‏"ملخص الأحداث والتدابير الرئيسية التي اتخذها سمو نائب الملك اللورد كرزون من كيدليستون، نائب الملك والحاكم العام للهند في إدارة الخارجية. ‏I‏. يناير ١٨٩٩-أبريل ١٩٠٤. ‏II‏. ديسمبر ١٩٠٤-نوفمبر ١٩٠٥. المجلد IV. بلاد فارس والخليج الفارسي." [ظ‎‎٣‎٥] (٣٨٦/٧٥)

57
Arabian pearl fisheries was finally brought to a clear issue by the arrival in
Bahrein in 1903 of two Frenchmen, furnished with credentials from the French
Government, whose declared intention it was to engage in pearling operations.
Their purpose was, for the time being, thwarted by the refusal of the Shaikh of
Bahrein to grant them a concession; but the prosp>ect of the scheme being
renewed with the full cognisance of the French Government made it necessary
to lay down the British policy in advance, and the question was accordingly
referred to His Majesty’s Government by the Government of India in 1904.
The opinion of the Law Officers to the Crown, to whom the case was stated, was
to the effect that foreign intruders might be excluded from the territorial waters
of the Arab Chiefs and that there was a fair prospect of establishing, under
international law, the exclusive rights of the Arabs to pearl banks situated
outside territorial limits; it was considered, however, that the right of the
Arabs to exclude foreigners from deep waters, where they had not themselves
been accustomed to fish, was not sustainable. The Law Officers held that the
British Government were entitled, by virtue of the special relations existing
between them and some of the Arab principalities, to appear as the representa
tive of the latter should an international question be raised ; but it was recom
mended that the affair should not be brought to a direct settlement, and that the
interference of foreigners should be resisted by indirect means, so far as possible.
In 1898 a concession for deep-water pearl fishing in Persian waters was granted
by the Persian Government to a pair of continental adventurers and, having
lapsed, was renewed in 1899 through Russian influence in favour of one of them,
who then endeavoured to place the concession in Russia. In 1899 and 1900 the
subject of this concession, of which the local limits were doubtful, was discussed
with the Persian Government, and they were informed that Her Majesty’s Gov
ernment could not recognise any contract which might interfere with the rights
exercised by Chiefs under British protection; to this the Persian Minister for
Foreign Affairs replied that the Persian Government could only grant a conces
sion in so far ns their own rights extended, and that it was out of the question
that British interests should be affected.
The question of the arms trade in the Persian Gulf was one in which the
Indian Government had a direct military interest, for in 1898 rifles and
ammunition obtained from the Persian
Gulf had reached the Kurram Valley on
the North-M T est Frontier of India, and by 1901 the import of rifles from the
Persian Gulf towards India, especially into Waziristan, had become considerable.
In 1899 the importation and exportation of arms was already prohibited by the
governments of all the states and principalities surrounding the Persian Gulf
except those of Oman, Trucial Oman and Koweit. In 1900 the Shaikh of
Koweit was induced by the representative of the Government of India to pro
hibit the arms trade in his territories also, and in 1902 the Trucial Chiefs were
persuaded to take similar action : in both cases the arrangements were embodied
in formal and permanent agreements between the Shaikhs and the British
Government. The trade still remained free in Oman, where the Sultan was
precluded from suppressing it by his commercial engagements with European
powers, and from Maskat rifles were smuggled in increasing quantities to the
opposite coast of Mekran and to the Bunder Abbas and Minab districts of
Persia, whence they found their way to the Indian frontier tracts. In 1002
Lord Curzon’s Government proposed that France, the United States and Holland
should be approached with a view to the modification of the commercial treaties
by which the Sultan’s liberty of action was circumscribed, and at the same time
they undertook to compensate the Sultan for the diminution which might ensue
in his customs receipts from the discontinuance of the arms traffic. In view
however of the unpropitious relations of France and Britain in regard to Oman,
where the French flag question was still unsettled, r.o action was found possible
by His Majesty’s Government; and measures in Oman were restricted to impe-
ding, by all possible means, the export of arms from Maskat to countries where
their introduction was unlawful. The value of the arms imported into Maskat
(and for the most part illicitly re-exported) amounted in 1901-05 to Rs. 1.6,14,465,
the highest figure ever reached; and nearly half of the trade was by this time
in the hands of French merchants. There was reason, moreover, to think that