Baghdadi Jews and British Imperial Categories between Iraq and China

George Mounsey

1922

Foreign Office

S.W.1
 25th September, 1922.

Sir,

With reference to the Foreign Office letter of the 11th ultimo and previous correspondence relative to the national status of natives of Iraq, I am directed by the Marquess Curzon of Kedleston1 to transmit to you a copy of a despatch from His Majesty’s consul general at Shanghai respecting the protection of members of the community of Bagdad Jews resident there.

2. The practice of registering as British protected persons Ottoman subjects at Shanghai in the employment of Messrs. Sassoon and other British firms appears to have originated locally many years ago, and although the question was subsequently raised in 1906, the continuance of the practice was permitted so long as the persons concerned remained in such employment. Failing this they would come under French protection, in view of the fact that the French Government had assumed generally the protection of Ottoman subjects in China.

3. The persons referred to in Mr. Garstin’s despatch are said to have no present intention of returning to Iraq, and are so seemingly debarred from claiming Iraq nationality under the regulations in force. If possessed of such nationality, with consequent British protection, they would be entitled to British representation vis-à-vis the Chinese authorities in litigation with other foreigners and Chinese to passports and visas; and to a claim to be sued and prosecuted in the British Courts. If without nationality but with British protection they would seemingly be entitled to similar treatment without being able to demand it. If without either nationality or British protection they would come wholly within Chinese jurisdiction. While if regarded as Ottomans simply, it would presumably fall to the French authorities to protect them.

4.  While Lord Curzon would wish to be able to continue to afford British protection to these persons of Iraq origin, who are mostly Baghdad Jews and form as a class a respectable and well to do community, he thinks it would be undesirable to continue further the existing arrangement which appears to rest upon no regular basis. He would therefore suggest for Mr. Secretary Churchill’s consideration that unless these people can be admitted in principle as Iraqis and granted provisional certificates of Iraq nationality His Majesty’s consul general at Shanghai should be informed that British protection should no longer be extended to them. But he would be glad in the first instance to learn whether in Mr. Churchill’s view the stipulations of the Iraq nationality regulations so far as regards intended future permanent residence in Iraq would be capable of interpretation in such a way as to include persons of the community referred to.

I am,
 Sir,
 Your obedient servant,

George Mounsey

Notes

British Foreign Secretary from October 1919 to January 1924.

Credits

George Mounsey, Dispatch from the British Acting Consul-General in Shanghai to the Foreign Office, September 25, 1922. The National Archives, CO 730/29/38. © Crown Copyright images courtesy of The National Archives.

Engage with this Source

The correspondence between the British consulate in Shanghai and the Foreign and Colonial Offices in London—institutions respectively responsible for managing global relations and colonial administration—regarding a Baghdadi Jewish man’s request for British Protected Status illustrates the interconnections between British policies in Mandate-era Iraq and China. The decision to withhold protection from former Ottoman subjects who no longer resided in Iraq—under British control after World War I—intensified the legal vulnerability of transnational communities such as the Baghdadi Jews, dispersed across continents.

Read more

Creator Bio

George Mounsey

First Half of the 20th Century

Little is known about George Augustus Mounsey except that he worked in the British Foreign Office in the 1920s, holding the title of Counsellor by 1924, and became head of the Far Eastern Department of the Foreign Office by 1926. From 1929 through 1939, he held the title of Assistant Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. The British Foreign Office, a ministerial department, was responsible for the British Empire’s diplomacy and foreign relations, which included managing the global network of consulates and embassies.