'Muscat Dhows Arbitration. In the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague. Grant of the French Flag to Muscat Dhows. The case on behalf of the Government of His Britannic Majesty.' [‎15r] (38/208)

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The qualified exterritoriality granted by the
Treaty is a concession to the difference between
Western and Eastern conceptions of law and
justice, and is not in any way intended to enable
France to interfere between the Sultan and his
own subjects in any case not specifically provided
for in the Treaty.
And the text of the Treaty has not been
supplemented, varied, or enlarged in this respect
by any recognized or established usage, permit
ting France to exercise either concurrent or
exclusive jurisdiction over the Sultan's subjects
in his territories or in his territorial waters.
On the 19th May, 1903, the French Ambassador
in London stated " that the Treaty^ of 1844 was
not designed to meet the case of those owners of
dhows whose rights, he said, were in many cases
anterior to the date of the Treaty; that the
French flagholders were altogether outside the
Treaty, and that protection was claimed for them
not under the Treaty, but because they had been
given French papers and were entitled to fly the
French flag."
It is difficult to comprehend the principle upon
which such a claim could be based. It involves
an assertion of the right of France spontaneously
to create as many proteges as it chooses in Muscat
by grant of French papers and flags to any
foreigner who applies for them, and as it
admittedly does not rest on any specific Treaty
with Muscat, the claim is equally applicable to
the subjects of any European Power in the
territories of their natural Sovereign—a conten
tion which no civilised State would for a single
moment admit.
In truth the contention seems to be based on a
confusion of ideas and a mistaken notion that
Christian Powers are entitled in Oriental States
to create classes of protected Orientals without
reference to any Treaty or capitulation, and to
force on the Eulers of those States, with respect to
their own subjects, the municipal laws of France.
It is not admissible in the case of Muscat to
base any claim to French protection on the fact
that the protege has acquired a domicile on French
territory, which is not the equivalent of nation
ality, or that, either in good or bad faith, he has
acquired immeuhles in a French Colony or
Protectorate.
The maritime laws of France appear not to con
template the grant of French papers to- vessels