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18G. Sir Hardinge stated that lie could not answer the points M. Naus
had raised, but that it seemed to him that M. Naus’ object would be attained
if in a note recognising the Malay States as a colony for the purposes of the
Anglo-Persian Declarations, he inserted a reservation to the effect that this
admission would not bind Persia by analogy to apply it to the cases of
Afghanistan and the Arab States of the Gulf in view of the peculiar relations
which they occupied to the Government of India.
187. M. Naus also addressed a note, dated 22nd June 1901, to Sir
A. Eardingo, in which ho admitted that the Federated Malay States might,
from an economic poiut of view, be considered as a (/wasi-dependency of British
India, so that the question raised by the Colonial Ollice might be answered in
the affirmative, with the reservation, however, that the consent of the Persiau
Government, as regards the said Stares, should not be taken as applicable to
States placed under partial protection or under good offices. This reservation
had special reference to Afghanistan and to the Arab States on the southern
shore of the Persian Gulf.

(li) VISIT OF LORD CURZON TO THE PIRATE COAST AND THE DARBAR OF THE
TRUCIAL CHIEFS AT SHARGAU, NOVEMBER 1903.
188. An account of Lord Curzon’s tour in the Persian Gulf in November-
Secret E., February 1904, Nos. 33-127 (vide December 1903 is given in the Preois
No- ll0l* on International Rivalry and British
Policy in the Persian Gulf Here we are concerned only with the
Viceroy’s visit to the Pirate Coast. His Excellency arrived on 21st Novem­
ber at Shargah, which had been selected as a central point at which the Arab
Trucial Chiefs should be brought together to meet the Viceroy in the
ceremony of a Darbar. The Chiefs of Abu Thabi, Shargah, Debai and Ejman,
with their sons and the eldest son of the old Chief of Umm-el-Kowein had
been collected in the Patrick Stuart from different parts of the coast, and the
Darbar held, as at Maskat, upon the Argonaut, was a ceremony that could
hardly fail to have left upon them a great impression. Lord Curzon addressed
the Chiefs in a speech, which, as described in His Excellency’s despatch
No. 196 (Secret-External), dated 17th December 1903, is an epitome of the
British history in the Arab waters of the Gulf during the past century.
189. In his speech to the Chiefs Lord Curzon after enumerating the
engagements entered into between them and the British Government, pointed
out:—
u Chiefs, out of the relations that were thus created, and which by your own consent con­
stituted the British Government the guardian of inter-tribal peace, there grew up political tiea
between the Government of India and yourselves, whereby the British Government became
your overlords and protectors and you have relations with no other powers.**
There were reasons to fear, His Excellency said, that the record of the past
was in danger of being forgotten. The British were in the Gulf before any
other Power in modern times, bad shewn its face in those waters, they found
strife and have created order. They have saved the Arab Chiefs from extinc­
tion at the hands of their neighbours. They have preserved their indepen­
dence. They opened these waters to the ships of all nations. The British
are not going to throw away this century of costly and triumphant enter­
prise ; we shall not wipe off the most unselfish page in history.
The British Government do not interfere in the internal affairs of the
Chiefs, provided they govern their territories with justice and respect the
rights of the foreign traders residing therein. If any internal disputes occur,
the Chiefs would always find a friend in the British Resident, who would use
his influence, as he has frequently done in the past, to prevent these dissensions
coming to a bead and to maintain the status quo, for we could not approve
of one independent Chief attacking another Chief by land, simply because he
wa9 not permitted to do it by sea, and thus evade the spirit of his treaty
obligations. The Viceroy referred here to the Fajeira troubles, and expressed
a desire that these disputes should cease and that peace should remain
undisturbed.
4433 F. D.