مجموعة ٣٠/ ٣٣ "الخليج الفارسي، الساحل المتصالح. سياسة حكومة بريطانيا. قائمة شيوخ الساحل المتصالح" [و‎‎٢‎٧] (٨١٨/٥٣)

I 1 !
172 J
minor cona id orations in these days)« e c ortainly tT? 5 “TW t n
to administer their di sgusting ter ritories end people f hut if
they happen to be on the air route or there is oil underground
they have got to behave* Ve cor* ensure thie cheaply, eaally
and muaanely, and I see no good reason why we efcovild hesitate
to do so. This does not involve any interference with their
internel ads* ini strati on, except in so far as cohere 1«1 develop*
ment may render it necessary for us to assume jurisdiction over
non-rosloci foreigners; yet we carinot, I submit, altogether dis
regard the latter possibility in cuciding on our present sttitude;
an«i it will be the leas difficult for us to obtain our possible
ultimate desiderata if that present attitude be unmistakably firm*
T suggest we should remember also that if oil is located in the
hinterland, we enall oe deeply involved in the alloerUon of
rights to royalties etc, anti it is well should be no
doubt in any one's mind that shall act as arbiters and that we
arc well able to enforce our award.
8* la it really a grave exaggeration to say that at the
jr.or.ent we ere very near Sir iobort &andec«an , o position, with his
stick in one hand and his bag of rupees on the other ? The stick
may not lie quite so comfortably in the hand; and the bag of
rupees nay not always (indeed it seldom does) belong actually to
ua. dut we have got sloops and aircraft (both with target-practic
to do in their normal training programme - and why not near Shar
jah, for e change ?), end we have a lot to say in the distributioi
of the contents of P.C.L’s money-bags. I only plead that we
should take the maximum possible advantage of both, and of our
growing knowledge of who's "ho and how little (usually) he rep
resents.
Yours sincerely,
Sd/- H. Weightman.