IOR/R/15/1/450

The volume contains correspondence and other papers relating to the financial affairs of the Muscat State Government, including quarterly submissions of statements of revenue and expenditure, progress of loans and debt, and the cash balance of the Muscat treasury, for the period between July 1933 and July 1934. The chief correspondents in the file are Lieutenant-Colonel Trenchard Fowle, Political Resident in the Persian Gulf, and Major Claude Edward Bremner, Political Agent in Muscat.

The volume contains papers relating to the following topics:

• An investment of £3,000 made by the Muscat State Government’s Financial Adviser, Captain Reginald Alban, in Newfoundland Government stock. News of the bankruptcy of the Newfoundland Government, as reported in The Times (a press cutting of which is included in the volume, folio 18) led to British representatives in the Gulf seeking assurances of the security of the investment from Alban, who had by now resigned his post, and to the indignation of the Sultan of Muscat, Said Said bin Taimur [Sa‘īd ibn Taymūr] who had not been consulted by Alban over the investment;
• Repeated complaints and petitions made by the Sultan of Muscat’s brother, Nadir bin Faisal bin Turki [Nādir bin Fayṣal bin Turkī] to the Political Resident, over a reduction in his monthly salary from the Muscat State Government, which he claimed broke the terms of an agreement made between himself and the Sultan. The Resident ruled that the complaint was a private affair, and not one demanding British intervention;
• A report on the Muscat State financial year for 1933, with budget estimates for 1934 (folios 39-99);
• A revised budget, submitted by the Sultan of Muscat, in the absence of an appointed Financial Adviser, following Alban’s departure and subsequent resignation (folios 170-190).