File 5301/1928 'Persia: Anglo-Persian Slavery Convention. Slavery in the Persian Gulf' [‎271v] (548/685)

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. J- ^ t *
4
on the high seas suspected of engaging in the slave traffic, and to det ii
divert them from their course where 'primcl facie evidence of complicity existed)
I.O. to F.O., Sept. 8
1!)28, ?. 2780.
Views of 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. and Admiralty.
12. Subsequent consideration has proceeded on the basis of the IWa
Office proposals. Those proposals, and the question as a whole, have now
been examined by the Government of India, 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. and the
Admiralty. Subject to certain supplementary observations set out in
para. 14 below, the Admiralty concur in the conclusions reached on the
matter by the Secretary of State for India in the light of the considered
recommendations of the Government of India and 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. in
the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , and communicated to the Foreign Office on 8th September
Those conclusions are as follow :—
(a) That in the forthcoming negotiations His Majesty’s Government
should aim at securing that vessels flying the British flag shall retain
their present immunity from search on the high seas by Persian
vessels (which is regarded as essential); that no substantial relaxation
of preventive measures shall take place in the Gulf; and that
preventive action in the Gulf shall so far as possible remain in the
hands of His Majesty’s Government.
(b) That, in the first instance, endeavours should be made to secure an
agreement with Persia on the basis of a modernisation of the form
while retaining the essential matter of the 1882 Convention, the
key-note of the new Convention being possibly, as suggested by the
Government of India, that Persia, being desirous of putting down
the slave traffic, had secured the naval assistance of His Majesty’s
r ' Government, instead of, as at present, that an unwilling Persia was
being forced to suppress the slave traffic by His Majesty’s Government.
(c) lhat the right of searching vessels in Persian territorial waters at
present exercised by His Majesty’s Government under the Slavery
Convention might be abandoned should some further concession he
necessary.
[Note .— Persia already enjoys the right to search British vessels in
Persian territorial waters, and the effect of the concession in question
would be to leave the policing of Persian waters exclusively to her.
It may be remarked that in the view of the Government of India even
this gap in the preventive svstem is bevond Persia’s power to fill.]
{cl) That a concession by which His Majesty’s Government should
abandon their right to search Persian vessels on the high seas and
should restrict their search of such vessels to Arab waters (in which,
under their treaties with the various Arab Sheikhs, the right of search
of all vessels is vested in them), would be in the highest degree
objectionable, as amounting to a virtual abandonment in toto of the
Convention of 1882, while the loss of power to search suspected
Persian vessels on the high seas must necessarily curtail the effective
ness of llis Majesty’s ships in keeping down the slave traffic.
(e) 1 hat in view of the present impotence of Persia to substitute effective
preventive slavery measures of her own, the propriety of invoking the
assistance of the League of Nations, in the general interests of
civilisation, should be considered should Persia adopt an unreasonable
attitude and reject a compromise on the lines set out in (b) and f)
above, and that the adoption of this course should equally he
considered in the event of a unilateral denunciation by Persia of the
Convention of 1882.
Adm. to F.O.,
Sept. 15 1028,
P. 5020.
14. The Admiralty, in expressing their concurrence in the views of the
Secretary of State for India as set out above, added that in their view if t
compromises proposed by 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. were not acceptable, His Majesty s
Government should give up any idea of making a Slavery Convention wjttt
Persia; and that if there were a unilateral denunciation of the
Convention, Persia, as a member of the League of Nations, should he pie^sef
to take steps as soon as it is clear that she has failed to suppress the save
traffic.