Page 97 - The Arabian Gulf States_Neat

RELATIONS WITH BAHRAIN 35
any State or Government other than the British without the consent of the
said British Government, and to refuse permission to any other government
than the British to establish diplomatic or consular agencies or coal depots
in our territory, unless with the consent of the British Government.
The clTcct of this agreement was to deprive the Shaikh of the power
to conduct relations of any sort with foreign powers without the
intervention of the British Government. The Agreement, however,
did not impair the absolute authority of the Shaikh to conduct ‘cus­
tomary friendly correspondence with the local authorities of neigh­
bouring States on business of minor importance’.
The Agreement of 13 March 18921
This agreement supplemented the 1880 agreement and reaffirmed the
alienation by the Shaikh of his right to conduct his own foreign policy
contrary to the wishes of the British Government. The Shaikh under­
took (a) not to ‘enter into any agreement or correspondence with any
power other than the British Government’, (b) not to ‘consent to the
residence within my territory of the agent of any other Government’
without the assent of the British Government, and (c) not to ‘cede, sell,
mortgage or otherwise give for occupation any part of my territory
save to the British Government’.
The Shaikhs of Bahrain also entered into a number of other subsi­
diary agreements:
1. In 1898, the ruling Shaikh bound himself that he would ‘abso­
lutely prohibit the importation of arms to Bahrein territory or ex­
portation therefrom’.2
2. In 1909 and in 1912,3 the Shaikh gave an undertaking to allow
the establishment of a British post office and ‘Wireless Telegraph
Installations’ in Bahrain.
3. In a letter, dated 14 May 1914, the Shaikh undertook not to
‘embark on the exploitation’ of oil in his country himself nor to
‘entertain overtures from any quarter regarding that without con­
sulting the Political Agent in Bahrain and without the approval of the
High Government’.1
The Shaikh thus limited his absolute right to control and dispose of
what came to be the most important source of national income in his
country.

1 India, Foreign and Political Department, part 4, op. cit., and see Appendix II.
2 Aitchison, p. 238. 3 Ibid., p. 239.
4 Ibid., Foreign and Political Department, part 4, op. cit.