File 345/1908 Pt 2 'Mohammerah: situation. Sheikh's dispute with the Vali of Basra. decoration for Sheikh. renewed assurances to Sheikh.' [‎170r] (344/566)

headmen of the locality, it is not surprising if they are in a way pledged to
the sheikh’s interests. But he points out there is no reason to suppose that the
mukhtars are in any way hostile to the Turks’ influence, and, in support of this and of
his own consistently peaceful policy, he points out that the Arab tribes from Gurnah
to Fao are the only ones who never give any trouble to the Turks; they pay their
taxes regularly, and are probably as law abiding a community in their stage of
civilisation as can be found anywhere. The limit of the sheikh’s influence, Gurnah,
is also that of the Turks’ authority. Beyond the point at which the sheikh’s influence
ends the Turkish authorities have failed to collect revenue for the last three years, and
are still engaged in ineffective punitive operations.
10. ''■■The sheikh’s reply shows that he himself has always attributed the river troubles
to the same cause as Mr. Crow did in his despatch No. 17 of the 10th March, 1909, of
which the following is an extract:—
“ As long as action is confined to mere perfunctory police enquiries, and reference
is made to a so-called criminal court, where no justice is obtainable, while local
authorities are allowed to throw dust in our eyes by arresting offenders and sentencing
them to expiate the offences of guilty defaulters, the lawless condition of Bussorah will
not improve.”
11. In this connection it may not be out of place to refer also to Mr. Crow’s
despatch No. 8 of the 30th January, 1907, to Sir N. O’Conor, reporting a piracy from
a British Indian sailing-vessel at Abul Khasib. He states that he asked the authorities
to capture the pirates and recover the stolen property. The Turkish official at Abul
Khasib failed to report the outrage, and no energetic measures were taken until four
telegrams from the Grand Vizier, as well as one from the Sultan’s private secretary,
had been received. Even then the men arrested were not the real culprits, but men
who had incurred the enmity of the police by complaining of their misdoings to
Constantinople.
12. Mr. Crow’s despatch No. 36 of the 8th May, 1907, to Sir N. O’Conor is
also of interest in this connection as showing that at that time river troubles
were due to Turkish bad faith with the Arab tribes, and troubles in Bussorah
to the inefficiency of the administration. In the latter regard I may quote the
following :—
“ There is no improvement in public security Mr. Hickey, the British subject
who was attacked and robbed by an armed force of brigands .... on the 3rd May
narrowly escaped being stabbed The police were not, and never are, on the
spot ; the gendarmes charged with patrolling the streets are absent from their posts,
and view these incidents from a safe distance, being much too callous to interfere, or,
what is still more likely, in league with the robbers themselves ! House after house is
looted with impunity, while the Turks waste valuable time in fruitless judicial enquiries
and in the pursuit of robbers, who seem well known, but who invariably elude the mock
vigilance of the executive officers.”
13. Again, in 1908. during Mr. Geary’s tenure of the office of consul in Bussorah,
several piracies occurred in the Shatt-el-Arab, which formed the subject of complaint by
Mr. Geary to the then vali. In one case only was it suggested that the sheikh’s Arabs
were responsible, and on enquiry at Mohammerah it turned out that, though the
boatload of pirates pushed off from and returned to the Persian shore, it was believed
that they did this to hide their identity, as Arabs on the Turkish side were reported a
few days later to be dividing the spoil. No action was taken by the Turks, and the
writer The lowest of the four classes into which East India Company civil servants were divided. A Writer’s duties originally consisted mostly of copying documents and book-keeping. was informed by Mr. Geary himself that the nerveless and corrupt administration
of the Bussorah vilayet was in his opinion responsible for the disturbances.
14. The sheikh may be excused for doubting that the situation in 1910 is radically
different from that described above by Mr. Crow. He adds that a still commoner
method of the police, and likely to be popular in proportion to the efficiency of the
courts of justice, is to assert that the criminal has fled to Persian soil.
Mr. Crow’s statement in his letter to me of the 27th April, that he has repeatedly
in previous years drawn the attention of His Majesty’s Government to the attitude of
the sheikh in regard to river troubles generally, and to disturbances in Bussorah in
particular, is not supported by the archives of this consulate. Beyond the Maghil case
* Vali attributed all the river troubles from Fao to Bussorah to sheikh’s influence and was putting in
his own men as muktars in place of sheikh’s men (vide supra).
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