867.602/91: Telegram
The Special Mission at Lausanne to the Secretary of State
[Received June 27—12:48 p.m.]
467. Our 465, June 27, 2 [10] a.m. Rumbold sent me this morning the revised text of the protocol on concessions as submitted to the Turkish delegation. It begins with the following preamble:
“The British Empire, France, Italy, Japan, Greece, Roumania, the Serb-Croat-Slovene State and Turkey, animated with the same desire to maintain and to regulate their relations and those of their nationals in accordance with principles of equity and of respect for reciprocal engagements, have agreed upon the following dispositions.”
The only other important modification is in article 2 which now reads as follows:
“Contracts and agreements in regard to which, on October 29, 1914, all formalities had not yet been fulfilled shall, nevertheless, be considered as valid and maintained, if by common consent they have begun to be carried out or if they have been the subject of arrangements between the Ottoman Government and an Allied Government involving an advantage for Turkey.”
I said to Payne, who handed me the revised document, that I should submit it to my Government but that I did not personally believe the modifications in article 2 were such as to remove our objection to the principle involved therein.