As regards the use of a map showing Preah Vihear as lying in Cambodia, Thailand maintains that this was for purely cartographical reasons, that there were no other maps, or none that were so convenient, or none of the right scale for the occasion. The Court does not find this explanation convincing. Thailand could have used the map but could also have entered some kind of reservation with France as to its correctness. This she did not do.

As regards her failure even to raise the question of the map as such until 1958, Thailand states that this was because she was, at all material times, in possession of Preah Vihear; therefore she had no need to raise the matter. She indeed instances her acts on the ground as evidence that she never accepted the Annex 1 line at Preah Vihear at all, and contends that if she never accepted it she clearly had no need to repudiate it, and that no adverse conclusions can be drawn from her failure to do so. The acceptability of this explanation must obviously depend on whether in fact it is the case that Thailand's conduct on the ground affords ex post facto evidence sufficient to show that she never accepted the Annex 1 line in 1908 in respect of Preah Vihear, and considered herself at all material times to have the sovereignty over the Temple area.

The Court has considered the evidence furnished by Thailand of acts of an administrative character performed by her officials at or relative to Preah Vihear. France, and subsequently Cambodia, in view of her title founded on the Treaty of 1904, performed only a very few routine acts of administration in this small, deserted area. It was specifically admitted by Thailand in the course of the oral hearing that if Cambodia acquired sovereignty over the Temple area by virtue of the frontier settlement of 1904, she did not subsequently abandon it, nor did Thailand subsequently obtain it by any process of acquisitive prescription. Thailand's acts on the ground were therefore put forward as evidence of conduct as sovereign, sufficient to negative any suggestion that, under the 1904 Treaty settlement, Thailand accepted a delimitation having the effect of attributing the sovereignty over Preah Vihear to Cambodia. It is therefore from this standpoint that the Court must consider and evaluate these acts. The real question is whether they sufficed to efface or cancel out the clear impression of acceptance of the frontier line at Preah Vihear to be derived from the various considerations already discussed.

With one or two important exceptions to be mentioned presently, the acts concerned were exclusively the acts of local, provincial, authorities. To the extent that these activities took place, it is not clear that they had reference to the summit of Mount Preah Vihear and the Temple area itself, rather than to places somewhere in the vicinity. But however that may be, the Court finds it difficult to regard such local acts as overriding and negativing the consistent and undeviating attitude of the central Siamese authorities to the frontier line as mapped.

In this connection, much the most significant episode consisted of the visit paid to the Temple in 1930 by Prince Damrong, formerly Minister of the Interior, and at this time President of the Royal Institute of Siam, charged with duties in connection with the National Library and with archaeological monuments. The visit was part of an archaeological tour made by the Prince with the permission of the King of Siam, and it clearly had a quasi-official character. When the Prince arrived at Preah Vihear, he was officially received there by the French Resident for the adjoining Cambodian province, on behalf of the Resident Superior, with the French flag flying. The Prince could not possibly have failed to see the implications of a reception of this character. A clearer affirmation of title on the French Indo-Chinese side can scarcely be imagined. It demanded a reaction. Thailand did nothing. Furthermore, when Prince Damrong on his return to Bangkok sent the French Resident some photographs of the occasion, he used language which seems to admit that France, through her Resident, had acted as the host country.

The explanations regarding Prince Damrong's visit given on behalf of Thailand have not been found convincing by the Court. Looking at the incident as a whole, it appears to have amounted to a tacit recognition by Siam of the sovereignty of Cambodia (under French Protectorate) over Preah Vihear, through a failure to react in any way, on an occasion that called for a reaction in order to affirm or preserve title in the face of an obvious rival claim. What seems clear is that either Siam did not in fact believe she had any title - and this would be wholly consistent with her attitude all along, and thereafter, to the Annex 1 map and line - or else she decided not to assert it, which again means that she accepted the French claim, or accepted the frontier at Preah Vihear as it was drawn on the map.

The remaining relevant facts must now be stated. In February 1949, not long after the conclusion of the proceedings of the Franco-Siamese Conciliation Commission, in the course of which, as has been seen, Thailand did not raise the question of Preah Vihear, France addressed a Note to the Government of Thailand stating that a report had been received of the stationing of four Siamese keepers at the Temple, and asking for information. There was no reply to this Note, nor to a follow-up Note of March 1949. In May 1949, France sent a further Note, setting out briefly, but quite explicitly, the grounds on which she considered Preah Vihear to be in Cambodia, and pointing out that a map produced by Thailand herself had recognized this fact. The withdrawal of the keepers was requested. Although there was an error in this Note, the significance of the latter was that it contained an unequivocal assertion of sovereignty. This French Note also received no reply. In July 1950, a further Note was sent. This too remained unanswered.

Part 14