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404 Records of Bahrain

[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government. 1

PERSIA. December 12, 1027.

CONFIDENTIAL. Section 1.

|E 5313/184/91] No. 1.

Sir R. Clice to Sir .1 us ten Chamberlain.—(Received December 12.)
(No. 577.) /,v-
Sir, Tehran, jV or ember 25, 1927.
WITH reference to my telegram No. 223 of the 24th November, I have the
honour to transmit to you herewith a translation of a note from the Acting Minister
for Foreign Affairs embodying a formal protest by the Persian Government against
article 6 of the treaty with His Majesty the King of the Ucjaz and Nojd signed at
Jeddah on the 20lh May, 1927.
2. It cannot cause surprise that the claim of the Persian Government to
sovereignly over Bahrein should be reasserted in this form since, in spile of this claim
having been repudiated on many occasions between 1822 and the prescut day, it has
never ocen specifically abandoned by the Persian Government. The undertaking
given by the King of the Hejaz to maintain fricudly and peaceful relations with the
territory of Bahrein embodied in this treaty, if it had been allowed to pass unques­
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tioned by the Persian Government, would have very materially weakened their
pretensions to maintain such a claim to sovereignty in the future. Nor is it perhaps
surprising that the Persian Government have referred in their note to the reply given
by Lord Clarendon to the Persian protest of 18G9 which, as was pointed out by His
Majesty’s consul-general at Bushire iu the most useful review of our relations with
Bahrein contained in his despatch to the Government of India, No. 294 of the 1st
September last (a copy of which formed the first enclosure to my despatch No. 484 of
the 7th October) was somewhat equivocal in its terms. The general attitude of His
Majesty’s Government on this question is doubtless unaltered since the date of the
Marquess Curzon's instructions to my predecessor embodied in paragraph 6 of his
despatch No. 4S0 of the 31st October, 1923. We have now, however, a new feature to
deal with—the notification of the matter to the League of Nations and the reference
to article 10 of the Covenant.
3. I am incliucd to think that the Persian Government have made a tactical
error in referring the question to the League of Nations at this stage. It would have
been cleverer, it appears to me, to have awaited our inevitable repudiation of their
claim before doing so. It seems now open to His Majesty’s Government to leave the
matter to the League to deal with, and it may be hoped that a statement of the British
case before that body will lead to the shadowy Persian pretensions being disposed of
once for all. I am aware that in the early part of 1928 you were loth to bring this
question before the League for settlement. I take it, however, that the fact that it is
Persia who has raised the matter removes the more serious of the objections which you
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saw to the proposal when it was made in 1020. Direct treatment of the matter here
between this Legation and the Persian Government would almost certainly lead to an
unsatisfactory and inconclusive battle of words, which would be particularly
embarrassing at the present lime when the proposals of nis Majesty's Government
for the conclusion of a new treaty and the settlement of our main outstanding
questions are about to be presented to the Persian Government.
4. I am sending copies of this despatch and of its enclosure to the Foreign
Secretary to the Government of India, to His Majcsly'a Acting High Commissioner
for Iraq and to Ilia Majesty's consul-general at Bushire.
I have, See.
R. if. CLIVE.

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