'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.' [‎62r] (136/208)

29
I X
VII.-
-THE COALING STATIONS
QUESTION.
Appendix 14, p. 56.
His Majesty's Government learned at the end
of 1893 that His Highness the Sultan had made
an Agreement to grant to Prance a coaling
station at Bundar Jisseh, about 5 miles from
Muscat. The arrangement was made with great
secrecy. Even M. Delcass^, the Erench Minister
of Eoreign Affairs, was unaware of it when his
attention was called to it hy the British Govern
ment, and considerable difficulty was experienced
in discovering its terms. It was the conduct
of the Sultan in this matter, coupled with his
delay in paying his liabilities to Great Britain,
which led to the delivery of the Memorandum of
the 3rd Eebruary, 1899, on which so much stress
is laid in the Erench Case. His Majesty's
Government expressed both to His Highness the
Sultan and to Erance the view that the sale or
lease of any part of Bis Highness* dominions to
a foreign Power was not only a breach of the
Sultan's Agreement with Great Britain of 1891,
but was also inconsistent with the Declaration
concluded between the British and Erench
Governments in 1862. The Government of
the Erench Republic accepted the British
reading of the latter instrument, viz., that
neither State might accept any cession or lease of
Muscat territory ; and it was agreed that Erance
should be free to establish a coal dep6t on the
same terms as those granted to Great Britain,
viz., on sufferance, and such a depot has been
established in Muscat Harbour on a portion of
the ground originally allotted to Great Britain
for the purpose. The result, therefore, of British
action has been to prevent a lease or cession of
territory to Erance in contravention of the
Declaration of 1862, which would otherwise have
taken place. In other words, the British protest,
so far from being a breach of that Declaration,
prevented its breach by Erance.