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Your Exalted Highness's letter of 20th September, 1925, which has already been acknowledged, raises questions of importance, and I have, therefore taken time to consider my reply.

I do not propose to follow Your Exalted Highness into a discussion of the historical details of the case. As I informed you in my previous letter, your representations have been carefully examined, and there is nothing in what you now say which appears to affect the conclusions arrived at by me and my Government and by the Secretary of State. Your Exalted Highness's reply is not in all respects a correct presentation of the position as stated in my letter of 11th March last, but I am glad to observe that in your latest communication you disclaim any intention of casting imputations on my distinguished predecessor, the late Marquis Curzon.

I shall devote the remainder of this letter to the claim made by Your Exalted Highness in the second and third paragraphs of your letter and to your request for the appointment of a commission.

2. In the paragraphs which I have mentioned you state and develop the position that in respect of the internal affairs of Hyderabad, you, as Ruler of the Hyderabad State, stand on the same footing as the British Government in India in respect of the internal affairs of British India. Lest I should be thought to overstate your claims, I quote Your Exalted Highness's own words: "Save and except matters relating to foreign powers and policies, the Nizams of Hyderabad, have been independent in the internal affairs of their State just as much as the British Government in British India. With the reservation mentioned by me, the two parties have on all occasions acted with complete freedom and independence in all inter-Governmental questions that naturally arise from time to time between neighbours. Now, the Berar question is not and cannot be covered by that reservation. No foreign power or policy is concerned or involved in its examination, and thus the subject comes to be a controversy between the two Governments that stand on the same place without any limitations of subordination of one to the other."

3. These words would seem to indicate a misconception of Your Exalted Highness's relations to the Paramount Power, which it is incumbent on me as His Imperial Majesty's representative to remove, since my