ملاحظات أُعدت كمرجع خلال جولة كرزون في الخليج الفارسي، وأوراق أخرى عن بلاد فارس والخليج الفارسي [و‎‎١‎٩‎٦] (٦٧٨/٣٩١)

4
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^This Docmnent is the Property of His Britannic Majesty’s Government.]
KOWEIT.
[March 21.]
CONFIDENTIAL.
Section 1.
No. 1.
Memorandum by the Marquess of Lansdowne.
THE situation at Koweit is becoming more and more embarrassing, and the time
has come for looking it in the face.
We have saddled ourselves with an impossible client in the person of the Sheikh.
He is apparently an untrustworthy savage, no one knows where his possessions begin
and end, and our obligations towards him are as ill-defined as the boundaries of his
Principality. We have distinctly announced that he does not enjoy British “ protec
tion; ” on the other hand, we once made him a present of 1,(00/., and promised him
our <c good offices,” whatever that may mean. When we made this promise we were,
I feel no doubt, thinking of Koweit proper, if there is such a thing, and not of
Boobyan or other outskirts over which the Shiekh has rights of one sort or another.
We have up to the present sheltered ourselves not unsuccessfully, during our discus
sion with the Turks on the one side and foreign Governments on the other, behind the
plausible announcement that we desired to maintain the status quo in regard to Koweit.
But I doubt whether any one really knows what the status quo is. We have, at any
rate in my opinion, no right to tell the Turks that they may not move troops for the
purpose of putting down a rebellion in the Nejd region, or that they must not look
out for a suitable terminus of the Baghdad Bailway for fear of disturbing the
status quo.
If matters are left as they are, we shall involve ourselves in a very unsatisfactory
dispute. And we shall, as Admiral Bosanquet has lately pointed out, be obliged to
keep the squadron on sentry go at the head of the gulf in order to maintain the
peace.
We might, it seems to me, to explain (1) to the Porte (2) to the Shiekh and (3)
to the foreign Powers immediately interested the objects of our policy.
I should be inclined to say that our engagements to Koweit do not extend beyond
the district adjoining or close to the bay of that name, and to endeavour to obtain the
adhesion of the Porte and of the Sheikh to an approximate definition of that district.
It may be necessary to reconcile the Shiekh by the payment of another 1,000/., or of
an even larger sum.
I would make it clear to the Turks that we do not want to stand in the way of
an arrangement under which the terminus of the line might be placed at some spot
other than Koweit to their advantage if they can make anything out of it.
As to the foreign Powers, I have already explained to most of them that we are
not going to oppose the Bailway project, provided British capital receives a share at
least equal to that of any other Power in respect of construction, management, and
orders for materials, and I have added that while we do not grudge a debouche for
international commerce in the Gulf, and have no wish to make it into a British lake,
we shall resist to the utmost all attempts by other Powers to obtain a foothold on its
shores for naval or military purposes.
This, I take it, is the “ bed rock ” of our policy in the Gulf, and we shall pursue
that policy ; not in virtue of ambiguous understandings with local Chiefs, but as the
predominant Power in Southern Persia and in the Gulf : the Power whose commercial
interests in those regions far exceed those of other Powers, the Power, to whose
efforts in the past it is due that the waters of the Gulf are open to the trade of the
w r orld, and whose duty it will be in the future to protect the new trade route. If it is
understood that we have to be reckoned with, whoever builds the railway, and where*
ever it finds a terminus, because we are that Power, we can regard with indifference
the local intrigues of any number of Sheikhs and Emirs.
Vide draft telegram herewith for your concurrence.
(Signed) LANSDOWNE.
Foreign Office, March 21, 1902.
[1910 a?—]]