British Bureaucrats and Baghdadi Jewish Legal Identity during the Mandate Period

H.B.M. Consulate-General
 Shanghai,
 20th June, 1922
 No. 27 (2 copies)

To:
 The Right Honourable Earl Balfour, K.G., O.M.,
 His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State
 for Foreign Affairs,
 Foreign Office, London.

My Lord,

I have the honour to submit for your instructions an application that I have received from a Mr. Bension Aaron Somekh of Shanghai for registration as a British protected person, on the ground that he is a native of Mesopotamia.

Mr. Somekh states that he was born in Baghdad in May 1872 and that his father’s name was Aaron Somekh. He can produce no documentary proof regarding his birth, but he is a prominent member of the local Bagdad community, and I have no reason to doubt that that [sic] is his birthplace. In his letter, a copy of which is enclosed, he states that he left Baghdad at the age of 14 for Bombay where he resided for four years, since when he has been in Shanghai. He is married and has three sons aged respectively twelve, eight and three years, all of whom have been born in Shanghai.

Inquiries of local residents show that he was well disposed towards the Allies in the war, and has never been suspected of any dealings with the enemy.

For the last 15 years he has been registered in the French Consulate-General as a French protege; the French Government having undertaken the protection of Ottoman subjects in China before the war.

On the receipt of Mr. Somekh’s present application, I asked my French colleague, as a matter of courtesy, whether he had any observations to make regarding it, and I received a reply, a copy of which is also enclosed, stating that whatever legal grounds there might be for Mr. Somekh’s application, its immediate cause was a fit of bad temper at the intervention of the French Consulate between himself and two of his tenants, of which one is a British subject, resulting in a reduction of the rent he had demanded.

Chapter XXII of the General Consular Instructions Section 10 in a footnote states that “In the case of Palestine or Mesopotamia, only those natives should receive protection who have in fact acquired Palestinian or Mesopotamian nationality according to the local nationality laws of those territories.”

I have the honour to inquire, therefore, whether in view of the facts mentioned, Mr. Somekh may be considered to have acquired, or not to have lost, Mesopotamian nationality, and whether I should register him as a British protected person.

In the latter event the applicant is also anxious to know whether his three sons may continue to receive British protection when they are of age.

I have the honour to be,
 With the highest respect,
 My Lord,
 Your Lordship’s most obedient, humble servant,

[Signed] C. F. Garstin,
 Acting Consul-General.