Siam and the League of Nations : modernization, sovereignty, and multilateral diplomacy, 1920-1940

Siam and the League of Nations : modernization, sovereignty, and

multilateral diplomacy, 1920-1940

Hell, S.M.

Citation

Hell, S. M. (2007, October 31). Siam and the League of Nations : modernization,

sovereignty, and multilateral diplomacy, 1920-1940. Retrieved from

https://hdl.handle.net/1887/12395

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License: Licence agreement concerning inclusion of doctoral thesis in the

Institutional Repository of the University of Leiden

Downloaded from: https://hdl.handle.net/1887/12395

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SIAM AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

SIAM AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

MODERNIZATION, SOVEREIGNTY

AND MULTILATERAL DIPLOMACY,

1920-1940

Proefschrift

ter verkrijging van

de graad van Doctor aan de Universiteit Leiden,

op gezag van de Rector Magnificus prof.mr. P.F. van der Heijden,

volgens besluit van het College voor Promoties

te verdedigen op woensdag 31 oktober 2007,

klokke 13.45 uur

door

STEFAN MATTHIAS HELL

geboren te Sindelfingen, Duitsland

in 1968

Promotiecommissie:

Promotor: Prof.dr. B.J. Terwiel

Co-promotor: Dr. J.Th. Lindblad

Referent: Dr. H. ten Brummelhuis (Universiteit van Amsterdam)

Overige leden: Prof.dr. J.L. Blussé van Oud-Alblas

Prof.dr. P. Boomgaard (Universiteit van Amsterdam)

iii

Contents

Acronyms ... v

Acknowledgements ...vii

1 Introduction ... 1

Structure of this study ... 7

Sources and literature ... 9

Notes on spelling, names, titles and calendars ... 11

2 Siam becomes a Member of the League of Nations ... 13

Siam: sketch of domestic developments and foreign relations, c.1850 to 1940 ... 13

The League of Nations: a revolution in international relations ... 20

From Bangkok via Paris to Geneva: Siam declares war, signs the Paris Peace Treaties and joins the League of Nations... 24

Conclusions... 33

3 Siam at Geneva: Attitudes, Aims, Individuals and Contributions ... 35

Attitudes and aims of Siam’s League membership... 35

The wide spectrum of contacts and cooperation between the League and Siam... 43

Siam’s representatives at the League of Nations ... 49

Siam and the League Secretariat... 64

The question of League Council membership ... 68

Siam’s financial contribution to the League of Nations ... 72

The final Assembly of the League and Siam’s admission to the United Nations... 78

Conclusions... 81

4 Opium Control... 85

Opium in Siam and Southeast Asia ... 86

Opium as an issue of international law... 90

Siam and international opium control, 1920 to 1940 ... 93

The two Geneva Opium Conferences of 1924-25 ... 102

The League of Nations commission of enquiry on opium smoking... 106

The Bangkok Opium Conference of 1931 ... 110

Opium smuggling... 117

The financial development of the Siam’s opium monopoly... 124

Siam abandons international opium control before the Second World War... 125

Conclusions... 128

5 Public Health ... 133

Public health becomes an international issue and a task of the League of Nations ... 134

Public health in Siam: issues, management and early international cooperation ... 136

Public health in Siam from 1920: national and international developments... 138

Administrative and legal reform of public health management... 141

League of Nations commissions of enquiry in Siam ... 146

iv

Commission of enquiry 1: epidemic diseases and port health, 1922...146

Commission of enquiry 2: leprosy and the meeting of the League of Nations leprosy commission in Bangkok, 1930 ...148

Commission of enquiry 3: malaria, 1931 ...151

Commission of enquiry 4: rural hygiene, 1936 ...153

Commission of enquiry 5: cholera, 1937...155

The ‘epidemiological intelligence service’ and the League’s Far Eastern Bureau in Singapore ...156

Further tasks of the Singapore Bureau: public health training and biological standardization...162

The Bandung Conference on Rural Hygiene of 1937...165

Conclusions...168

6 Human Trafficking ...175

Human trafficking becomes a task of the League of Nations...175

Prostitution and human trafficking in Siam in the early twentieth century ...176

Cooperation between Siam and the League of Nations ...180

The League of Nations commission of enquiry on trafficking in women and children, 1930...191

The Bandung Conference on Trafficking in Women and Children, 1937...196

Conclusions...203

7 Collective Security...207

Siam’s foreign relations...207

The League’s collective security system...209

Conflicts before the League of Nations in the 1920s...211

Conflicts before the League of Nations in the 1930s...212

Siam’s abstention from voting to condemn Japan in 1933 ...215

Siam’s sanctions against Italy for invading Ethiopia in 1935 ...230

Siam’s second abstention from voting to condemn Japan’s actions in China in 1937...240

Expulsion of the Soviet Union from the League of Nations in 1939 ...249

Conclusions...252

8 Conclusions...257

Appendices ...269

1 Chronology of Events...271

2 Permanent Delegates of Siam to the League of Nations, 1920-1939...274

3 Thai Delegations to the General Assemblies of the League of Nations ...274

4 Siam’s Financial Contribution to the League of Nations...278

5 Conventions and Agreements within the League of Nations’ Framework, signed by, acceded to and ratified by Siam ...279

6 Thai Kings of the Chakri Dynasty in the Twentieth Century ...280

7 Thai Prime Ministers, 1932-1946...281

8 Thai Ministers of Foreign Affairs, 1885-1946...281

9 Selected Foreign Advisers to the Thai Government ...282

10 Name Glossary ...282

11 Bibliography...295

Samenvatting ...319

Curriculum Vitae ...322

v

Acronyms

BDFA British Documents on Foreign Affairs

FRUS Foreign Relations of the United States

LNA League of Nations Archives, Geneva

OAC Opium Advisory Committee; formally: League of Nations

Advisory Committee on the Traffic in Opium and other

Dangerous Drugs

PRO Public Record Office, Kew

TKRI Thai Kadi Research Institute, Thammasat University,

Bangkok

TNA Thai National Archives, Bangkok

TNL Thai National Library, Bangkok

vii

Acknowledgements

his project has been with me, on and off, for the past nine years, and

during those years I have come into contact with the most interesting

individuals in more than a dozen countries, who have all, knowingly

or not, had a very positive influence on this study. I am honoured to thank the

following individuals, who have provided guidance, given support, provided

important information and have prevented a number of mistakes: Bongojrut

Bunyapukna, Nigel Brailey, Han ten Brummelhuis, Marc Frey, Franz Knip-

ping, Paul Kratoska, Hans-Dieter Kubitscheck, Ian Nish, Bernhardine Pe-

jovic, Prathoomporn Vajrasthira, Dietmar Rothermund, Ursula-Maria Ruser,

Supit Tangwiwat, and Tej Bunnag.

T

I am grateful to the staff at the following institutions for their support,

without which this study would have not materialized: Leiden University and

the KITLV Library in the Netherlands; in Thailand the Thai National Ar-

chives, the Thai National Library, Chulalongkorn University, the Thai Kadi

Research Institute at Thammasat University, the Thammasat University Li-

brary, the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Siam Society Library; in

Switzerland the League of Nations Archives and the United Nations Library,

both at the European Headquarters of the United Nations at Geneva, as well

as the Geneva Graduate Institute of International Relations; in the United

Kingdom the Public Record Office and the library of the School of African

and Oriental Studies in London; in France the Royal Thai Embassy in Paris;

and in Germany the libraries of the universities of Tübingen, Passau,

Freiburg and Hamburg, as well as their various relevant institutes, the State

Library and the Humboldt University Library in Berlin, the State Library in

Stuttgart, and the Institute of Asian Studies in Hamburg.

I wish to thank the EC-funded European Studies Programme Thailand

for supporting a research stay in Bangkok in 1998 and the National Research

Council of Thailand for granting me permission to conduct research in Thai-

land on several occasions. I am grateful to Sunil Amrith for making parts of

the manuscript of his book Decolonizing International Health: India and

Southeast Asia, 1930-65 available to me prior to its publication.

Any errors or shortcomings in this study are my own.

Stefan Hell

Hanoi, February 2007