FORGED PROCLAMATION

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 124, 26 May 1923, Page 14

FORGED PROCLAMATION

CONCESSIONS TO AN OIL COMPANY. A proclamation signed by Queen Victoria, which is said to be a forgery, has been used by the United States Government in an official report to the Senate, states the "Daily Mail."

Questioned on the subject in Parliament, Mr. R. M'Neill, the Under-Sec-retary of State for Foreign Affairs, said the documents were an alleged proclamation signed by Queen Victoria and by Lord Salisbury, as Secretary of State for India, dated September, 1884, and an exclusive concession to the BurmaOil Co., dated August, 18B5. : Lord Salisbury had ceased to be Secretary of State for India six years earlier, and the language of both documents showed them to be obvious forgeries.

The United States Government were so informed in 1921, but no official admission was made till last year, correspondence having in the meantiriie been diverted to a side issue—namely, the precise effect of existing legislation in India. The use of the forged documents in an official report recently addressed to the Senate, and in a decision on an application for an oil lease rendered by the late Secretary of State of the Interior on 3rd March, caused the British Government to make further representations. . The "New York Herald" a, few days later, after emphasising "the'gracious acknowledgment of error made by Mr. Hughes, the American Secretary of State, to the British Foreign Office," expresses curiosity as to the origin and purpose of the forgeries, and asks : "Who was interested—interested to the extent of forging the Queen's name—in creating the impression that the British Government barred Americans from the Burma oilfields?" But Mr. Hughes, whose mind is sternly a legal one, seems to think that the British in dwelling on the mystery are drawing a red herring across the trail of the real question which the American Government is pursuing. That question is: D"oes the Indian Government discriminate against"American oil prospectors? In a semi-official communication to the Press, Mr. Hughes states that the British .Government promised last; May to supply him with copies of its laws and regulations relating to alien rights in Indian oilfields, but so far has failed to keep its promise. He expressed willingness last June to acknowledge .the spuriousness of the document containing the forged signatures of Queen Victoria and Lord Salisbury, but could not announce that Americans were not excluded from oil concessions in India unless the British Government gave assurances to that effeot.

The forged documents were forwarded by the American Consulate at Bombay.