"ملف 59/15 B (A 14) مسقط: تجارة الرقيق تحت مظلة العلم الفرنسي" [و‎‎١‎٦‎٠] (٣١٠/٢٤٦)

ACQUISITION OF PROPERTY IN MASKAT BY FOREIGNERS. TRANSFER OP
PROPERTY IN OMAN.
J
| > '
No. 433, dated Maskat, the 27th September 1902.
From—M ajor P. Z. Cox, I.S.C., C.I.E., His Britannic Majesty's Consul and
Political Agent, Maskat,
To—The Under-Secretary to the Government of India in the Foreign Department
I have the honour to acknowledge with thanks the receipt of your letter
No. 1755-E,A., dated 28th August, on the subject of the transfer of property in
Oman.
2. I beg in the first instance to explain further the two points of Maskat
usage in regard to which your letter expressed some uncertainty—
{a) The law regarding the alienation of wakf property in Maskat is the
same as that holding in India, but the difficulty is that Arab
subjects in charge of obscure wakf property have been found
tempted, when in want of money, to mortgage sucli property
secretly to Banyans on the pretence that it is private property,
and it may not be for many years afterwards that the death of
the mortgagor or his failure to pay the interest causes the
Banyan to bring the case into Court. Then the defence is set
up by the man or his heirs that the property was wakf and
ought never to have been mortgaged; sometimes with reason
and sometimes with intent to defraud.
(h) It is the usage in Maskat for the complainant to be sent for justice,
by his national representative, to His Highness the Sultan if the
defendant is a Maskat subject and to the defendant's
representative if the defendant is a foreign subject. The com
plainant's Consul or the Sultan (in the case of an Arab) has the
right of sending a representative to attend the trial, if he so
desires.
•
3. The suggestion contained in the concluding paragraph of your letter
seems to provide, as far as is possible under the circumstances, the remedy
that my reference contemplated. On receipt of your communication I dis
cussed the subject with the Sultan, and we both came to the conclusion that
it would not be possible to trust to any system of registration conducted by
his clerical establishment, he, therefore, undertook, by officially promulgating
it in Arabic, among his own subjects, to make applicable to them any notifi
cation I might draw up affecting British subjects.
4. Under ordinary circumstances I should have first submitted a draft
notification to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, for approval, but
there were strong reasons existing connected with Monsieur Goguyer's present
active intrigues which made it important to act at once. I therefore issued on
13th instant, in anticipation of sanction, the notification, of which I attach a
copy for the information of the Government, together with a copy of my
covering letter to the Secretary of State.
6. I have purposely left out any special mention of the fact that any
document executed in contravention of the notification would not be recog
nised at this Consulate, as, had I done so, it would have been necessary to add
some qualifying words, such as, " so far as it affects the British subject." So
far as our subjects are concerned, however, the mere fact that the non-regis
tration is made penal, carries with it the fact that any such Unregistered
document is invalid for purposes of a civil court,
908 F. D.—S E—116—Oct.