This index to the Records of the Department of State relating to political relations between Great Britain and other states, 1910-1929, collection provides the dates each reel covers. Government Information MAY NOT hold all of these reels. The record in the library catalog describes the extent of our holdings. For help, or to make an appointment to view a reel, email rad@colorado.edu
On the 13 rolls of this microfilm publication are reproduced records from the decimal file of the Department of State 1910-29 that relate to political relations between Great Britain and nations other than the United States. The records are chiefly instructions to and despatches from our diplomatic and consular officials in Great Britain and in other states. These records also include memoranda prepared by officials of the Department and correspondence with officials of other Government departments and with private firms and individuals. The Lists of Documents or "purport sheets" reproduced on Roll 1 give brief abstracts of the documents and serve as a summary and finding aid to the documents themselves. The arrangement of the entries on these lists generally corresponds to the arrangement of the documents in the file.
Under the decimal classification system of filing adopted by the State Department in 1910, Class 7 indicates Political Relations of States, and the documents are arranged according to the countries concerned. The numbers for Great Britain and Russia (U.S.S.R.) are 41 and 61 respectively. Thus the documents reproduced in this microcopy bearing the file number 741.61 concern political relations between Great Britain and Russia. The digits that follow the second country number (Russia, 61) represent a specific subject. This number, in turn, may be followed by a slant mark (/). The numbers that follow the slant mark are assigned to individual documents as they are accumulated on a specific subject. For example, a decimal file number taken from a document reproduced in this microcopy is 741.612/125. The digit 2 following the country number for Russia (61) signifies that the subject is treaties of commerce and navigation between Great Britain and Russia (U.S.S.R.), and the number following the slant mark indicates that this is the 125th document received on this subject. The documents under one subject classification are generally in chronological order coinciding with the document number assigned (which follows the slant mark). There are instances, however, when a document file number was not assigned until a date considerably later than the date on which the document was received.
Cross-reference sheets referring to related records under other subject classifications in the decimal file have been reproduced as they occur and appropriate cross-reference notations appear in the Lists of Documents. Other cross-reference notations are to documents in the "numerical file," a system used for the central files of the Department of State for the period 1906-10.
Cross-reference sheets referring to related records under other subject classifications in the decimal file have been reproduced as they occur and appropriate cross-reference notations appear in the Lists of Documents. Other cross-reference notations are to documents in the "numerical file," a system used for the central files of the Department of State for the period 1906-10.
The checkmarks that appear by most entries in the left-hand column of the Lists of Documents indicate that the papers are in the file; those without marks, it is believed, were not among the records when they were received from the Department of State.
Some of the documents that have been checked in the Lists of Documents do not appear in this microcopy. The decimal file contains security-classified documents and communications received from and classified by foreign governments and Federal agencies as well as those classified by the Department of State. The documents that have not been declassified are not available as part of this microcopy. The National Archives and Records Service does not have authority to make reproductions of such documents available to searchers.
The largest group of records reproduced in this microcopy concern political relations between Great Britain and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Russia) and between Great Britain and Japan. These records concern subjects such as war, peace, friendship, alliance, and nonaggression pacts; questions of neutrality, contraband, enemy property, limitation of armaments, boundary settlements and cession of territory; commerce and navigation, extraterritoriality, naturalization and immigration, fur seals, and fisheries.
Additional records concerning treaties and conventions are in other classes of the Department of State decimal file, 1910-29: Class 2, extradition treaties; Class 4 claims treaties, conventions, agreements, and correspondence; Class 5, international congresses and conferences, multilateral treaties; Class 6, commercia1 treaties, conventions, and trade agreements; Class 8, postal conventions.
The records reproduced in this microcopy are part of the records in the National Archives designated as Record Group 59, General Records of the Department of State.
The spreadsheet attached below contains a reel-by-reel description of the complete collection.