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SECRET

No. C 4305/152/G.

H’*1 t)

Foreign Office, S.W.l. 6th may, 1942.

Your Excellency,

I haye the honour to acicnowledge the receipt of Your Ezcellency*s notę of the 21st April, oontaining further obser-yations from the Polish Government on the contemplated ne-gotiatlona for an Anglo-Soyiet Trea.ty.

2.    The considerations set out in your communication have been noted by His Uajesty^łs Government. As regards the generał ąuestions raised, I cannot usefully add anything to the statement of the position of His i^ajesty‘s Goyernment oontainod in my notę of the 17th April and in my lettor to General Sikorski of the 21st April. I feel it necessary, however, to im ora Your Excellenoy that His Majesty's Goyernment regret that they are unable to agree with the assumptions underlying the fourth and fifth seotions of your notę.

3.    In section VI you State that the Polish Goyernment were unable to sgree to the interpretation ot the Seoret Protoool to the Anglo-Polish Agreement of the 25th August, 1939, given

in my notę ot the 17th April. You went on to express the hope that His Majesty's Goyernment would recognise the correctness of the Polish Goyernment¹s interpretation of Article 2/b/ of the Seoret Protoool in the light of the stipulations of Article l/b/-* to which no referenoe had been madę in my notę of the 17th April.

4. This further explanation of the interpretation plaoed by the Polish Goyernment upon the Anglo-Polish Agreement and the Seoret Protoool suggests however that it does not differ sub-stantiałly from that of His Uajesty*s Goyernment, His l^ajesty'3 Goyernment have always regarded Article 2/b/ ot the Seoret Protoool as involving a regognitlon by them that the independenoe of lithuanla was ot importance to Poland. They take the view, however, thśt the ciroumstances which would bring Article 2/2/ of the Agreement into operation in conseąuenoe of a threat to the independenoe of Lithuania have not arisen, and that the proyision in ęiestion would not be applicable if the threat came from the Union of Soyiet Sooialist Republics. Your notę makes it olear that this interpretation is not disputed by the Polish Goyernment.    1

5. You h8ve, however, referred to the provision for oonsultation in Article l/b/ of the Seoret Protoool. But Article l/b/ in itself could never bring Article 2/2/ of the Agreement automatically into operation. The effect of Article l/b/ of the Seoret Protoool in relation to any Soviet threat to the independenoe of Lithuania is that, if Poland became engaged in hostilities with the Soviet Union, or, possibly, if

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His Exoellenoy Count Edward Raczyński, etc., etc., etc.