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should not be ‘rival organisations’ to the Government causing confusion to the

general public. On the details of the response, the Foreign Secretary gave the

Political Agency and Residency a carte blanche to answer the HEC in accordance

with the points he had dictated. 288

The Political Agent discussed with Burrows the pros and cons for the most

appropriate policy to take in responding to the HEC on behalf of Eden. Gault feared

that, if Eden’s overall response sounded positive it might encourage the HEC, further

resulting ‘in the government machine coming to a standstill’. Gault suggested

another approach to the predicament which was to point out the Bahraini

Administration’s accomplishments and steps it had taken towards further reform.

The risk of this response would then be, according to the Agent, for the HEC to

launch demonstrations, strikes, and violence. The Agent also thought that if a

positive response was granted to the HEC that other Gulf States might look at

developments in Bahrain unfavourably. Therefore, according to Gault, the approach

to take with Al-Bakir and his followers was to ‘return a somewhat damping reply to

the High Executive Committee, even if this risks producing a relatively violent

reaction’. In the Political Agent’s view a functioning government with a portion of

its population in opposition is by far a better approach than a government

malfunctioning due to instability. 289

The official British reply to the nationalists was submitted by the Political

Agent on 17 March to the HEC and it underlined the reforms that had been recently

adopted by the Government, among which was the draft of a new Penal Code, the

288 TNA, FO 371/114586, Letter via Agency as to British Policy, 17 March 1955.
289 TNA, FO 1016/386, Gault to Burrows, 2 March 1955.

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