CO885-(11-13) — Page 427

No. 185a.

(CYPRUS.)

THE LORD CHANCELLOR to SIE JULIAN PAUNCEFOTE.

(Confidential.)

DEAR SIR JULIAN,

Cluny Castle, Kingussie, N.B., September 23, 1878.

I ENCLOSE & memorandum which I have made on the subject of your letter of the 21st. I do not think that until the capitulations are analysed the question can be completely answered. It would also be desirable to know whether any and what claims are put forward by foreign States.

Yours, &c., (Signed) CAIRNS.

(Confidential.)

MEMORANDUM.

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Te Ti

படப்

CO.

Reference :-

TURKISH CAPITULATIONS WITH FOREIGN COUNTRIES AS AFFECTING CYPRUS.

September 23, 1878.

1. In considering this question I do not think we can look on Cyprus as in any sense acquired by conquest. It is quite true that we might have taken it by force, and that had we done so we should have held it free and clear of all obligations attaching on Turkey, but we did not take it by force; and we acquired it deliberately, and for obvious reasons, by an arrangement which was described to be the reverse of alienation, and still more of forcible alienation. We could not, in my opinion, now contend that this arrangement carried with it the incidents of conquest.

2. We must take the arrangement, then, as it really is. The Porte has given us every power in and over Cyprus which it possessed, but we have got nothing more than what the Porte could give. And we have this for a limited time, the Porte retaining the reversion.

3. In order to appreciate the exact effect of this state of things on the capitulations, it would be desirable to have a careful analysis of the capitulations: for under that term I fancy are included provisions as to courts and judicature and also fiscal arrangements, such as exemptions from duties and privileges, ejusdem generis.

4. As regards the provisions as to judicature, including the extra territorial privi- leges of consuls and subjects of foreign powers, I do not imagine that if we were to institute a satisfactory tribunal for the exercise of civil and criminal jurisdiction in the Island, with a proper code, foreign nations would decline to submit to it, or desire anything better. If they did demur, I think it would be fair ground to contend that capitulations, so far as they relate to jurisdiction and procedure, and set up an imperium in imperio," are a device invented to meet the anomaly and inconveniences arising in the case of subjects of Christian states trading and sojourning in a Mussulman country, and that their raison d'être ceases where the legislation and administration is no longer in Mussulman hands.

5. But this does not apply to stipulations as to duties, exemptions, tariffs, &c. As to these, capitulations are treaties, and Turkey could not terminate its treaties by assigning a part of its territory to be administered by England. It may, however, be, that on examination the stipulations will be found to point to specific duties and to grant exemptions as to them; and that under our legislative power we may so alter the whole system of customs as to make the capitulations no longer applicable.

▲ 20491,-10, 25.-6/86.

C.

885

12 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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