'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.' [‎50av] (111/208)

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Sovereign. It lias already been stated (British
Case, p. 13) that His Highness sought the
advice of Great Britain as to the inter
national correctness of the action of Prance
in the francisation of dhows belonging to his
subjects, and having their home port and the real
residence of their owners within his territory. It
is stated in one part of the Erench Case that the
Sultan's first complaint was made in 1897 (p. 6) ;
and elsewhere (p. 24), that he began to complain
in 1895; but if His Highness did not make
his objections directly to Prance before these
dates, his silence was not the result of his
own impulse, but of British advice. Between
1892 and 1897, the British Government had
understood from certain statements by French
Ministers and officials (which are detailed at
pp. 12-15 of the British Case) that Erance was
discontinuing wholly or in part the francisation
of Siiri dhows. But in fact the practice had not
ceased, and the consequent evils became so serious
in Oman that the Sultan, in May 1897, addressed
a protest on this subject to the Erench Consul
at Muscat (sec British Case, pp. 65-67). It will
be seen that this protest was prior to the letter
of the British Consul, dated the 18th October,
1897, to which reference is made at p. 6 of the
Erench Case. Erom May 1897 until 1903 both
the Sultan and the British Government con
tinuously and consistently objected to the Erench
practice as trenching on the sovereign rights of
the Sultan, and these protests are given in detail
in the British Case (pp. 15-18), though passed
over lightly in the Erench Case (see pp. 6 and 7),
in which Great Britain is represented as urging
the Sultan, on insufficient pretexts and against his
will, to attack what are styled the legitimate
claims of France.
It will be interesting to compare the full, British Case,
complete, and exact statement in the British pp '
Case with reference to the events of 1903, which
led to the present arbitration, with the scanty
and indefinite allusions made to it in the Erench
Case, in which the only reference made to these
important facts is a statement that three dhow A term adopted by British officials to refer to local sailing vessels in the western Indian Ocean. -
owners, who were Erench proteges, were arrested French Case, p. 7.
and arbitrarily imprisoned.