Correspondence with A J Balfour, Sir R Wingate, Lord Allenby, Lord Milner and others on Egypt [‎4v] (8/300)

6
the position; we may have to give ground and cannot hope to acquire any here,
though we should resist cession if possible.
It must further be remembered that the question of the western frontier hns been
allowed to lie dormant during the war, but must necessarily now be reopened. Indeed,
we should not wish the frontier to remain longer undemarcated, and should, in any
case, take this opportunity of appointing a joint commission of delimitation to remove
a possible cause of friction in the future as in point of fact it has proved to be both
before and during the war.
VI .—Sinai Frontier.
This is mainly a military matter, and the final recommendations should be made by
those familiar not only with the ground but with strategic considerations, that is, by
our military authorities and the Egyptian Government.
So far as this department is competent, its recommendations have been already
made, and they are here reproduced for convenience :—
“ On the one hand, it seems desirable that all cultivated or cultivable land
on the southern borders of Palestine, in the neighbourhood of Gaza, Eafa, and
Beersheba, should go to Palestine. But, on the other hand, it would be preferable
that the Palestinian State should not have jurisdiction over Bedouin tribes. The
tribes south of the Bafa-Beersheba line and west of the Wady Arabah go
naturally with those of the Sinai peninsula, and the pre-war frontier between
Turkey and Egypt, which separated them, was a quite arbitrary line.
“ It might be desirable, therefore, to attach this triangle of former Turkish
territory to Egypt. But the consent of the inhabitants would have first to be
manifested in some clear form, in order to preclude any possibility of misinter
pretation. For, since Egypt is a British protectorate, the attachment of these
tribes to Egypt might otherwise be represented as an annexation of free Arabs to
the British Empire.
“It is not improbable that this solution would be favoured by the tribes
concerned. But this aim is of minor importance from the British point of view,
and would not be worth pressing if it seemed likely to give our Allies an opening
for representing that we were making a special exception in our favour to the
principle of c No Annexations’ as applied to Ottoman territory, while insisting on
‘Independence’ in areas which, under agreements, had been assigned to them.”
R V.
Foreign Office, December 12, 1918.
« Draft of Egypt-Morocco Convention.
Le. Gouvernement de la Kepublique francaise et le Gouvernement de Sa Majeste
britannique, ayant, it la suite de la double reconnaissance du Protectorat de la France
au Maroc et de la Grande-Bretagne en Egypte, juge le moment venu de donner a la
Declaration du 8 avril, 1904, la plenitude de ses effets, taut dans la zone fran§aise du
Maroc qu’en Egypte, ou desormais les deux Gouvernements assument, respectivement,
la responsabilite de la paix, de 1’ordre et de la bonne administration ; apres avoir pris
connaissance, le Gouvernement franyais, des garanties que lui assure le projet de loi
d organisation judiciaire des Tribunaux unifies, et le Gouvernement britannique, de
cedes que lui donnent les lois deja promulguees dans la zone franyaise du Maroc ;
tout en maintenant les dispositions de la Declaration du 8 avril, 1904, en ce
qu elles n’ont pas d’incompatible avec les termes expres du present texte, ont decide de
remplacer le regime actuellement existant dans la zone franyaise du Maroc pour les
ressortissants britanniques et en figypte pour les ressortissants franyais, par les
dispositions suivantes :
Article l er .
Le Gouvernement de Sa Majeste britannique renonce en faveur du Gouvernement
de la Hepublique francaise a tous les droits et privileges qu’il tient du regime des
Capitulations dans la zone franyaise du Maroc.