"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎٢‎٨‎٧] (١٧٨٢/٤٣٠)

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without importance xn the Persian Gulfj though not directly affecting it; Zanzibar
this was the transfer of British interests and relations in Zanzibar frotn Gover^meat
the care of the Govermnent of India to that of Her Majesty's Groverntnent. of India to
The origin of the Government of India's control over British affairs in Majesty 's
Zanzibar is to be traced in the facts that Zanzibar was at first a dependency Government,
ot the Sultanate of Oman, with which that Government were in relations^
and that the last ruler of the undivided state of 'Oman-ew^-Zanzibar had
his headquarters in Zanzibar. A certain degree of connection between
Zanzibar, Aden, and the Persian Gulf always existed; and in 1881 the
Government of India expressly permitted its representatives in all three
places to furnish each other with copies of such letters on matters of common
interest as they might address to superior authority in India, provided
that the letters were not of a peculiarly confidential nature.
But, though the trade of Zanzibar was largely in British Indian hands,
the mercantile Indian community settled in large numbers in Zanzibar and
on the East African coast was of older standing than the British Political
Agency in Zanzibar ; and the principal question of importance in Zanzibar,
on which many other questions depended, was that of the slave trade, which
was an Imperial and in no sense a specially Indian concern. Sir Bartle
Frere, in 1873 or 1874, severely criticised what he described as " the
" inherent vice of the present arrangement, which is, that the Government
" of India is called on to control affairs and deal with questions which very
a remotely concern any one east of Aden. "
The Government of India had been for some years disposed to relinquish
control of the British establishments in Zanzibar; and in 1882, when the
cost of I'epresentation there and of the subsidy payable by the Sultan of
Zanzibar to the Sultan of Masqat, which last in the course of negotiation
concerning the repression of the slave trade had become a charge on the
British authorities, was borne in equal moieties by the Home and Indian
Treasuries, the Foreign Office in London proposed a scheme of transfer. It
was, in outline, that the Imperial Government should assume the patronage,
control and payment of the Zanzibar establishment, with its incidental costs
and pension liabilities i i consideration of the Indian Government's making
itself responsible for the payment of the subsidy, so long as the subsidy
should continue to be payable. The proposals of the Foreign Office did
not commend themselves, in this shape, to the Government of India, who
pointed out that more than half of the Zanzibar expenditure, at the rate
then in force, would be thrown upon themselves by the proposed change;
they foresaw, moreover, that the subsidy was not unlikely to be a perpetual
charge, and that, if it should be discontinued, it might be necessary to