Page 91 - The Arabian Gulf States_Neat

RELATIONS WITH TIIE TRUCIAL SHAIKHDOMS 29
In reply, the Government stated:
That the terms of the treaty did not warrant any prohibition of the building
of forts; that the article in which slaves were mentioned referred not to the
buying and selling of persons already enslaved but to raids on the coast of
Africa for the purpose of making slaves which alone could be correctly
described as plunder and piracy, and that the promise of protection against
non-signatories only covered the Indian ports to which by the same article
access was guaranteed to signatories.1
(c) British attitude to the Trucial States between 1820-92
After the signing of the General Treaty of 1820, with the Trucial States
the policy of fhc British Government was restricted to securing the
maintaining of peace and the suppression of piracy and the slave
trade in the Arabian Gulf. When, therefore, a request was made by
the ‘petty chief states’ for the establishment of a system of ‘protec­
torship or arbitral authority over them’, the United Kingdom de­
clined to accede to it.2 Although she regarded herself as no more than
‘the head of naval confederacy for the suppression of piracy’, she
nevertheless interpreted the term ‘piracy’ in a broad manner as
covering all acts of aggression or fighting between Arab tribes at sea.
The stringency of British policy in this respect manifested itself also
in the insistence of the British Government in applying the conditions
of the Treaty of Peace of 1820 even to tribes which had not signed it.3
Exclusive Agreement of 6 March 18921
In 1892, the British policy of non-involvement in the affairs of the
Trucial Shaikhdoms seemed to have been abandoned by the conclu­
sion, in March 1892, of the ‘Exclusive Agreement’ with these Shaikh­
doms. This Agreement for the first time conferred on the British
Government ‘preferential rights’ in connection with the internal affairs
of the Trucial Shaikhdoms—a grant which later became a factor of
importance in questions arising between them and foreign powers.5
It also limited the authority of the Trucial Shaikhs within their
territories in dealing directly with matters which might expose them
to the influence of foreign powers. The Trucial Shaikhs undertook
to observe the following obligations: (a) not to enter into any agree­
ment or correspondence, save through the British Government; and
1 Lorimcr, pp. 678-9. 2 Ibid., p. 694
3 Ibid., pp. 694-719; Saldanha, Precis, op. cit.
4 For the text of this Agreement, sec Appendix III. For original English and
Arabic texts, see India, Foreign and Political Department, Part I, ‘Treaties and
Engagements in force between the British Government and the Trucial Chiefs
of the Arab Coast’, 1820-1912, p. 19.
3 Lorimcr, pp. 726-9. The Agreement of 1892 was originally concluded with the
Shaikh of Abu Dhabi. Then on 7 and 8 March 1892 agreements, identical in
form, were signed by the other Trucial Shaikhs. Sec Aitchison, p. 257. The Shaikh
of Bahrain also signed a similar agreement on 13 March 1892. See p. 35 below.