SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE.

CONFIDENTIAL.

[C 4881/4881/7]

The Marquess Curzon of Kedleston to Lord Hardinge (Paris).

(No. 1058.)

My Lord, Foreign Office, April12, 1922.

I UNDERSTAND that his Majesty's Minister at Athens has sent to your Excellency direct a copy of his despatch No. 137 of the 25th March, enclosing a memorandum by the president of the League on Nations Commission reporting on certain difficulties which have arisen in regard to the execution of the Graco-Bulgarian Convention of the 27th November, 1919, respecting the interchange of minorities between Greece and Bulgaria. Colonel Corfe states that the effect of the Greek Minorities Treaty signed between Greece and the Principal Allied and Associated Powers on the 10th August, 1920, and especially of article 4 thereof, is to prejudice the working of the Convention of Neuilly, in that the populations concerned are relying upon being allowed to return to Greece and refusing to declare their desire to be repatriated to Bulgaria.

• 2. Colonel Corfe suggests, therefore, that the Greek Minorities Treaty should be so modified as to bring it more into harmony with the spirit of the Graco-Bulgarian Convention. Unlike the latter convention, the Greek Minorities Treaty has not yet been ratified, and is thus still subject to amendment. I understand, indeed, that the French Government are themselves anxious to revise this treaty and to reassume the responsibility of the guaranteeing powers which are renounced in the preamble to the treaty as it now stands. Moreover, a modification of this treaty will not, as would be the case with the Graco-Bulgarian Convention itself, require the consent of the Bulgarian Government, who are doubtless glad to find that the effect of their convention with Greece for the interchange of populations is neutralised by the terms of article 4 of the Greek Minorities Treaty.

• 3. I am myself inclined to agree with Colonel Corfe as to the desirability of altering the wording of article 4 of the minorities treaty, and such a modification would not, in fact, be difficult, since it would be sufficient to add a sentence to this article to the effect that its provisions do not affect persons to whom article 12 of the Convention of Neuilly applies.