Page 133 - The Origins of the United Arab Emirates_Neat

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Eslab lis/imen I of the A i'r- Rou lc
This was a major breakthrough in the establishment o ic
air-route, which began to function on i October 193^* nc .
its most significant aspects was the shape assumed by tic mpcria
Airways rest-house: this, the first permanent British establisimen
on the Coast, was a fort-like building, so providing a perpetua
reminder of the true source of authority in the shaykhdom.
After the success of his visit to Sharjah, Dickson was rcassurec
by certain facts. First, he was convinced that Sultan s suspicions
of the air-route were really based on a fear that closer British
control of Sharjah would reveal the continued existence of the
slave trade, which, according to Dickson, supplied 85 per cent
of pearl divers; this fear also prompted the neighbouring shaykhdoms
to oppose any extension of British interests. Dickson had not been
impressed by the people of the Coast, and remarked that ‘it would
be hard to find anywhere in Arabia a more uncouth suspicious
and backward lot of Arabs’.32 Second, he came to the conclusion
that there was no menace to the airport from the bedouin of
the hinterland; the only possible danger there was that the ruler
of a neighbouring shaykhdom might order his bedouin to fire a
shot or two at the station merely to weaken Sultan’s position.
‘Such child’s game is not new to us ... and if ever such a
thing happened, it would not be difficult to trace the guiding
hand and inflict the necessary chastisement.’33
With Dickson’s assurances that the security of the airport was
in little danger, the Air Ministry and the India Office could confi­
dently proceed to authorise the next step in the establishment of
the civil route. An emergency landing ground was needed, and
Kalba, situated on the Gulf of Oman, was chosen as the most
suitable site. The headman of Kalba, Sa‘id bin Hamad al-Qasimi,
was not as amenable as Sultan bin Saqr had been, and it took
four years for him to give the required permission. During that
lime, the classic methods of persuasion employed by the British
authorities in the Gulf were put to the test: two different forms
of threatened pressure were applied, and, when they failed to frighten
Sa‘id into accepting an agreement, Dickson’s written promise to
Sultan bin Saqr was totally disregarded and the shaykh of Kalba
was officially declared independent of Sharjah.
The first approach to Sa‘id took place in September 1932, when
the Political Agent in Muscat was authorised to sound him out
on the subject of the landing ground. He found Sa‘id unwilling
to discuss the matter before consulting with his fellow Qawasim,
Sultan bin Saqr of Sharjah and Sultan bin Salim of Ras al-Khaimah,
so the Agent left Kalba. A second mission to Kalba in January
1933 a^so met with little success, so T. C. W. Fowle, who had
succeeded Biscoc as Political Resident in 1932, devised a plan for