Page 139 - The Persian Gulf Historical Summaries (1907-1953) Vol IV_Neat

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Sea Insurance Company, Limited, to recover a
loss under a policy of marine insurance on the
consignment. This loss the Company had refused
to pay on two grounds(1) That tlio plaintiffs
had, when effecting the insurance, concealed a
fact material to the estimation of the risk, viz.,
that the importation of arms was forbidden by
Persian law ; ur.d (2) that the adventure was
illegal, ns being in contravention to the law of
nations. Mr. Justice lligham, in giving judg­
ment for the plaintiffs, held that “ the. import of
arms was not illegal according to the law of
Persia, as that law was administered in practice
and enjoined,” or, in other words, that no real
prohibition existed on the importation of arms
into Persian ports. As regards the legality of
the act of seizure, the question was determined
by the further action brought by Messrs. Fracis,
Times and Co. against Captain Carr, B.N., the
officer who had seized the “ Baluchistan,” for
wrongful deprivation of property. Mr. Justice
Grantham, who tried the case in the first
instance, found for the defendant, and his
judgment, after being reversed by the Court of
Appeal, was finally upheld by the House of
Lords, on the ground that the seizure had token
place in Muscat territorial waters, and was*
under the Sultan’s Proclamation of January
1898, justifiable according to the law of Muscat.
Mr. Spring-Rice On the 1st January, 1900, the Shah promul­
to Lord Salisbury,
May 28,1900. gated a law reaffirming the prohibition against
tlio importation into Persia of arms and ammuni­
tion, as well as various other commodities. The
case of the British steamer “ Hathor," on hoard
of which arms were seized at Bushirc in November
1900, led to an Order in Council being issued,
on the recommendation of the Law Officers of
the Crown, by which the Persian Law of the
1st January, 1900, was made applicable to
British subjects, in so far as the provisions
respecting arms and ammunition were concerned.
Mr. Grant Doff It may ho said generally that the efforts of the
to Government
of India, Persian authorities to put down the traffic have
.Inly 28, 1906. been quite ineffectual. “ Possibly,” wrote
Mr. Grant Duff in July 1900, “when M. Naus
has received the launches, now building for the
Persian Government at Bombay ” (since supplied)
“ something may be done by the Belgian officials
to check the arms traffic. But there is no present
likelihood of the Persian Government taking the
slightest trouble to put an end to it. Even if