated at Bazardjik by Roumanian students for wearing Sofia University students’ caps, and that the printing-office of a Bulgarian paper in Bazardjik was attacked and ransacked by Kutzo-Vlachs in the presence of a Roumanian non-commissioned officer who was among them. The Roumanian Government, in its observations, rebuts the assertions of the petitioner, which, it says, are inaccurate and tendentious. It furnishes detailed explanations of certain of the facts reported, as also of the circumstances in which they are said to have occurred. Its explanations may be summarised as follows :
1. Incidents at Saranebi and Konak.
In the night of October 9th, ig 33< a band of some ten Komitajis, armed with rifles and grenades, attacked the house of the settler Stere Tujaru at Saranebi. In the course of the attack, one ol Tuj aru s sons and his daughter were mortally wounded and his wife was seriously wounded. Having made their way to the road from Bazardjik to Silistria, the Komitajis attacked and pillage a convoy o f oxen, seriously wounding three Kutzo-Vlachs, one of whom died the following day in hospital. After this new act of brigandage, the Komitajis escaped into the forest. Som e da}-' later, another band of Komitajis, recruited from the village of Konak, appeared in the villag6 Sever Radulescu. They wounded two communal guards and ransacked a number o f h ou ses, fro® one of which they stole 200,000 lei. As a result of these two attacks, some fifty inhabitants ot — 37 —
ever Radulescu proceeded to the village of Konak. There were quarrels, in the course of which ne Bulgarian was killed and two shops were sacked and a number of panes of glass broken. The jcal gendarmerie being inadequate for the re-establishment of order, the local authorities applied or a platoon of gendarmes, which arrested the ringleaders, together with nine Bulgarians, who ?ere convicted of having taken part in the attack on Sever Radulescu. On the following day, two iulgarians of Konak were found murdered ; but the Roumanian Government asserts that, in spite if the activities of the authorities, it has not hitherto been possible to prove that the two murders in mestion were committed by Kutzo-Vlach settlers.
2. Bazardjik Incidents. (a) The murder of Ned jo Slavov, keeper of a brothel in Bazardjik, is stated to have been ommitted in the course of a dispute in the night by an intoxicated taxi-driver. In support of his statement, the Roumanian Government submits two depositions signed by Bulgarians. Another Bulgarian mentioned in the petition as having been killed is said to be, in fact, in custody or participation in a number of burglaries to which he has confessed. (b) On August n th , a Bulgarian student was walking in the street wearing a Sofia University itudent’s cap when certain Roumanian students snatched the cap from his head and tore it in jieces. When brought before the magistrate, the students explained their act as a demonstration of reprisals against Bulgarian students alleged to have prevented Roumanian schoolboys on a risit to Varna from wearing the caps of the Bazardjik secondary school. It is stated that the elations between Roumanian and Bulgarian students in Bazardjik are now of the best. (c) No complaint has been made either to the police or to the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Bazardjik with regard to any attack on the printing-office to which the petitioner refers. The Roumanian Government, indeed, submits explicit statements of two witnesses (one of whom is ■the manager of the paper in question) denying the accuracy of the petitioner’s statement. While recognising that the responsibility of certain regrettable incidents rests with the Kutzo-Vlach population, the Roumanian Government observes that the incidents are a consequence of provocation and attacks to which the Kutzo-Vlach population has been subjected by the Komitajis. “ As regards the attitude, under the circumstances, of the Roumanian authorities ", it adds, “ it may be stated that they displayed all requisite activity in re-establishing order and restoring peace.” The Roumanian Government then refers to the activities of the association on whose behalf M, Stoyanoff’s petitions are submitted (namely, the Union of Cultural and Philanthropic Societies in the Dobruja), and states that the association in question is in touch with terrorist organisations, and that its object is to keep alive irredentist agitation in the Southern Dobruja. “ It is a matter for surprise ", the Roumanian Government adds, “ that representatives of societies whose object is to disturb by terrorist action the existence of good relations between the Bulgarian minority and the majority element of the population should complain of the reactions caused by their own activities.” At a meeting held on May 15th, 1934, the Committee took note of the explanations and arguments put forward by the Roumanian Government with regard to the petition summarised above. Having received an assurance that the disturbances reported in the Southern Dobruja have been limited to individual actions and to the particular localities referred to in the petitions and that they are to-day entirely settled, the Committee did not consider it desirable to pursue further the consideration of the points raised in the petitions. It accordingly decided to conclude its consideration of the latter without drawing the Council’s attention to the matter. The Council resolution of June 13th, 1929, paragraph 4 (i), provides that, when the members of a Minorities Committee have finished the examination of a question without asking that it be placed on the Council’s agenda, they will communicate the result of their examination by letter to the other Members of the Council for their information. We have the honour accordingly to request you to be good enough to communicate the contents of this letter for information to the other Members of the Council.
(Signed) Belisario P o r r a s, Paris, July 5th, 1934.
(Signed) Gustav R a s m u s s e n , Geneva, July 23rd, 1934.
(Signed) J. F o u q u e s -D u p a r c , Paris, July 19th, 1934.
!8. Le t t e r f r o m t h e R epresentatives o f A u s t r a l i a , C zechoslovakia a n d P o r t u g a l c o n c e r n i n g a P e t i t i o n f r o m M. O. E s s a y a n .
, I’nder the Council resolution of October 25th, 1920, a Minorities Committee, consisting of e representatives of Australia (Chairman), Czechoslovakia and Portugal, 1 was called upon to famine a petition from M. O. Essayan, dated October 17th, 1932, concerning certain questions 0 - ecclesiastical nature affecting the Armenian population in Turkey, and the observations Turkish Government thereon (document C.23.1933.1).
Ijje Committee originally consisted of the representatives of Czechoslovakia, Germany and the Irish Free State. 0 a^ er were subsequently replaced by the representatives of Australia and Portugal. - 3 8 -
The question submitted to the Committee may be summarised as follows : In his petition, M. Essayan stated that the Turkish Government had refused to allow the Armenians of Constantinople to appoint their lay and ecclesiastical delegates to represent them at the Assembly convened for November ioth, 1932, at Etchmiadzine, near Erivan, for the election of the Catholicos (Supreme Head) of the Armenian Church. According to the petitioner, the Turkish Government announced that, if delegates were elected secretly and sent to Etchmiad zine, they would not be allowed to return to Turkey. The petitioner protested against these measures, which he held to be contrary to the provisions of Article 38 of the Treaty of Lausanne.1 In reply to these allegations, the Turkish Government said that the election of the Catholicos was not really a religious matter, and that for this reason it had been obliged to prohibit the participation of its nationals in this function as being incompatible with public order. During the exchange of correspondence in connection with this case between the Committee and the Turkish Government, the latter supplied the Committee with further explanations regarding both the question of fact and the questions of principle raised by the petitioner. The Committee noted the information communicated by the Government in regard to the particular case mentioned in the petition and came to the conclusion that, in present circumstances, it would be useless to continue its examination of this part of the question. As regards the questions of principle arising out of the case, the Committee is of opinion that the fact that a function connected with the religious life of a minority takes place outside the frontiers of the State cannot free the Government from obligations arising under Article 38 of the Treaty of Lausanne. In these circumstances, the Committee was of opinion that there was no need for any of its members to bring the above-mentioned petition to the notice of the Council, and it accordingly decided to close the examination of this petition. The Council resolution of June 13th, 1929, paragraph 4 (*'), provides that, when the members of a Minorities Committee have finished the examination of a question without asking that it be placed upon the Council’s agenda, they will communicate the result of their examination by letter to the other Members of the Council for their information. We have the honour accordingly to request you to be good enough to communicate the contents of this letter to the other Members of the Council for their information. (Signed) Keith O f f ic e r , London, June 23rd, 1934.
(Signed) R . K ü n z l -J iz e r s k ÿ , Berne, July 20th, 1934.
(Signed) Professor Dr. L. d ’A v ila L ima, Berne, June 29th, 1934.
19. L e t t e r fr o m t h e R epresentatives o f F r a n c e , D e n m a r k a n d P o l a n d CONCERNING A PETITION OF MGR. NEOPHYTE AND CERTAIN OTHER PRELATES.
In virtue of the Council resolution of October 25th, 1920, a Minorities Committee, consisting of the representatives of France (Chairman), Denmark and Poland, 2 was called upon to examine a petition from Mgr. Neophyte and certain other ecclesiastics concerning the situation of the Bulgarian minority in Greece (document C.431.1932.I), together with the memorandum containing the Greek Government’s observations thereon (document C.432.1932.I). The question submitted to the Committee may be summarised as follows:
Object of the Petition.
The object of Mgr. Neophyte’s petition was to draw the attention of the League of Nations to a number of measures adopted by the Greek Government—which measures, according to the petitioners, constituted an infraction of the Treaty—in respect of the Bulgarian population which had remained in Greece notwithstanding the execution of the Greco-Bulgarian Reciprocal Emi gration Convention of November 27th, 1919. The result of these measures was, in particular: the compulsory incorporation of this population in the Greek Orthodox Church, the dissolution
1 Article 38 is worded as follows : " The Turkish Government undertakes to assure full and complete protection of life and liberty to all inhabi tants of Turkey without distinction of birth, nationality, language, race or religion. " All inhabitants of Turkey shall be entitled to free exercise, whether in public or private, of any creed, religion or belief, the observance of which shall not be incompatible with public order and good morals. " Non-Moslem minorities will e n j o y full freedom of movement and of emigration, subject to the m easu res applied, on the whole or on part of the territory, to all Turkish nationals, and which may be taken by the T urkish Government for national defence, or for the maintenance of public order.” 2 The Committee was first composed of the representatives of Poland, Guatemala and Germany. The two latter were subsequently replaced by the representatives of France and Denmark. — 39 — of its religious communities, the confiscation of its ecclesiastical and scholastic patrimony, the expulsion of its prelates and priests, who were replaced by Greek ecclesiastics, and the suppression of the use of Bulgarian in churches and schools. The petitioners asked that these measures should be repealed, and claimed for the Bulgarian minority the right freely to elect its own clergy in conformity with the canons of the Bulgarian Church.
Summary of the Government's Memorandum.
In its memorandum, the Greek Government contested the correctness of these allegations. All elements having affinity of sentiment, nationality or religion with Bulgaria had, the Greek Government stated, between the time of the annexation of the northern territories of Greece in 1913 and the present time, transferred their domicile to Bulgaria. In this connection, the Greek Government referred to the final report of the Mixed Emigration Commission,1 according to which the number of Bulgarians who had left Greece under the Emigration Convention amounted to 101,800. The few Slav-speaking communities which had remained in Greece were entirely Greek in sentiment. Their alleged cultural and religious agitation was only a fiction created by the revolutionary organisations of Macedonia. That was the aim of the petition, whose authors had long since severed every connection with this minority. With regard to the dissolution of the Bulgarian communities, the Government pointed out that that measure had been taken by the Mixed Commission in execution of the above-mentioned Convention. The Greek Govern ment finally declared in the following words its firm respect for the rights of minorities:
" Whenever it has been necessary, the Government of the Republic has always paid special attention to improving the lot and living conditions of the small minorities remaining in Greek territory. The Government has even, of its own volition, created an ' Inspectorate of Minorities ’ attached to the Office of the President of the Council. The Government’s aim in so doing was to keep closely in touch with the minorities, provide for their legitimate requirements and see that those requirements were rapidly and fully examined without administrative delay or needless formalities which might endanger the harmonious coexistence of majority and minority elements of the population.”
The examination of the question summarised above having necessitated several meetings of the Committee and having involved the seeking and examination of repeated additional infor mation, we feel it necessary to indicate briefly the main stages of this enquiry : I. The Committee first desired to obtain from the Greek Government information concerning the number of Slav inhabitants who had remained in Greece after the execution of the Exchange Convention, and the geographical distribution of this population from the point of view of religion and ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The Greek Government informed the Committee in a letter, dated November 22nd, T932, that the Slav-speaking population scattered throughout the northern districts of Greece amounted to 80,000 inhabitants, who, of their own free will and without exception, came under the jurisdiction of Metropolitans depending direct on the (Ecumenical Patriarchate at Constantinople. II. Though taking into account the provisions of the Greek Minorities Treaty concerning freedom of conscience and worship, the Committee considered that, in accordance with the precedent set in similar cases, it could not examine the ecclesiastical or canonical aspect of the problem. It deliberately refrained from discussing the question of the election of the clergy by the congregation, which seemed to be a matter affecting the religious law of the Orthodox Church. It endeavoured, however, to define the circumstances in which the local language was used in relations between the clergy and the minority population, and asked the Greek Government to supply it with all information which would enable it to form a correct view of the existing situation in the regions inhabited by this population. In its reply, dated March 31st, 1933, the «reek Government said that the Orthodox services in the churches attended by the Slav-speaking population were, in conformity with the tradition of the Patriarchal Church, celebrated in Greek ; 't explained, moreover, that it had edicted no restrictions of any sort against the unfettered use °f another language. Ill- Before concluding its work, the Committee wished to be assured that the above state ment should, in fact, be taken to mean that, in regions inhabited by a Slav-speaking population, sermons and, in general, relations between the clergy and the population were in the local language. n February 1934, the members of the Committee were informed by the Director of the Minorities ection of the result of a conference he had had on this subject on January 26th, 1934, with the rePresentative. The Greek representative had explained the practical difficulties encoun tered by the Greek Government in supplying a statistical reply to the question raised by the ommittee, because a detailed enquiry would have to be conducted into the life of each of the P rishes concerned, and would involve a certain amount of interference by the State in the prero- 6 ives of the religious authorities. The assurance required by the Committee could be obtained \vh°v, ■ ^nI°rination concerning the origin and distribution of the priests serving these parishes, information the Greek representative was prepared to supply. The Greek representative
hole by the Secretary-General. — See document C.238.M.131.1932.I. — 40 — stated that 70 per cent of the priests in these parishes came from the same villages in which they officiated, the others being from villages in the same district. The Greek representative requested the Director of the Minorities Section to transmit this information officially to the members of the Committee. At its meeting on May 15th, 1934, the Committee came to the conclusion that this last information, taken together with the statement contained in the Greek representative’s letter dated March 31st, 1933, to the effect that, in the regions inhabited by the Slav-speaking population the use of any language in addition to Greek was quite freely allowed, furnished an indication which could be considered satisfactory with regard to the use of the local language in sermons and in general, in the relations between the clergy and the population concerned. On the basis of the above considerations, the Committee came to the conclusion that none of its members need draw the attention of the Council to the questions referred to in the petition, and accordingly decided to finish its examination of the petition. The Council resolution of June 13th, 1929, paragraph 4 (i), lays down that, when members of the Minorities Committee have finished the examination of a question, without asking that it be placed on the Council’s agenda, they will communicate the result of their examination by letter to the other Members of the Council for their information. We have therefore the honour to request you to be good enough to communicate the contents of this letter to the other Members of the Council for their information. (Signed) J. F o u q u e s -D u p a r c , Paris, September 5th, 1934.
(Signed) Gustav R a s m u s s e n , Geneva, September 7th, 1934.
(Signed) L. K u l s k i, Geneva, October 12th, 1934.
20. Letter from the Representatives of Mexico, the United Kingdom and Denmark CONCERNING A PETITION FROM D r. ANDRÉ GAAL.
In virtue of the Council resolution of October 25th, 1920, a Minorities Committee, composed of the representatives of Mexico, the United Kingdom and Denmark ', was called upon to examine a petition from Dr. André Gaal concerning the situation of the former officials and pensioners of the Administration of the “ Private Property ” of the district of Ciuc, in Transylvania, and the Roumanian Government’s observations thereon (document C.433.1933.1).
1. Historical Outline.
At a meeting held on September 27th, 1932, the Council adopted, noting its unreserved acceptance by the Roumanian Government, the report submitted by the representative of Japan on the question raised by the representatives of descendants of members of the former Szekler (Hungarian) Frontier Guard Regiment, providing for the “ practical solution ” of that affair, the partial reconstitution of the former property of the Szekler, and the acceptance, also partial, by the Roumanian State of the charges previously borne by the Administration of Ciuc Property (see Official Journal, November 1932, pages 1738-1745). The “ fifth proposal ” in the said report was as follows :
" The State would make itself responsible for the settlement of the claims of pensioners and officials of the former ‘Administration of Ciuc Property’, by assimilating their position to that of officials in the public services. In this connection, provision would have to be made : (a) as regards persons who were already pensioners in 1923, for (1) the payment of arrears in their pensions for the period between 1923 and 1932, and (2) the continuation 01 the payment of the pension in the future ; and (b) as regards those who were officials in 19% for (1) the payment of retiring pensions calculated in accordance with the Statute of the property as from the date on which the State took possession of the property and up to 1932’ and (2) the continuation of this payment in the future in so far as such officials are not employed in the reconstituted Administration of the property or in the public service. The latter persons would accordingly be treated as if they had been retired at the time when the State took possession”. 2 . Petition.
The present petition, which reached the Secretary-General on March 20th, 1933, is signed b.' Dr. André Gaal, former Director of Ciuc Private Property. Referring more particularly to the above-mentioned “ fifth proposal ” in the report, he informs the Council that the Roumanian
1 The representative of Norway was originally a Member of the Committee, and was replaced, after the e le c t®1 to the Council of 1933, by the representative of Denmark. 4 i - government has not yet carried out the arrangement agreed upon, emphasising t h e privations and material hardship suffered on that account by the persons concerned. He says that he subm itted proposals to the Roumanian Government with a view to the handing-over to the former officials of wooded ground in lieu of a sum of money, and states that those proposals were not accepted. 3. Observations of the Roumanian Government.
By a letter dated July 14th, 1933, the permanent delegate of Roumania stated that his Government proposed to introduce a Bill for the complete execution of the comprehensive settle ment agreed to by the Council in the affair of the Ciuc Private Property, including the provisions concerning officials and pensioners, which constitute a particular feature of that settlement.
4. Examination by the Committee. At the meetings at which they examined this question, the members of the Committee had in view more particularly the execution of the Council’s decision, which it seemed to them should be put into effect as soon as possible. At its last meeting, held on September 12th, 1934, the Committee was happy to receive a communication, dated August 28th, 1934, from the permanent delegate of Roumania, stating that, on June 28th, 1934, the Roumanian Parliament had passed a law to apply the general settlement agreed to by the Council, Article 4 of which law determines the position of former officials and pensioners of the Administration of the said property on the lines laid down in the provisions of that settlement.1 In the circumstances, the Committee was of opinion that there was no occasion for it to continue its examination of the question, and it decided to close its examination without bringing the matter to the Council’s attention. The Council resolution of June 13th, 1929, paragraph 4 (i), provides that, when members of a Minorities Committee have finished the examination of a question, without asking that it be placed on the Council’s agenda, they will communicate the result of their examination by letter to the other Members of the Council for their information. We have, therefore, the honour to request you to communicate the contents of this letter, for information, to the other Members of the Council. (Signed) F. Ca s t il l o N a j e r a , Geneva, November 14th, 1934.
(Signed) William M a l k in , Geneva, November 19th, 1934.
(Signed) Gustav R a s m u s s e n , Geneva, November 15th, 1934.
21. L e t t e r fr o m t h e R epresentatives o f M e x ic o , A u s t r a l ia a n d Sp a in c o n c e r n in g a P e t it io n fr o m D r. P a l G a b o r a n d D r. L azlô D e s z ô .
Geneva, December 7th, 1934.
Under the Council resolution of October 25th, 1920, a Minorities Committee, consisting of the representatives of Mexico, Australia and Spain, 2 was called upon to examine a petition, dated May 14th, 1930, from Dr. Pal Gabor and Dr. Lazlô Deszô, Senator and Deputy respectively, for the Comitat of Ciuc (Transylvania), regarding the forests and pasture-lands of the Szekler communes of Gheorgheni, Cârta and Ineu in the above-mentioned Comitat, together with the Roumanian Government’s observations on that petition (document C.601.1930.I).
1 Law concerning the settlement of the dispute relating to the Ciuc Property. Voted by Parliament on June 28th, *934. promulgated on July 8th, 1934. Published in Monitorul Oficial, No. 162, of July 17th:
Article 4. — The Ministry of Finance shall include in the budget for the year 1934-35 the sums necessary for the Payment retrospectively—that is to say, from April ist, 1923, to April ist, 1934—of the pensions due to pensioners an ex-officials of the former ‘Administration of the Ciuc Property'. , The rights of former officials to a pension shall be established by reference to the pension statutes of the Adminis- ■ 10n of the Ciuc Property by the authorities named in the Pension Law of 1925, as subsequently amended, on the sis of the years of service that those officials had performed up to April ist, 1923, and the actual remuneration paid t0 them at th at time. rule Pa7ments thus calculated, taking duly into account cost-of-living allowances established in conformity with the s applied to pensioners who are former officials of the district of Ciuc, shall be paid as from April ist, 1934, by the «eral Pension Fund.” r * Committee was originally presided over by the representative of Venezuela, whose place was taken by the havesentative of Panama following the 1931 elections to the Council. On March 22nd, 1933, the representative of Panama jc to be relieved of membership of the Minorities Committee, the representative of Mexico was appointed
y, The representative of Australia, following the 1933 elections to the Council, became a member of this Committee Session to the representative of the Irish Free State. — 42 —
In a letter dated June ist, 1930, Dr. Pal Gabor informed the Secretariat th at he wished to withdraw that part of the petition which related to the commune of Gheorgheni, as the latter had obtained the restitution of the estate in dispute. The Committee’s enquiries were therefore confined to the dispute regarding the two other communes. These enquiries have passed through various stages and necessitated a long exchange of semi-official correspondence with the Roumanian Government, the Committee having been desirous of allowing the normal procedure of the autho rities to operate freely. For these reasons it considers it necessary to go in some detail into the points raised by the petition and the Roumanian Government’s observations, together with its own action in the matter.
I. Stimmary of the Petition.
The petitioners stated that, in the rural communes of Transylvania, there existed an institution known as “ copossessorates ”—i.e. a form of collective ownership of land (forests and pasture-lands) for the use of the smaller landholders. They maintained that, under Articles 24 and 32 of the Transylvanian Agrarian Law, the expropriation of communal property was only permissible in so far as the extent of such property was in excess of the normal requirements of the joint owners and for the purpose of creating or extending a “ copossessorate ” in a neighbouring commune. The petitioners stated, however : (1) That the normal requirements of the " copossessorates ” of Cârta and Ineu had not been duly taken into consideration and that, had the law been equitably applied, they would have been left intact. The decision taken by the agrarian tribunals of first instance, which ordered the expropriation of their property for the benefit of the neighbouring Roumanian commune of Bicaz, had been quashed by the Agrarian Committee, which, as the highest authority in these matters, had decided that only a part of the property should be assigned to the Roumanian commune and that the remainder should be restored to the Szekler communes. (2) In spite, however, of the Agrarian Committee’s decision, the Roumanian inhabitants of Ineu are alleged to have prevented, by all possible means, the joint owners from working the two “ copossessorates ” assigned to them. It is even stated that the latter were threatened by the office of the mayor of Bicaz, and that this attitude caused serious prejudice to their interests.
II. Summary of the Roumanian Government’s Observations.
As to the first point, the Government observes that the restoration of 1,988 arpents to the commune of Cârta and 554 arpents to the commune of Ineu was the outcome of the normal working of the legal procedure applicable in agrarian matters. Expropriation had been ordered because the two “ copossessorates ” included an area of land in excess of that which was called for by the joint owners’ normal requirements, whereas the neighbouring commune was unprovided for. As to point 2, the Roumanian Government regards this as a dispute between private parties and therefore within the competence of the judicial authorities ; as long, therefore, as the matter had not been brought before the latter, the only action open to the administrative authorities was an attempt at conciliation, which they had not failed to make. The Government explained that the pasture-lands in question were situated nearer to the commune of Bicaz than to the communes of Cârta and Ineu, and that the 7,000 arpents assigned to Bicaz by the agrarian reform authorities were still insufficient to meet the requirements of its 1,850 families. For many years these pasture-lands had, moreover, been leased to that commune, and the various interested parties had at one time negotiated for their sale, though without success, as it had been impossible to reach agreement regarding the price. The Government was considering a settlement under which the State would offer a piece of its own land to the Szekler " copossessorates ” in exchange for a part of the land in dispute. The Government stated, in its observations of September 30th, 1930, that, for that purpose, the Prefect of Ciuc, assisted by a forestry expert, who was himself a member of the Hungarian minority and enjoyed its confidence, had approached the joint owners, who had proved willing to negotiate on the above-mentioned basis.
III. The Committee's Examination.
At its first meeting on January 26th, 1931, the original Committee, noting that, according to the Roumanian Government’s observations, the two “ copossessorates ” right to that part of their land which had been restored to them under the Agrarian Committee’s decisions of 192/ and 1928 had been duly recognised, could not but view with satisfaction the settlements proposed by the Roumanian Government regarding the local dispute which had arisen in this case. 1* therefore expressed the desire to be informed of the results of the negotiations then contemplated, and, in the meantime, requested the Roumanian Government to take such measures as might be necessary to secure for the “ copossessorates ” the free enjoyment of their forests and pasture- lands. The Committee was subsequently informed on several occasions that various solutions which had been successively proposed by the Government had come to nothing owing to difficulties of a practical or economic and financial nature. It had, for example, contemplated making °'er certain land forming part of the private property of the Comitat o f Ciuc to the two c o m m u n e 5 concerned in exchange for a corresponding area of their forests and pasture-lands. It so happen^ however, that this property was the subject of another petition by the Hungarian minority which had already been placed upon the Council's agenda, and, in consequence, the scheme came to nothing. The Roumanian Government therefore contemplated taking the necessary measures to ensure the restoration to their lawful owners of the forest and pasture-lands occupied by the inhabitants of the commune of Bicaz. F inally, in the course of the present year, the Committee was informed that, under the sole article of a law passed by the Roumanian Parliament in 1933, the Ministry of Agriculture and State Lands had been authorised to purchase from the two " copossessorates ” the 1,132 arpents held by th e commune of Bicaz at a price to be fixed by agreement between the services of that Ministry and the “ copossessorates " concerned, as soon as certain disputed points regarding the extent and value of the lands h a d been cleared up. In a letter dated August 28th, 1934, the permanent delegate of Roumania accredited to the League of Nations communicated—with further reference to the above-mentioned law—copies of two deeds of sale under which the representatives of the two " copossessorates " made over the forests and pasture-lands belonging to them—that is, in the case of the " copossessorate " of Cârta, 630 arpents, 1,277 square metres, and in the case of the “ copossessorate ” of Ineu, 554 arpents, 827 square metres—to the Roumanian State for 2,127,000 lei and 1,827,900 lei, respectively, payable in Expropriation Bonds calculated at the rate of 38 3/5 and 38 5/g and thus making a nominal amount of 5,509,189 lei in the case of Cârta and 4,850,811 lei in the case of Ineu, the first coupons being due in November 1934. The aforementioned deeds also comprise a declaration under which the two " copossessorates " finally renounce all claim to the lands in question. At its ninth meeting, held on September 12th, 1934, the Committee noted that, according to the above-mentioned letter and the declarations annexed thereto, this case had at last, thanks to the fairmindedness of the Roumanian Government, been settled by compromise, and therefore decided to conclude its examination of this question without bringing it to the notice of the Council. The Council resolution of June 13th, 1929, paragraph 4 (1), provides that, when the members of a Minorities Committee have finished the examination of a question without asking that it be placed upon the Council’s agenda, they will communicate the result of their examination by letter to the other Members of the Council for their information. We have the honour accordingly to request you to be good enough to communicate the contents of this letter to the other Members of the Council for their information.
(Signed) F. C a s t i l l o N a j e r a .
(Signed) Keith O f f i c e r .
(Signed) J. Lôpez Olivân.