'BRITISH RELATIONS WITH KHAZAL, SHEIKH OF MOHAMMERAH.' [‎11v] (22/24)

22
No. 3.
Consul-General Cox to the Sheikh.
(After compliments.)
ls£ December, 1908.
After enquiry after your welfare and congratulations on the satisfactory
conclusion of your business with the Arab tribes, I have the honour to inform you
that I duly communicated to Government all that passed at the interview which
I and our friend Mr. McDouall had with your Excellency on the 7th January
last, and also placed before them the statement of Government expenditure
subsequently received from you through Mr. McDouall. The reply of His
Majesty’s Government reached me through His Majesty’s Legation in September
last, but, in view of the importance of the subject and the insecurity of the post,
I thought it best to delay addressing you until my return to headquarters.
On arrival here I learnt of your own absence in Arabistan, and have since
waited for your return to Failieh.
I am directed to repeat, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, the
assurances given to your Excellency in the letter of His Majesty’s Minister,
Sir Arthur Hardinge, dated the 7th ^December, 1902, which is in your possession,
and the terms of which I repeated to you at our interview above referred to, and
I am then to add that His Majesty’s Government now extend those assurances
to your successors.
I am further to point out that His Majesty’s Government have engaged to
respect the independence and integrity of Persia, and to explain that that under
taking involves the maintenance of the status quo in that country, and includes
the continuance of the state of autonomy which your Excellency at present
enjoys.
It follows from the above that any external aggression upon your Excellency
would constitute an infringement of Persian integrity which is recognised by the
terms of the Anglo-Russian Convention.
On the 1st December, 1908, I had the honour, by the direction of His
Majesty’s Government, to repeat to your Excellency the assurances given you
on behalf of Government by his Excellency Sir Arthur Hardinge, British
Minister at Tehran, in his letter of the 7th December, 1902, to your address, and
to inform you that the British Government were now prepared to extend those
assurances to your successors.
I was further directed to explain to you that the British Government had
engaged to respect the integrity and independence of Persia, and that that
undertaking in itself involved the maintenance of the status quo in Persia, and
thus included the continuance of the same state of autonomy which your Excel
lency at present enjoys.
I was then to point out that it followed from the above that any external
aggression upon your Excellency would constitute an act of infringement of that
Persian integrity which has received recognition in the Anglo-Russian
Convention.
While expressing your thanks for these amplified assurances, you repre
sented that they seemed to you only to safeguard you so long as Persia continued
to exist as a sovereign State, and you pressed for a further assurance which would
cover the contingency of Persia ceasing to exist as a sovereign State and the inter
vention or occupation by foreign Powers
You also expressed doubt as to whether the present assurance only provided
immunity against unwarrantable encroachment on your rights by the absolute
government of His Majesty the Shah, or whether it also covered prevention of
Britannic Majesty's Consul-General for
Fars, &c.
No. 4.
Consul-General Cox to the Sheikh.
(After the usual compliments.)
Mohammerah, \§th May, 1909.