'File 35/134 III (A 54) Sur: Ja`alan- Amirs of.' [‎67r] (149/426)

Council fined the Jenebeh 10,000, hut - as far as I know -
have nelrer been able to recover ito In August 1928 about
15 of Fuwaris Jenebeh looted a dhow A term adopted by British officials to refer to local sailing vessels in the western Indian Ocean. belonging to a British
subject, and coromitted various other misdeeds© In October
of the same year certain members of the Council proceeded to
Sur in the M A1 Saidi", escorted by H.M.S."Crocus", and
bombarded a fort which the l*uwaris culprits had occupied*
v
The gun carried by the "A1 Saidi" is too small to have any
appreciable effect on the fort* However, the Fuwaris
feigned submission, and the Council returned to Muscat*
Directly the Council’s back was turned the Fuwaris reoccupied
t ^ the fort* In November the "Cyclamen", accompanied by the
\f d ^ * * "Effingham" - the flag ship of the East Indies Squadron -
visited Sur vi/ith the Political Agent A mid-ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Agency. on board, bombarded
the Fuwaris fort, demolished it, and left for Muscat. But
the long projected Customs House still remained unbuilt,
and the town was soon once more plunged into disorder by
the quarrels of the Jenebeh
Conclusion to be drawn from the Bombardments etc at Sur.
ItA I venture to think that one very important conclusion
can be drawn from the incidents detailed in the previous
paragraph: they show that we have had no settled policy at
Sur. Some outrage, or act of disobedience to the Muscat
State, is perpetrated by the Suris. Action in the shape of
a bombardment etc of the town is taken. This action in
itself is occasionally quite successful, but it is never
followed up, the effect is purely ephemeral, and the town
relapses into its former anarchial and semi-rebellious
conditions. In other word£ to compare a very small problem
to a very large one, our policy in Sur, (and that of the
Muscat State), has been what it was in former years on the
North T aest Frontier; dubbed by its critics as that of
"tip and run", or more harshly of "burn and scuttle".
More rec ent developments ©
°. More recently affairs in Sur have taken a slightly
;?o,