IOR/L/PS/10/33

This volume is the second of three successive volumes of correspondence (IOR/L/PS/10/32-34), relating to the British prohibition and suppression of arms traffic between ports in Aden, the Red Sea and the coast of East Africa. The volume contains copies of ‘The Somaliland Registration of Vessels Regulations, 1904’ and the ‘Aden Sea-traffic in Arms Regulation, 1902’. There is substantial correspondence about amending the 1902 regulation, together with revised drafts made in 1907 and 1908. Correspondents are officials at the Foreign Office, the India Office and the Admiralty in London and the British Ambassador at Paris, as well as officials in the Government of India Foreign and Political Department and in the Government of Bombay Political Department. Other notable correspondents are the Commander-in-Chief for the East Indies Station, the Commander and Senior Naval Officer for the Persian Gulf Division, the Senior Naval Officer for the Aden Division, the Political Resident and the First Assistant Resident at Aden, the Political Agent at Muscat and the British Commissioner for the Somaliland Protectorate. Included in the correspondence are English translations of several letters sent and received by Sultan Ahmed Fadthl, The Abdali of Yemen (also referred to as the Abdali Sultan) in 1905 and 1907, and also by Said Faisal the Sultan of Oman in 1907.

The volume contains a small amount of correspondence in French, in the form of a letter from the Italian Consul at Aden to the First Assistant Resident at Aden in 1906 and a letter from the French Consul at Muscat to the Political Agent at Muscat in 1907. The diplomatic correspondence also includes several English translations of notes from the Italian Ambassador and the Italian Chargé d’Affaires at London, to the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in 1907 and 1908.

The file includes a divider which gives the subject number, the year the subject file was opened, the subject heading, and a list of correspondence references by year. This is placed at the back of the correspondence.