File 522/1922 Pt 7 'Bahrain: Persian claim to sovereignty; Persian Treaty negotations 1929-1930' [‎101r] (206/1126)

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would help him to offer resistance. Persia might well
contend that this was a case for a claim under Article 11 and
perhaps under Article 15 of the League Covenant. In that
case how could His Majesty^ Government possibly prevent the
legal issi es involved being examined by the Council, who
might refer the matter to a legal committee for a report, or
even suggest that an advisory opinion from the Permanent
Court of International Justice at The Hague should be
obtained?
Buo although Persia may herself press for the matter
to be submitted to arbitration, it seems to us even more likely
that she will in the first place try to put us in a position
where the initiative in suggesting arbitration must come from
us, unless we are seriously to prejudice our case. The
Persians can conscript Bahreinis in Persia, for.ce them to
take out Persian nationality papers on pain of imprisonment,
and in fact extend to all Bahreinis living in Persia the sort •
of treatment which they have accorded to certain individual
Bahreinis in the past. Again, now that the Persian
Government have acquired a navy, they will be able to molest
Bahreini shipping in the Gulf. It is even possible that
they may create incidents at Bahrein itself or in Bahreini
waters. What could we do to put a stop to all this? We
can, I think, rule out the possibility of armed action
against Persia, which no British Government would at the
present time be prepared to authorise. Reprisals against
Persians in Bahrein would merely aggravate the situaticn, and
a policy of reprisals is in any case one to which it seldom
pays us to resort. We could, of course, send in protests
at Tehran, to which the Persians would p^r no attention;
but sooner or later, if the Persians were to adopt a
deliberate policy of aggression against Bahrein or Bahreini
nationals, they might well be able to put us in so humiliating
a position that we should have no alternative to pressing for
arbitration/
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