IOR/R/15/1/381

File marked 'Confidential'. The file relates to the possible transfer of jurisdiction over Gwadar (which appears throughout in the form 'Gwadur') to Kalat State. The file includes a letter from Colonel Poulton, Ziarat, to Hugh Weightman, Secretary to the Government of India, External Affairs Department, New Delhi, dated 18 September 1946, summarising the reasons in favour of the cession of Gwadar to Kalat. A further letter from the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf (Lieutenant Colonel William Rupert Hay), Bahrain, to Weightman, dated 1 February 1947, while stating that the retention by the Sultan of Muscat (Said bin Taimur) of Gwadar was 'somewhat of an anachronism', contains a warning that the Sultan was the sort of monarch who ‘usually clings to every inch of his territory’, and so would, in the opinion of the Resident, be unlikely to consider disposing of Gwadar, unless the Sultan’s own proposal of 1939 were to be revived and he were to be offered funds in return. The file also contains a response to this letter from the Government of India dated 18 April 1947, stating that the Government had no intention of engaging in negotiations on matters on which there seemed little prospect of a successful outcome within the limited time of [the granting of self-government to India] of 20 February 1947.