File 600/1905 Pt 1 'Aden Hinterland: Treaty with Dthala' [‎426r] (113/174)

paid three or four times the proper value, pocketing the difference himself.
Captain Warnefotd, to whom I showed the papers, was particularly strono* on
this point, and begged me to impress on Government the desirability of avoid
ing any appealance of anxiety to secure land, either for a sanatarium or for
any other purpose.
10. As to condition (5), the right of the British Government to station a
political officer and escort at Dtbala, 1 would observe that it has hitherto been
assumed that the British Government, as the paramount power, has the right
to send its officers and troops wherever it pleases within the territories of allied
Chiefs, and to keep them there as long as it may think fit. So far as I am r
aware, this right has never been questioned; and though some tribes might
dislike the presence of British officers and troops, and might even attack them,
if they felt strong enough to do so, I do not think that any of the Chiefs in
alliance with the British Government, and drawing stipends, would say that we
had no right to send officers and troops into their country, or to keep them
there as long as might be necessary or convenient. But the formal insertion
of this right in the treaty of any one Chief would appear to imply that it is not i
pre-existent, and consequently that we are not entitled to send our officers and
troops into the territory of “any Chief unless a special covenant to that effect
has been entered into with him and his tribe. I have already observed that
the Chiefs know very well the provisions contained in each other’s treaties, and
I am sure that the point would at once be noted. The result would probably
be that the next time we wished to send an officer, or a detachment, into any
part of the interior, except the Amir’s country, we should be met by an objec
tion from the Chief that we had no right to do so, as it was not in his treaty !
The situation thus created would obviously be exceedingly inconvenient, and I
would earnestly recommend that the proposed stipulation should not be insert
ed in the treaty.
11. The Amir of Dthala is aware that there is a probability of a political
officer and some troops being retained on the plateau for an indefinite time, if
not altogether, and he is not only quite reconciled to the idea, but he would,
I think, be much averse to their withdrawal.
12. The last condition is (<?), the right, in the event of the Amjr failing
tinnately reduced. I have ventured to submit in my letter of last week* that
the levy is not intended to protect, or keep order on, the frontier, being in fact
much too small for that purpose. I should perhaps have explained^ this when
making the proposal originally ; but it did not strike me at the time that 40
men could be regarded as in any sense a defensive force, ihe proposed levy is
intended to give to the Political Officer, and consequently to the Amir, earlier
and better information of any encroachments on the demarcated line, whether
actual or threatened, than the Amir would be likely to receive from his own
i i . t i j_i _ i- ~ „ -w-rri i I v\ /-\4- Kn t n oil oo one
«
• No. 72, dated 24th March 1904.
to keep order on his frontier, to introduce
a levy system, the subsidy being proper-