File 200/1928 Pt 10 'Persia: Anglo-Persian Relations. Treaty Negotiations' [‎388r] (776/868)

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language as the announcement or threat that we were about to abandon a policy
of Friendliness pursued with perfect consistency for many years, and justified by
the necessity of effacing the effects of the Anglo-Russian agreement and of the
abortive treaty of 1919.
19. In paragraph 3 you draw my attention to the consequences which would
lensue if the Persian Government refused to give us the assurance which I have
suggested that we should demand as a preliminary to the resumption of
negotiations, and if we proceeded to amputate our Achilles’ heels of Hen jam,
Basidu, in order to be free to deal decisively with the Persian claim to Bahrein,
Tamb and Abu Musa.
20. As regards Hen jam, the position is perhaps that we could have stayed
there for ever, in some persistent and irksome discomfort, if we had never
resumed the negotiations, and we could possibly still stay if we just let the
negotiations fade away now. If, therefore, we still attach more importance to
Teymourtache’s ‘ ‘ gar^nnibre ” than to anything else, it is an open question
whether drastic action or passivity would serve us best, but there are other factors
to which I Tefer below which render passivity well-nigh impossible.
21. I realise that there would be an inevitable time lag before Bahrein could
be used as a naval station, but it should be possible to play for time successfully,
and drive a bargain by which we should continue to use Hen jam for a definite
period of time.
22. On the subject of Bahrein, my views are as definite as ever. If a claim
is “ worthless,” it is galling to feel that it hampers one’s freedom of action at
every turn, and that is what we feel here steadily more strongly.
23. Tamb and Abu Musa are somewhat outside my sphere, but I gather
that with the increasing use of directional wireless, the Tamb lighthouse is
becoming of less importance, and it might therefore be worth while to encourage
the Sheikh of Shargah to contemplate selling or leasing both islands to the
Persian Government.
24. Relations of His Majesty’s Government with the Arab States of the
Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. are also not strictly within my province, but those relations affect
Anglo-Persian relations very directly, because the Arab States, and especially
Bahrein, look to us to defend them effectively against Persian bullying (of which
a first-rate example is afforded by the arrest of a Koweit dhow A term adopted by British officials to refer to local sailing vessels in the western Indian Ocean. at Kharaj Island,
as reported in a despatch sent 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. by the Political Resident A senior ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul General) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Residency. under
No. 311 S of the 19th March). That bullying is on the increase, and unless we
issue the sort of ultimatum which I contemplate, it is likely either to lead to a
serious loss of prestige on the Arab coast or to compel us to make a first-rate
incident over the arrest on the high seas of a Muscat or Koweit dhow A term adopted by British officials to refer to local sailing vessels in the western Indian Ocean. , and, in
that case, will it be possible to resist pressure from the Sheikh of Bahrein, who
recently spoke to Mr. Mallet very earnestly about the ill-treatment of his subjects
in Persia, to intervene with similar energy on their behalf ? If the answer is in
the negative, the question of Bahrein will then have to be settled for good and
for all; a voluntary renunciation by Persia would clearly be unobtainable; a
forced renunciation as the result of war is not practicable; and the only other
means I can see is a pronouncement by an international authority.
25. At the beginning of this despatch I have said that I would endeavour
to explain why I have come to believe that the policy followed for some ten years
has failed and should be abandoned. The reason may be expressed in the words
“ corruptio optimi pessima.” The policy was based on the belief that the Shah’s
personality, character and patriotism constituted the one hope of seeing
established in Persia an organised national life in the same sort of class as
Turkey. If that was so, it was more than worth while to be patient, and to make
every sort of allowance for his difficulties and for his inevitable limitations;
nobody could have been more insistent on the need for patience than I was during
the twenty months that passed between my arrival here and my departure on
leave last June. My confidence was severely shaken by the brutality with which
Teymourtache was flung aside, but the skill with which the Shah rectified his
blunder in cancelling the D’Arcy Concession restored it. That confidence
survived the shock of Mr. Mallet’s accounts of the Shah’s outbursts over the
Basidu incidents and of my own experience immediately after my return here
in the matter of the Evening Standard, and it was confirmed by the fair words
which he uttered at my audience. Now it is shattered by the failure of his
Minister for Foreign Affairs to give effect to them, and by the consistent
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