ملف رقم ٣٤٥ لسنة ١٩٠٨ الجزء الثاني "المحمرة: الوضع. نزاع الشيخ مع والي البصرة. تقليد الشيخ وساماً. تجديد التطمينات للشيخ". [ظ‎‎١‎١‎٨] (٥٦٦/٢٤١)

present Wall been replaced at our instance by a less aggressive man, the Sheikh
would have recognised the value of our mediation, and would have had no
interest of his own to serve, still less excuse to give us, for disregarding our
guidance and lending his ear to the overtures which he received from the rest
less Arab element on the river. It will be noted from Lieutenant Wilson’s report
that these were by no means lacking.
(iv) The question of policy involved .—His Majesty’s Government have had
difficulty in forming a definite opinion on the actual situation owing to the fact
that the views of His Majesty’s Consul, Basrah, and myself, on the subject,
were opposed.
His Majesty’s Consul, Basrah, is accredited to a Turkish port, dwelling in
a Turkish atmosphere, and hearing only Turkish reports and the Turkish side of
the question, while His Majesty’s Consul at Mohammerah, and I perhaps, only
see from the Persian point of view and only hear the Persian version. We are
all equally entitled to be anxious that the interest of the country to which we are
accredited should not be overlooked, but I submit that a quarrel like the present
cannot be regarded purely as an isolated Turko-Persian incident, and no con
sideration be given to its bearing on British interests and British policy ; and
that in regard to the latter, such a wide divergency of opinion as would appear
to exist among us should not be possible.
I think I am right in believing that, under the present conditions of general
international politics, our strongest interests in the Gulf are now focussed at the
head of it, and that our chief interest in Persia lie in Mohammerah territory and
Arabistan. I have, in the course of some years’ work in the Gulf, arrived at a
fairly clear personal conception of what the policy of His Majesty’s Government
is in regard to this region, and it is at any rate one which has had the vindica
tion of success in the direction of commercial progress and advantage, which is
the main object of any policy. I must confess that I cannot see how the atti
tude evidenced in Mr. Crow’s letter No. 46, or in his telegrams repeated by His
Majesty’s Embassy to the Foreign Office under their Nos. 94 and 95, can be
regarded as in harmony with it. Even if he were convinced that the Sheikh of
Mohammerah had by his conduct richly deserved the hostility of the Wali, I sub
mit that the British interests and position affected would have been better served
by his conferring at an earlier stage with our representative at Mohammerah, by
urging us to use influence with the Sheikh, and by doing his utmost to restrain the
Wali in the meanwhile; rather than by adopting the attitude he did, especially
after his cordial testimony of icth March to the Sheikh’s conciliatory behaviour;
and in view of the fact that the proceedings of the Wali, which he approved, must
seriously affect or react in the jurisdiction of a fellow Consul as well as his own.
That the Wali should possibly go through with his arbitrary action by attacking
Faihyah or other means, and that His Majesty’s Consul should ask the British
Embassy at Constantinople to press for him to be well equipped for the purpose,
might serve purely 1 urkish interests and might, if Mr. Crow is correct in his
belief, be salutary for the Sheikh of Mohammerah, but encouragement to such a
policy seems to me altogether to disregard British interests in Mohammerah
territory and the British position at the head of the Gulf, both of which are
inevitably affected, and both of which it is the function of us all to safeguard and
promote.
3 I am now brought to the Sheikh’s reply, to the particular accusations of
recent date quoted by the Wali as to the causes of his hostile action, and to the
general accusations of the Basrah authorities and Mr. Crow with reference to
years past.
It has added to the difficulties of the recent situation that the Sheikh him
self was away, out of personal touch with His Majesty’s Consul, Mohammerah,
or myself, and that, in his absence, his interests had to reckon with an apparently
heavy accumulative record of grievances recorded against him in the archives of
His Majesty s Embassy, necessarily based on information from Turkish sources,
and, as far as he is concerned, ex parte. I must be pardoned for exhibiting
some anxiety lest the merits of his case should suffer in his absence from this