File 1508/1905 Pt 1 'Bahrain: situation; disurbances (1904-1905); Sheikh Ali's surrender; Question of Administration Reforms (Customs etc)' [‎105v] (215/531)

but if any of these measures can in the opinion of Government still be forced on
the Sheikh before the Chapter is considered closed, so much the better. I gather
however from the concluding sentence of paragraph 3, letter No. 1873-E. B.
above referred to, that this is probably not the case.
5. Until I know how far the Government of India concur in the views
expressed above it seems of little use my entering into a detailed discussion
regarding the several matters touched upon in the Political Agent’s present com
munications. Moreover his letter No. 204 covers so much ground that I feel it
difficult to handle it satisfactorily in a single communication and therefore limit
myself to such comment, in a separate memorandum, as it seems desirable to
forward simultaneously with this letter.
6. I may mention however before concluding, with reference to paragraph 27
of the Political Agent’s letter No. 204, that if the passage which I have enclosed
in a red ink parenthesis be eliminated for the present, l see no objection to the
Political Agent A mid-ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Agency. being authorised to make a communication to the Chief in the
sense of the rest of the paragraph if the Government of India do not consider
that this has not already been made fully clear to him in the ultimatum presented
to him on 25th February 1905.
Memorandum of comment upon details of Political Agent’s letter No. 204,
dated 24th June 1905.
Paragraphs 3 to 10 .—Captain Prideaux here sets down not his own views
but a statement of what he believes would be Sheikh Esa’s if the latter could put
them into shape.
Paragraph //.—In his remarks regarding the Bahrein Customs the Political
Agent writes “ the state of affairs here differs very greatly from that at
Muscat” but he does not explain how it differs, and l find it difficult to agree
with his conclusions in the last part of this paragraph, his allusion to the British
National Debt seeming inappropriate.
The cases of Bahrein and Muscat appear to me to be precisely the same.
In neither case is there any national administration or national account. In both
cases the Ruler administers the state as a private concern, for himself • he
renders account to no one and, so far as my experience goes, keeps no account.
There is nothing to prevent him if he chooses, so long as he gives his regular
employes something on account occasionally, from spending his whole income
for the year in the purchase of a large pearl or a private steam yacht. In both
cases the Rulers have always been heavily in debt to some Banian Merchant of Indian extraction. usurer, usually
the Customs farmer because he will lend easiest. We may call such a loan an
advance op the Customs revenue, if we wish, and it is true that as long as the-
“ farmer ” is not changed the debt may continue to be carried over with the
addition c>f plentiful interest from one year to another, but the moment another
Banian Merchant of Indian extraction. intervenes, or is brought in by the Sheikh, his draft on the last
one becomes just as much a private debt as money borrowed from any other
Shroff.
The Sultan of Muscat up to the time I left was still paying off, and was
much hampered by, old debts of this kind.
Except that the Sheikh of Bahrein is better off and spends a smaller por
tion of his income on his Bedouin friends than does Seyyid Feisal, the two cases
seem precisely parallel.
Paragraph /5.—To ordain that all aggrieved persons should be considered
to have a right of appeal to the Political Agent A mid-ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Agency. against the Sheikh would in my
opinion be incompatible with the Sheikh’s independence and the ordinance could
only be worked under a full British Protectorate, internal as well as external. I
am sure we should very soon and very frequently be brought to an impasse if we
attempted to institute such a doctrine under the existing regime.