Permanente de Arbitragem, como está estabelecida nos artigos 1 e 2 do Acôrdo, será substituida pela do Tribunal Permanente de Justiça Internacional, d'acordo com o processo estabelecido nos Estatutos deste tribunal e com as regras nêles estabelecidas.

3. Esta nota e a de V. Exa. a que tenho a honra de responder servirão e serão suficientes para darem validade legal a este Acôrdo entre os respectivos Governos.

Aproveito, &c.

TH. A. GARCIA ROSADO.

(Translation.)

Your Excellency,

Portuguese Embassy, London,
January 4, 1927.

I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Excellency's note of to-day's date, informing me that His Britannic Majesty's Government are prepared to renew for a further period of five years, to date from the 16th November, 1926, the Arbitration Agreement with the Government of the Portuguese Republic which was signed at London on the 16th November, 1914, and successively renewed by notes exchanged on the 16th November, 1919, and 29th August, 1925.

2. In reply, I have the honour to inform your Excellency that the Government of the Portuguese Republic in accepting the proposal of His Majesty's Government, are equally prepared to renew the Agreement in question for a further period of five years, to date from the 16th November, 1926. It will be understood, however, in accordance with the proposal of His Majesty's Government, that the jurisdiction of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, as provided for in articles 1 and 2 of that Agreement, will be replaced by that of the Permanent Court of International Justice, in accordance with the procedure laid down in the statute of that court and the rules of court adopted hereunder.

3. This note and your Excellency's note, to which I now have the honour to reply, will serve as, and will be sufficient to give, legal validity to this understanding between the respective Governments. I avail, &c.

TH. A. GARCIA ROSADO.

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Note from His Majesty's Government to the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics respecting the Relations existing between the two Governments and Note in reply. February 23/26, 1927.

Sir,

No. 1.

Sir Austen Chamberlain to M. Rosengolz.

Foreign Office, February 23, 1927. THE relations existing between His Majesty's Government and the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics continue notoriously to be of an unsatisfactory nature.

On the 4th June, 1923, the Soviet Government solemnly signed the following agreement :

66

The Soviet Government undertakes not to support with funds or in any other form persons or bodies or agencies or institutions whose aim is to spread discontent or to foment rebellion in any part of the British Empire and to impress upon its officers and officials the full and continuous observance of these conditions."

In recalling the terms of this agreement in his note of the 24th October, 1924, to M. Rakovsky, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald stated that-

66

No Government will ever tolerate an arrangement with a foreign Government by which the latter is in formal diplomatic relations of a correct kind with it, whilst at the same time a propagandist body organically connected with that foreign Government encourages and even orders subjects of the former to plot and plan revolutions for its overthrow. Such conduct is not only a grave departure from the rules of international comity, but a violation of specific and solemn undertakings repeatedly given to His Majesty's Government."

In spite of this warning it has been necessary for me on more than one occasion to draw the attention of the Soviet representative in this country to the continuous breach of this solemn engagement. So long as the present rulers of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, be they technically members of the Government or members of the Politbureau, which is the real dominating authority in the Union, or its ambassadors abroad, persist in making public utterances in defamation of Great Britain or in advocacy of a world revolution, no improvement is possible. His Majesty's Government must once again draw attention to the warning given by my predecessor.

This public attitude of men holding high positions in Russia

is, moreover, totally inconsistent with the profession of goodwill given privately by the representatives of the Soviet Government in this country. For instance, M. Krassin, late Chargé d'Affaires of the Soviet Union in London, informed me in October last that he was instructed to state that it was the real desire of the Soviet Government to remove causes of difficulty and to establish friendly relations with His Majesty's Government. Yet while this very instruction was being carried out by M. Krassin a regular campaign of public slander and misrepresentation against Great Britain was in process, and not even the Commissar for Foreign Affairs himself, who was, at least nominally, the author of these instructions, could refrain from taking part in this campaign.

His Majesty's Government are indeed well aware of the delusion under which M. Chicherin and many of his colleagues are suffering that Great Britain is continually occupied in plotting against the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and for this purpose has never ceased to guide the policy of such countries as Poland and the Baltic States and Persia into an orientation directed against Soviet Russia. No impartial study of the policies of those countries, no dispassionate examination of facts and no assurances from His Majesty's Government have availed to dispel an obsession which is as illogical as it is ill-founded. Its continuance, therefore, can only be based on a rooted, even perhaps temperamental, hostility in the minds of the Soviet authorities themselves and a corresponding credulity in regard to false reports from interested informants. M. Chicherin himself, in particularly hostile speech delivered on the 6th December to representatives of the press in Berlin, openly displayed this preference for bad over good sources of information. Out of a mass of inaccurate and tendencious statements it is only necessary to make a single selection in order to illustrate the distorted vision of British policy that appears to haunt the nervous mind of M. Chicherin. He declared that the British periodical "The Near East" had threatened Persia with trouble fomented by Great Britain if she did not show herself amenable to British desires. An examination of "The Near East" would have shown that no such threat had appeared in it, and His Majesty's Government have the right to protest against the malevolent bias which makes pure inventions the basis or support of its policy. (Appendix No. 1.)

The same credulity and hostility are shown by M. Voroshilov, People's Commissar for War, in his speech to new commanders and political workers in the Soviet army on the 17th September as reported in the Soviet press; and by M. Unschlicht, ViceCommissar for War, in his article in the "Pravda" of the 15th September. Extracts from the speeches referred to are attached to this note for purpose of reference. (Appendices

Nos. 2 and 3.)

Again, an Ambassador of the Union, M. Kamenev, was recently reported as stating that the present leaders of the Communist party devoted undue attention to the internal welfare of the Union instead 1500 3/27 F.O.P. 15879

3878 WI.

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