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administration heport of the
62

CHAPTER VIII.

Administration. Report of the Political Agency, Muscat, or the Year
1920.

PER80NNBL.

R. E. L. Wingate, Esquire, I. C. S., held charge of the Political Agency
and His Britannic Majesty’s Consulate during the year. From 3rd March to
10th April the Political Agent accompanied His Highness the Sultan on his
official visit to His Excellency the Viceroy in India, and during this period
Mr. M. J. Gazdar, Head Clerk, held charge of the current duties of the
Agoncy.
The post of Agency Surgeon continued vacant.
The Senior Medical Officer, Bait-ul-Falaj, officiated in charge of the
Agency and Telegragh Staff.
Mr. Ehtisham-ud- Doulah Khan continued to be Dragoman of the Agency
throughout the year.
Sub*Assistant Surgeon T. P. DeSouza remained in charge of the hospital
throughout the year.
Monsieur Yvoneou, the Warrant Officer in charge of the French Coal
Repot officiated aB French Consul till 20th December, since when there has
been no French Consul at Muscat.
Situation in Muscat and Oman.
The year with which this report deals may with justice be said to have
been one of the most eventful in the whole chequered history of the country.
The history of the year may be divided naturally into three distinct
chapters, the relations of the Sultan’s government with the rebel tribes of
interior Oman under their elected Imam, the reform and progress of the
Sultan’s administration in the territories controlled by him, and lastly the
personal attitude of the Sultan himself.
Though by following the sequence of events in each phase to its conclusion,
cutting it out bo to speak from its surroundings in order to give a clear picture
of what would otherwise be an incomprehensible cbase of disconnected crises,
it must not be lost sight of that the events in each of these chapters were
closely related, with their inevitable reactions foraetimes calculated sometimes
unforeseen upon each other. As will become clear, the successful peace with
the interior was by no means unconnected with the successful reform of the
administration, while tbq reform of the administration stood in jeopardy more
than once from the attitude of the Sultan, and had to be modified profoundly
in some particulars.
(1) Relations of the Sultan's government with the rebel tribes of interior' Oman
under their elected Imam.
The commencement of the year saw Sheikh Said bin Nasir al Kindi at
Nizwa, the seat of the Imam, entrusted by the Political Agent with the mission
of obtaining the return of the gardens confiscated by the Imam to their right­
ful owners, as the preliminary to the ratification of the terms discussed by the
Political Agent at Sib with Sheikh Isa, the representatives of the Imam, in
September of the previous year.
The Administrat:on Report of last year has described the meeting at Sib,
the proposed terms of agreement, and the despatch of Al Kindi on bis mission