File 5301/1928 'Persia: Anglo-Persian Slavery Convention. Slavery in the Persian Gulf' [‎158r] (321/685)

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I This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty’s Government. I
PERSIA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
February 25, 1929.
Section 2 .
“E 1016 / 1016 / 34 ] No. 1 .
Sir R. Cine to Sir A usten Chamberlain.—{Received February 25.)
(No. 72 .)
gj r Tehran, February 2, 1929.
I HAVE the honour to report that the Minister of Court at my last interview
a(xa in referred to the vast smuggling trade in the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. ." The customs
authorities, he said, estimated at 4 million to 6 million tomans 10,000 Persian dinars, or a gold coin of that value. , i.e., somewhere
round £1 million, the annual loss to the Persian Treasury. This is probably an
exaggeration, but no one denies that the traffic is enormous and on the increase.
2. In a private letter to Sir Denys Bray of the 9th December, a copy of which
was sent to Mr. Oliphant, I enclosed a brief memorandum on this subject in which I
pointed out that the Persians were determined to take such steps as were possible to
check this traffic, and added that if we could in any way assist them without laying
up too much trouble for ourselves with the Arabs, I should be very glad.
3. The Resident at Bushire, to whom I also sent a copy of this memorandum,
has written to me privately that he does not propose to enlarge on the subject until
his views are asked by the Government of India, but that his views would be that the
Italianised Persian navy would probably be a lesser evil than interference on our
part, as the Arabian coast sheikhs w r ere already exasperated at what they consider
our failure to support them in the matter of recent Persian interferences, and any
attempt to restrain their actions in the interests of Persian excise would be likely to
have far-reaching results.
4. It is in this connexion that the Persian counter-draft Slavery Convention
presents an obvious difficulty. Taimourtache has proposed that there should be
reciprocal right of search of vessels of the other country of under 500 tons, and has
told me privately that in practice this would give His Majesty’s Government what
they want, while the Persian right would be a dead letter. It would obviously be
dangerous to take this remark of the Minister of Court too seriously, and the
Resident at Bushire, in his telegram No. 66 to the Government of India of the
27th January, made the following observation on the question of reciprocal right of
search:—
“Difficulties seem to arise in the case of a large number of Arab dhows
flying their own flag under our protection. There will be strong temptations to
the Persians, especially in their present attitude, to harass these under cover of
slavery.”
I agree that this would appear very likely to happen. The Italianised Persian
navy, in their eagerness to find contraband, might be tempted to hold up d ows on
the pretext of searching for slaves when they were really searching for con ra an
It would be necessary, therefore, to make it clear to the Minister of Cour a no
Aflcit interference with Arab dhows would be tolerated should His Majesty s
Government be disposed eventually to admit reciprocal right of search in a new
slavery convention. , , .. i • • ,
A- On the other hand, this wholesale contraband trade by dhow A term adopted by British officials to refer to local sailing vessels in the western Indian Ocean. s c aimm
protection does, in my humble opinion, justify the Persians in wis ing o
their police control outside the 3-mile limit. , _ • a . OT ,, r fn
A- Copies of this despatch are being sent to the Foreign ► ecr „
Government of India and to His Majesty’s High Commissioner tor Iraq.
I have, &c.
R. H. CLIVE.
[716 bb—2]