Page 133 - The Arabian Gulf States_Neat

THE PRESENT LEGAL POSITION 71
which menaced their independence' professed on various occasions
during this period, ‘an unwilling allegiance to Persia, to Turkey, to
the rulers of the Wahhabis of Arabia, even to Egypt’. And, in short,
those rulers paid tributes, on this account, not only to Ottoman
Turkey and to Persia, but also to any strong Power which seemed at
the time to be able to offer them protection.1 However, the British
Government did not seem to have taken the Rulers’ unwilling allegi­
ance to such Powers as seriously affecting their independent status.
It therefore not only proceeded, during that period, to establish direct
official contacts with the Gulf Rulers, but also consistently refused to
recognise Turkish and Persian claims to sovereignty over the domin­
ions of these Rulers.2 Moreover, an examination of British treaties
with the Gulf Shaikhdoms, concluded between 1820 and 1916, would
reveal the following significant facts:
(а) During the period between 1820 and 1879 all British treaties
with the Rulers concerned were in the nature of agreements and
engagements of military alliances and friendship, the objects of which
were the suppression of piracy and slave trade and the maintenance
of peace in the waters of the Gulf. Consequently the British Govern­
ment was entrusted with the power of supervising the implementation
of the objects for which those agreements and engagements were con­
cluded.3 It can be deduced from all or most of the provisions of the
treaties concluded during that period that the British Government
recognised as an established fact the independent authority exercised
by the Rulers over their own governments.4 It may be contended,
therefore, that the British Government by negotiating such treaties
with the Rulers reaffirmed their pre-existing independent status.5
Moreover, it may be noted that the British Government made no
claim, in those treaties, to rights of ownership of, or jurisdiction over,
any part of the territories of the Rulers.6
(б) During the period between 1880 and 1916 treaties of protection,
and various other agreements, were concluded by the British Govern­
ment with the Rulers. Those treaties of protection established closer
1 See Britain’s statements on Bahrain at pp. 190-1 below.
a See Chapters 3-5. 3 Sec Part One.
4 In his Note of 18 February 1929 to the Persian Government, Sir Austen
Chamberlain stated:
‘When, in 1820, consequent on their suppression of the piratical activities of the
independent rulers of the Trucial Coast of Oman, they found it necessary to con­
sider the position in regard to Bahrain, nearly forty years had elapsed since the
conquest of this island by the ancestor of the present Sheikh. . . . They had . . .
no hesitation in entering into negotiations and concluding a treaty with the inde­
pendent Ruler. . . . The British Government concluded all these treaties with the
Sheikh as an independent ruler, and consistently refused throughout to admit the
Turkish, Persian and other claims to sovereignty over his dominions . . .’ For
reference, see below, p. 180.
8 See Chapters 1-5. 8 See Part One.