File 600/1905 Pt 2 'Aden Hinterland: Future Policy' [‎289r] (65/226)

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ConfidentiaL
From
To
No. 4967 of 1906.
Political Department.
Bombay Castle, 13th July 1906.
The Hon’ble Sir STEFNING W. EDGERLEY, K.C.Y.O., C.T.E.,
Chief Secretary to the Government of Bombay From c. 1668-1858, the East India Company’s administration in the city of Bombay [Mumbai] and western India. From 1858-1947, a subdivision of the British Raj. It was responsible for British relations with the Gulf and Red Sea regions. ;
The SECRETARY to the GOVERNMENT or INDIA,
Foreign Department.
Sir,
I am directed to reply to your No. 2413-E.B., dated the 12th June
1906, requesting that the Government of India may be furnished with a full
statement of the views both of the Resident at Aden and His Excellency the
Governor in Council on the policy which the Secretary of State has desired
to he pursued in future in the Aden Hinterland, with special attention to
the points detailed in that letter. I am to append a copy of the Resident’s
letter No. 3851 of the 1st July 1906, and to offer the following remarks:—
In the first place His Excellency the Governor in Council thinks it
desirable very briefly to recapitulate some salient points of the correspond
ence on the subject in recent years. In March 1902 the Government of India
in their letter No. 516-E.A,, dated the 7th March, raised the question of the
desirability, after the delimitation of the frontier of the Protectorate had
been concluded, of amending and revising the arrangements then in force
with some of the tribes or clans and asked this Government for any general
recommendations they might desire to make in view of the altered circum
stances which were likely to arise on the demarcation of the frontier. That
letter was answered by this Government in their No. 5151 of the 14th July
1902, in which the internal independence of the tribes and their liberty to
manage their own affairs was strongly insisted upon, and His Excellency
the Governor in Council expressed the view that it was undesirable to formu
late any fresh policy in dealing with the tribes near Aden, but that the
growth of our friendship and the consolidation of our interests should be left
to those natural forces which must naturally tend to that end. That view of
the policy and aims of the British Government was accepted in the Govern
ment of India’s letter No. 1856-E., dated 9 th September^ 1902. The question
of our liabilities in the Hinterland was further discussed in my letter No. 2119,
dated the 12th January 1901, and the policy recommended in letter No. 5151
of the 14th July 1902 was again pressed, namely, that the possibility of
tribal co-operation and responsibility should be exhaustively tested and proved
inadequate before any other policy was adopted, and I am to point out that
it was clearly stated as the opinion of this Government that if the more active
proposals then being suggested were adopted, it would not be possible in the
circumstances of the Hinterland to draw back from what might be done. The
views put forward in these letters were endorsed and enforced by the
Despatch of His Majesty’s Secretary of State No. 15 of the 1st April
1904. The Secretary of State wroteI recognise the obligation which
the delimitation may involve of performing certain friendly oilioes for tlio
Turkish officers and in particular of restraining the tribes within the British
Protectorate from committing offences beyond the border. In this view it
m ay be necessary to impose upon the Amir of Dthala and other tribal
Chiefs by fresh agreements international responsibilities which they have
hitherto evaded.” And he went on to demur to any extension of our inter
ference with the tribes themselves or any weakening the defence of Aden itself
by exciting opposition in the interior and taking part in tribal disputes which
CON HO