FOREIGN OFFICE, S.W.1.

October 22nd, 1928.

(C 7743/42/7.)

Dear Sperling,

I hope you won't want me to answer your letter of October 10th at, equal length. I could, but it would benefit no one. We could no doubt go on arguing till Doomsday but as we are already getting dangerously near splitting hairs and trying to score debating points, I think, we had better stop, especially as fundamentally we are, I hope, in agreement. We neither of us want to whitewash anybody, and we both agree that Bulgarian public opinion is incorrigibly stupid and conceited and that Macedonian organisations are all that and some of them worse. As to our policy, which you say tends to prolong a dangerous state of affairs, all I can say is

• (a) that we flatly decline to condone the M.R.O. (as Lindsay has already said his letters to you);

• (b) that we cannot connive at violations of the Treaty of Neuilly (for reasons given in my letter of October 1st);

• (c) that although we recognise that the administration of Southern Serbia may leave much to be desired, we most certainly are not going to take the initiative of arraigning Yugoslavia before the League on the ground that she is the cause of the continued existence of the M.R.O. and, therefore, responsible for the bad relations between herself and Bulgaria.

Now I have said all that there is to be said but I may as well answer one or two points you make so as to avoid all future misunderstanding.

• (1) As regards minorities in Macedonia I am glad to see that you do not attempt to answer the direct question which I asked, namely, “What is the Macedonian minority”, of which you spoke in your despatch. You refer me to several reports which do not go beyond saying that certain of the Slavs in Macedonia are at present prepared to call themselves Macedonians. But that is no reason why we or you should consent to give them a name which coincides with a piece of territory which has been a bone of contention for ages, and which has not for a thousand years been an autonomous entity in any sense.