Page 75 - Gulf Precis (III)_Neat

59
3. When Sultan Sayyid Turk! died in 1883, it (lid not seem by any means certain that
Savyid Faisal, the present Sultan, would he able to make good his claim to tho throne. There
is no recognized law of succeJ-siun in Maskat. Saiyid Faisal was not tho eldest son of his father
and th'TC was a formidable rival in the Held in tho person of his undo, Sayyid Abdul Aziz.
Fora tune the British Government withhold its formal recognition of a sovereign as to
whose qualifications serious doubts were entertained ; but from the date of his formal
assumption of power, the subsidy of Its. 80,1-00 a year, which had been paid to his father,
was continued to him, and it is no exaggeration to say that by those means alone was ho
enabled to consolidate his position. When ho was finally recognised in 18U0, he intimated
his intention to maintain to tho full tho same relations us had existed with the British
Government in the time of his father, and to act up t* all tho engagements undertaken
by his father and predecessors in the government of Maskat. He then pledged himself in a
formal assurance to tho following effect: “ It is my earnest desire to be guided in all important
manors of policy by the advice of the British Government., and to so conduct the government
as to secure the continued friendship and approbation of tho Viceroy and tho British Govern­
ment/' Relying upon this assurance, the British Government have ever since deterred Sayyid
Abdul Aziz, who subsequently retired to India, from attempting to revive dynastic trouble in
Oman. In 1891-95 when there was a rebellion in Maskat against the authority of Sultan
Savyid Faisal, tho Government of India warned Sheik AbduIlab-bin-Saleh to cease from attack­
ing the Sultan, and they authorised IIis Highness in November 1895 to issue a notification
warning the leading Sheikhs of Oman that, whatever differences they might have in future
with tin* Sultan, the Government of India would not allow them to attaok towns of Maskat
and Muttra. Further, tho Government of India gave to the Sultan their countenance and
support when the people of Dhofar rebelled against him, and they enabled him to put an end to
that uprising.
4. This catalogue of services rendered by the British Government to successive rulers of
Muxkot and notably to the present occupant of the throne, the annual payment oj a subsidy
contingent upon the loyal fulfilment of treaty obligations, and the history of the influence thereby
exercised by Great Britain for a period of nearly half a century upon the fortunes of the State,
at once explain and justify the existence of a positive political predominance on the part of
Great Britain, that is shared by no other Poioer in the affairs of Maskat, White not compromis­
ing the independence of its sovereign, which both the British and French Governments have re­
ciprocally bound themselves, by an undertaking in theytar 1862, to respect, this condition of
affairs has yet been the inevitable outcome of the physical situation of the country, of its con­
tiguity to the shores of India, and of its close proximity to the waters of the Persian Gulf, in
which British interests, political and commercial, have, throughout the present century, exercised
so commanding an infuence.
In the ports and territory of Maskat itself, this predominance has been accentuated by
the facte that the trade of the British dominions with Maskat amounts to about $ths of the
entire trade of the country; that the latter is almost exclusively in the hands of Indian
traders, who are British subjects; that the commerce and interested of any other country arc
relatively quite insignificant; that the share of the trade enjoyed by the three other Powers
with whom Maskat has direct treaty relations, viz., America, France and Holland, amounts, if
added together, to less than T'7th of the entire trade of the country, while that of France, so
far as can be judged from the Customs returns of the past two years, consists of one item only,
namely, the importation of arms and ammunition, valued in 1890 and 1897, respectively, at
50,000 and 100,090 dollars. Great Britain, moreover, is the only nation which has telegraphic
interests on tho coasts of Oman; while the polico of its seas has been exercised for many years
past by Her Majesty's ships alone.
The relations of amity anti of. political ascendancy which have beon above recorded, and
which have brought the State of Maskat within what may legitimately be described as tho
sphere of British political influence, culminated in 1891 in an agreement voluntarily entered
into by the present Sultan, and following immediately upon the conclusion of a new Com­
mercial Treaty between Great Britain and Maskat, by which he undertook never to code, to
soil, to mortgage, or otherwise give for occupation, save to the British Government, tho
dominions of Maskat and Oman or any of their dependencies.
5. Suoh was the state of affairs in Oman, until, at a more recent date, the Sultan
began to evince an inclination to depart from the friendly attitude, which had hitherto been
obsorved both by bis predecessors and by himself. He appeared to be more anxious to court
the favours of Franco—who had established a Vice-Consulate at Maskat in 1894—than to
abide by bis engagement; and to be unmindful of the extent to which his ability to maintain
his position depends upon tho peouniary assistance and the support of the British Government.
His Highness has acquiesced—after some preliminary remonstrance—in the practice which
has recently been introduced of granting French protection within his own dominions to his
own subjects who may have dealings with the French,—a praotice which, while open to objec­
tion on many grounds, is gravely to he deprecated when it gives the protection of the French
flag to Arab dhows, engaged in slave-running in Maskat waters, not merely as impugniug the
Sultan’s authority, but also as interfering with the efforts so long and consistently directed
by Great Britain to the extirpation of tho traffio in slaves ou tho waters of the Indian Ocean."