TNAG-0155-FCO40-191-Import-restrictions-by-Algeria-1969 — Page 12

C

STICYA

BRITISH EMBASSY,

ALGIERS.

24 April, 1969

(14/4)

Dear Child,

In a letter of 18 December, I put to you what I thought was a rather ignorant question about the correct terminology for use in Notes Verbales. In your letter of 6 January, you promised me a reply. I am somewhat comforted by the fact that I have not yet had your reply, from which I infer, perhaps wrongly, that my question was not such an ignorant one as I thought. At all events it does not seem to be so easily answered as I expected.

2. Meanwhile I have another similar question with regard to the correct drafting of Notes Verbales. I recently received an instruction in Foreign Office telegram No. 25 of 21 March to address a formal protest to the Algerian Government on behalf of the Government of Hong Kong on lines suggested in a Saving telegram from the Governor of Hong Kong to the Secretary of State (Hong Kong telegram No. 245 Saving of 7 March). In his Saving telegram the Governor of Hong Kong suggested the text of a Note of which the operative paragraph read:

"The Hong Kong Government would be grateful if the

Algerian Government could

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My question this time is whether it is correct in a Note Verbale addressed by the British Embassy in Algiers to use this formula. A priori I should have thought that it was not. The position, as I understand it, is that H.M.G. in the U.K. is responsible for conducting the foreign relations of our colonies. But this surely does not mean that the British Embassy in Algiers is, even notionally, the Hong Kong Embassy in Algiers. Thus when we take up with the Algerians questions on behalf of the Hong Kong Government we do so in our own name. It is H.M.G. in the U.K. which is making the communication in question to the Algerians and not the Hong Kong Government. (I should say that we drafted the Note that we sent in such a way as to avoid this point.)

3. Apart from what seems to me to be the correct theoretical reasoning, the use of the formula proposed by the Governor of Hong Kong, leads one into sylistic inconsistencies. A Note Verbale starts off by saying that the British Embassy in Algiers presents its compliments etc., etc., and requests the Algerian Government to do this, that or the other.

C. J. Child, Esq.,

Foreign Office Library,

Foreign & Commonwealth Office,

London S.W.1.

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RECEIVED IN REGISTRY No.51 25 JUN 1969

HICK6/944/13

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