'File 9/50 (B 16) The Debai Incident' [‎48v] (107/492)

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10. Having given such explanations as I am able to afford in regard to
the several points indicated by your telegram under reply, I venture to add the
following further remarks.
The character of the present Shaikh of Debai. —Under his predecessor,
Shaikh Makhtoom, Debai was the best ruled of the Trucial Coast A name used by Britain from the nineteenth century to 1971 to refer to the present-day United Arab Emirates. ports.
Writing on the subject in the Administration Report for 1904-05,1 recorded
the following remarks on the subject:—
" The administration of this Chief is the most enlightened and promising
of any of the Trucial Chiefs and is justifying the enterprise of the British
India Steam Navigation Company in making Debai a fortnightly port of
call."
Unfortunately Shaikh Makhtoom did not last long after that report was
written, and in recording his death in February 1906, I wrote that his cousiu
Shaikh Butti who had succeeded him was less enlightened and was not likely to
prove so amenable to reason as Makhtoom had alA?v ays been.
That forecast has been fully borne out. Shaikh Butti has always
been a difficulty. He is pleasant enough to meet personally, but is a most
unreliable and unsatisfactory ruler and during the five years of his incumb
ency has gradually allowed his community to get thoroughly out of hand. As
the Shaikh of Umm-el-Kawain remarked to me;—"There are 100 Shaikhs in
Debai." My difficulty in dealing with him has been that whereas when I
interview him personally upon any matter of importance he invariably appears
to have quite come round to one's view, yet as soon as one has left he generally
writes to say he has discussed matters with his advisers and as they are not
in favour of the proposal, he trusts he will be excused from compliance.
In these matters the influence of the Residency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, established in the provinces and regions considered part of, or under the influence of, British India. Agent counts for very little,
and it has thus been difficult to make any progress with Shaikh Butti.
At my last visit to Debai, previous to the present occasion (in August
last) Shaikh Butti discussed the question of the Post Office quite freely;
admitted that the present makeshift arrangement was unsatisfactory and
verbally agreed, if I thought it advisable, to have a more regular office.
Similarly in discussing the pending retirement of Khan Bahadur Abdul
Latif, owing to ill-health, Shaikh Butti himself expressed a wish for a succes
sor of a different type and heard without demur or comment some queries put
to me by some of the British Indians residing in Debai as to who the new
Agent would be and whether he could not be an European. I rather thought
the Shaikh would now be glad of the appointment of an Englishman, if only
to strengthen his own hands in dealing with his troublesome relatives; and
his cousin and Vazier, Butti-bin-Rashid, even went so far, when visiting
Major Knox a month or six weeks ago when the latter touched at Debai on his
way to Bahrain, as to express the opinion that the best thing for Debai would
be the presence of a British Agent.
Erom these indications I anticipated that I should have little difficulty
in getting Mr. New satisfactorily installed if I took took him down myself and
had the moral support of one of His Majesty's Ships for the occasion.
11. The question of our relations
Firfe correspondence ending with Residency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, established in the provinces and regions considered part of, or under the influence of, British India. letter gen The need for Specific steps tO
No. 173, dated the 12th December 1902. strengthen OUr influence OU this coast
was fully realised by the Government of India a decade ago.
Again, five years later when the question of Mr. Gaskin's future was under
ndeResidency letter No. 198, dated the soth consideration, the post of British Agent
Apni 1905. at Debai was one of the alternative means
suggested for employing him.
The difficulty of the position generally and the urgency for remedying it
were also drawn attention to at pages 7 and 65 of the Residency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, established in the provinces and regions considered part of, or under the influence of, British India. Administra
tion Report for 1906-07, and again in my despatch No. 1726 of 6th June 1908
(paragraph 15).
I would then refer to the recommendation of Mr. Charles Akers and of
the Board of Trade to which reference was made in my telegram No. 115
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