'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.' [‎55r] (120/208)

13
down Arab names witli accuracy, and the
difference between the Prencli and English mode
of writing such names, it will be found on com
parison of the list given in the French Case at
p. 58, with that of the signatories of the docu
ment given to the Sultan at Siir in June 1900,
printed at p. 68 of the British Case, that a number
of the persons who appear in the French list are
Suris, and there resident, and that they promised
the Sultan, in June 1900, to surrender their
French flags. This they would long since have
done but for the pressure put upon them by the
French Consul at Muscat, and the Commanders
of the French war-ships "Catinat" and "Troude,"
and it should at this point be distinctly stated
that the surrender of these flags was not in any
way due to the act of the British Government,
but was the result of an interview between the
British Case, p. 68. Sultan and his subjects at Slir.
Appendix 5, p. 13, In tbe Appendix will be found a collection of
the lists of flagholders named in the British Case,
and a partial identification of these men with
those appearing in the French list.
The number of vessels—fifty-six—given in the
French list, is about one-third of the dhows
which bslong to the port of Stir. The French
Government admits (p. 14 of the French Case)
that the French Consul at Muscat has orders to
treat Muscat as the ''port d'attache" of the
vessels in question, and that the " port d'attache "
of a dhow A term adopted by British officials to refer to local sailing vessels in the western Indian Ocean. owner is in effect his domicil. If
this admission is to be interpreted as meaning
that the owners of these vessels are domiciled in
Oman, the action of France in granting the
French flag to them is clearly an infraction of
Article 32 of the Brussels Act of 1890, which is
obviously intended to authorize the grant of the
flag by the authorities in France or in a French
possession or Protectorate, and not to authorize
the grant by French Consular officers in foreign
States; and it is further to be noted that
that Article permits the grant of the flag
only to subjects or proteges, and that none
of the Signatory Powers is entitled by grant
of its flag to claim as its prot£g6 an Arab
not already internationally qualified for such
protection.
It is true that this contention has at times
been advanced by French officials. M. Guy, the
French Consul at Zanzibar, on the 7th September,