Letter from Louis Mallet, Under-Secretary of State for India, to Robert Bourke, Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs [‎146v] (5/8)

4
repeated declaration of the British Government
that it would object to any disturbance of the
status quo as regards those tribes, Her Majesty's
Government might, if it were deemed expedient,
legitimately decline to recognize any part of the
coast south of Koweit as subject to Turkey, even
if Ottoman authority were established there much
more firmly than is really the case.
Provided, however, that no obstacles be inter
posed to any operations which may be necessary
to preserve the peace of the seas and to punish
marauders, and that no interference is attempted
either with Bahrein, or the trucial Chiefs from
Odeid to Ras -el-Khymah, or with Muscat, Lord
Cranbrook does not consider that exception need be
taken to the proceedings of the Turks at any point
of the coast north of Odeid.
In expressing this opinion, his Lordship does not
forget that the Government of India would restrain
the Porte from extending its influence beyond
Ojair; but, subject to the conditions above stated.
Lord Cranbrook does not see any sufficient reason
for objecting to the establishment of such relations
between the Turkish authorities in El Hassa and
the tribes of the Guttur peninsula to the north
of Odeid, as may be agreeable to the parties con
cerned.
It will have been gathered from the foregoing
remarks that, in Lord Cranbrook's opinion, it is
essential to the restoration and maintenance of
order in the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. that no merely nominal
extension of Turkish authority should be permitted
to hamper the action of the officers of the British
Government, and that His Lordship would desire a
return, as far as possible, to the system followed
until within the last few years, under which the
Kesident at Bushire, and the British Naval autho
rities acting under his orders, dealt directly with
the Arab tribes along the entire littoral, captured
piratical craft wherever they might be found, and
exacted from the local Sheikhs redress for outrages
committed by their people.
Under instructions which were issued by the
Admiralty in the month of May last, the Com
manders of Her Majesty's ships in the Gulf are
prohibited from hostile action within Turkish terri
tory or its waters without the consent or co-opera
tion of the Turkish authorities. Lord Cranbrook
would suggest that these instructions should be
modified, and that Naval Officers should be
authorized, when so directed by the Resident in the
Gulf, to act in any particular case in such wise as
may be necessary for the capture and punishment
of marauders, collision with Turkish cruisers or
troops being, of course, scrupulously avoided.
If, upon further consideration. Lord Salisbury
should be prepared to acquiesce in the policy above
suggested, it might. Lord Cranbrook thinks, be
left to the discretion of Her Majesty's Ambassador
at Constantinople either to intimate to the Porte at
once the determination of Her Majesty's Govern-