'File 8/20: MUSCAT STATE AFFAIRS: RISE OF OMANIS' [‎7r] (13/634)

It would only be necessary to declare a blockade, a blockade which would
Hot need a ship to enforce it, beyond the Sultan's own vessel, to bring the tribes
to their senses.
I now come to the main point of my letter.
To hope to keep the tribes to any agreement they might make and to
make the Sultan improve his government, British influence would be necessary,
and this can only be obtained by some form of Protectorate or permanent
trea ty.
It is doubtful whether any oriental country can rule itself. The state
ment which we recently made to the United States of America with reference
to Turkey in Europe is equally true of all oriental states in Asia. They
are tuifit and unable to govern themselves in contact with European
Powers.
The present status of Maskat is not that of an independent kingdom and,
in 1S90, the Government of India, in raising the question of the possibility of
a protectorate, pointed out to the India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. the existence of a virtual protec
torate over Oman at the time.
On the other hand, if it is not desired to establish a protectorate over an
Arab kingdom at the present juncture, a permanent treaty or perhaps one for
a fixed term of years could be made under which the Sultan should agree to
employ certain British officials to supervise his judiciary, his customs and his
army, such being made the condition of our further support of him.
The blockade which I have suggested would be an easy matter to arrange
and, even though some leakage might occur, would have the desired effect.
By consenting to the Sultan publishing a “trading with the enemy"
notice and by supporting it with our Customs services in India hardly a grain
of rice could be imported by the Oman ports or a date exported.
It would no doubt be possible to enforce this on the Trucial coast A name used by Britain from the nineteenth century to 1971 to refer to the present-day United Arab Emirates. also
bv means of our influence there, by checking exports by means of our
Customs in India and by demanding a certificate of interest for all dates
imported into Bombay, Karachi, Kutch, &c.
The Sultan would be able to seize all dates brought into his ports if they
were not protected by purchase by British subjects.
Before, however, proceeding to these measures, I would suggest that I
should be allowed to ask for an interview with the rebel leader Isa bin Salih
el Hadthi.
The last meeting with Lieutenant-Colonel Benn, in 1915, did not yield
much result, but it took place too soon after the fight, in January, with which
Colonel Benn’s name was associated and was conducted without any idea of
our intervention.
To-day I am hopeful that such a meeting with the sympathetic and con
ciliatory hearing to the other side, while holding over them the weapon of a
blockade if they were unreasonable, would produce good results and wouid
certainly be worth a trial to put an end to the present intolerable position.
Our practical intervention is not only necessary from our own point of
view but also from that of the Sultan himself, though he may not realise it.
I have always observed, and it is a point to which I do not think we give*
sufficient weight in our policy and dealings with Arab Shaikhs, &c., that tfife-
more the ruler comes under our influence, and rules according to our ideas
the further he gets from his own uneducated tribes and the less they desire
him.
Once a Sheikh comes under our influence there is no alternative to our
ultimate protection of him if he is to keep his position. The nearer he grows
to us the further he grows from his own people until they realise the benefits
of good government.
It may sound a contradiction to say that British intervention would put
an end to the fear of foreign influence but, in the East, many contradictions
are true and from what I gather British intervention would not be unpopular