Coll 6/81 'Syria: Status of Alexandretta and Antioch.' [‎67v] (135/576)

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illegitimate pressure on the Electoral Commission and were, by various unfair
administrative methods, conspiring to ensure that the coming elections in the
sanjak should be as unfavourable to the Turkish element as possible. This
communication was followed on the 15th December by a telegram from the Turkish
Government to the Secretary-General of the League. This telegram contained ^
two grounds for complaint. In the first place, the Turkish Government alleged
that the commission had collaborated with the mandatory authorities in the sanjak
and that the electoral regulations had been drafted in consultation with them
and were the result of this collaboration. In the second place, exception was
taken to the fact that the electoral regulations were communicated officially to
the mandatory Power for enactment into law, whereas they were only communi
cated unofficially to the Turkish Government.
7. As regards the first point, the president of the commission has explained
that the regulations were not the result of collaboration between the commission
and the mandatory authorities. Communications between the commission and
the mandatory authorities were confined to requests by the former for information
and the supply of this information by the latter. It was clearly impossible for
the commission to devise a practicable electoral procedure without first obtaining
information on numerous details from the authorities in the sanjak, supplemented
by unofficial information obtained from representatives of all the different com
munities. Further, the mandatory authorities never attempted to influence the
commission's decisions, nor to ascertain what these decisions were. The
commission was consequently solely responsible for the electoral regulations.
8. As regards the second complaint, the president has explained that the
regulations were communicated officially by the commission to the mandatory
Power, not for approval or for criticism, but as the final decision of the com
mission, which it was necessary to communicate to the mandatory Power as it
alone possessed the necessary legislative power to enact them into law. In so far
as the Turkish Government were concerned, the Secretariat of the League, on its
own initiative, communicated a copy of the regulations to the permanent delegate
of Turkey at Geneva, simply as a matter of courtesy to a Power which was
naturally interested. It should be noted here that there is no provision in the
Geneva Settlement of the 29th May for submitting the decisions of the Electoral
Commission to Turkey, either for approval or for criticism, and that the Turkish
Government have no ground for complaint in that the regulations were not com
municated to them officially. Nor, however, is there any provision for submitting
the decisions of the commission to France, as the mandatory Power, or for that
matter for their submission to the Council or the Secretariat of the League.
9. A further telegram was sent by the Turkish Government to the Secretary-
General of the League on the 24th December. This telegram reiterated the
allegation contained in the telegram of the 15th December that the regulations
were the result of collaboration between the mandatory Power and the
commission and complained that Turkey, the other Power interested in
the arrangements adopted for the sanjak, was not consulted even on points of
detail. It, furthermore, made certain detailed criticisms of the regulations.
10. For instance, exception was taken by the Turkish Government to the
penal provisions in the regulations, which are claimed to be excessively harsh.
Mr. Reid has pointed out that these penal provisions are based upon the Syrian
practice and are very considerably milder than those normally applied in Syria.
Then, again, the Turkish Government complained of the registration procedure.
They claimed that it was the intention of the Council, in its resolutions, that
there should be no supervision over the first stage in the elections, except for the
purpose of preventing duplicate registrations, and no indirect influence exercised
over the free expression of the people’s will. With regard to this complaint
Mr. Reid has pointed out that the commission, realising the intentions of the
Turkish element, as stated above, to intimidate the non-Turkish elements, have
in fact devised a procedure which shall ensure that no one shall register in a
community to which he does not belong, and has with this end in view reserved to
itself a final decision in cases of dispute regarding the community in which any
elector shall be registered.
11. This last point is the crux of the whole dispute, and it is necessary to
consider it in rather greater detail. Although the Turkish Government’s telegram
of the 24th December does not specifically raise the point, it might be argued that