"مذكرة بشأن مسودّات البرقيات المتعلقة بشؤون مسقط وزنزبار" [ظ‎‎٢‎٩] (٢٤/٨)

78
P.S. to Memorandum on Muscat and Zanzibar
Affairs.
I omitted one consideration of great importance
in dealing with the questions aifecting the naval
force required in the Persian Gulf and Arabian
Seas, viz., that the necessity for a large naval force,
always present, will be much diminished as the use
of steamers for carrying on the coasting trade
increases. A coasting steamer, especially if running
at regular intervals, has, directly and indirectly, a
great effect in checking piracy, A steamer is itself,
as every sailor knows, much safer from attack by
sailing vessels or rowing boats, and more difficult
to cut off, than a sailing ship. Mail steamers have
also the same indirect effect on robbery by > sea
that made roads and regular mail coaches have on
highway robbery by land. They give the earliest
information of insecurity, and any irregularity
immediately attracts notice. They also have a
great effect in giving regular employment to the
boatmen, &c., at the petty ports on the coasts, in
the intervals of the pearl-diving and other fishing
seasons, without taking them far from their homes.
This removes one of the great inducements to
piracy among the inhabitants of a coast so barren
that agricultural industry is almost precluded.
I have no doubt that the steamers now regularly
running from Bombay to Busra have greatly con
duced to discourage a revival of piracy since the
Indian naval squadron was withdrawn; and I
believe that the extension and greater frequency
of steamer transit along the coasts of Arabia and
East Africa would tend greatly to check slavery,
as well as piracy, for there can be no doubt that
slavery is a congenial alternative occupation, to
which the piratical tribes turn when they find their
ancestral occupation of robbing infidel merchants
and usurers on the high seas checked by the Kaffir
men-of-war.
In the extracts from my demi-official correspond
ence with the Viceroy regarding Muscat, I have
endeavoured to confine myself to what relates to
general principles, though it is very difficult,
without reference to details and particulars, as
examples, to support the very strong view I enter
tain of the utter impossibility of working the present
system.
The circumstances are such as to require that,
whenever occasion arises for active operations, the
representative of the British Government should be
sufficiently acquainted with the past and present
history of his charge, and with the views of his
Government, to act at once, and that he should
have the means of doing what is necessary, without
loss of time. For the ordinary season for field
service, without risk to European lives, which in
India is reduced by the heat of the weather to
eight months, is in the Persian Gulf not more than
four. . ,i'