"الخليج العربي - الولاية القضائية التركية على طول الساحل العربي (الجزء الأوّل)" [و‎‎١‎٣‎٦] (٣٠/١٢)

11
is S- •'SSSJSSS^J^
yeZmLtlrA ea . Ch 0ther ' and the ® r 'tish Go-
rnment undertake to watch over the peace and
vance e of th ^ a11 tlmeS t0 eDSUre the due 0 ' bser -
covmant. t cements. The scope of these
.nants, howerer, is exceedingly limited. Thev
affect only those Chiefs who are parties to them
Bat our general position in the Gulf rests on other
evo^f ^ str011 ^ of ^Pinion that no
• jf 1 0 policy ayo have hitherto pursued
those waters can be permitted without great
risk of our influence being shaken, and our power
o preserve the peace at sea between those who are
not parties to the treaties being weakened, if not
altogether destroyed. If the Turkish Government
proceed against Saood by sea we could not rea
sonably prevent Saood himself, or any of the Chiefs
on the coast whom he might attract to his standard,
trom attacking by sea the Turkish expeditionary
force If the result were a defeat of the Arab
Chiefs we could not prevent the Turks from exer
cising over them all the rights of successful war,
and establishing their supremacy over the Arab
country. If, again, the Arab Chiefs, remaining
quiet now, should hereafter seek to effect an armed
movement by sea against any parties who have not
subscribed the treaty of peace, permission could
not be denied on any intelligible grounds after a
similar movement had been effected by the Turkish
power without challenge on our part. Or if Persia,
desirous as she is to possess a fleet in the Gulf for
the purpose of establishing her claim to supremacy,
should throw herself on some foreign power and
procure vessels of war, there are no grounds on
which the British Government could remonstrate
except such as are equally applicable to the pre
vention of this expedition. The occurrence of any
of these events, which do not by any means exhaust
the list of probable contingencies, would probably
occasion the abandonment of the policy and the
loss of that position which the British Government
has come to occupy in the Persian Gulf."
In the same Despatch, Lord Mayo's Government
referred to several earlier communications which
they had addressed to the Secretary of State, on
the subject of their position in the Persian Gulf,
but which had been left unnoticed. This will,
perhaps, be the most convenient place to quote the
material paragraphs of the papers in question, which
put the whole case very clearly, and are as appli
cable to the situation created by the action of the
Porte, as to the immediate circumstances under
which they were written.
The earliest and most important of them was
dated the 18th February 1870, (No. 18, Secret).
Its main subject was the Persian claim to Bahrein,