Michael MacWhite to Desmond FitzGerald (Dublin)
(N.S. 01/110)

A Chara,

I have the honour to acknowledge receipt of your letter of the 1st. instant referring to the Registration of the Treaty.¹

In consequence thereof, I visited the Secretariat this morning, presented the Secretary-General with the two certified copies of the Treaty which you forwarded, and made a formal request that it be registered in accordance with Article 18 of the Covenant.

The Secretary-General who seemed to be a little surprised at first said he was thankful that we had taken the necessary steps to have the Treaty registered (This expression could hardly have any other signification than that of a simple courtesy.) He would like to know, however, if the British were informed of the fact that we were about to register it. I was not in a position to enlighten him on this point.

The Secretary-General then stated that the publication of our request would be likely to create a splash in the press but I hinted that so far as we were concerned we did not desire any undue publicity on the matter. Nevertheless, the League are likely to follow their usual procedure in this case as, according to Article 18 of the Covenant, any international agreement registered with the Secretariat shall as soon as possible be published by it.

I sent you a code telegram this morning immediately after leaving the League Secretariat giving you the gist of the foregoing.² I shall also keep you informed of further developments, if any.