IOR/L/PS/10/1276

This volume contains papers relating to British policy in Muscat. It includes some papers regarding the situation at Sur; however most of the volume concerns the financial situation of the Muscat state, mainly the proposal to increase state revenues by removing the limitation on the power of the Sultan of Muscat and Oman to impose customs duties in excess of five per cent.

It includes papers concerning the British Government asking the governments of the United States of America and France to agree to the modification of Article 3 of the Commercial Treaty between Muscat and the United States of 1833, and Article 10 of the Treaty between Muscat and France of 1844, respectively, which prevented the Sultan from levying import duties in excess of five per cent, in order to enable the general tariff and the tariff on alcohol and cigarettes to be increased.

The volume also includes papers regarding the question of the revision of the tariff provisions of the Commercial Treaty of 1891 between Muscat and the United Kingdom, which also precluded the Muscat Government from imposing import or export duties higher than five per cent.

In addition, the volume includes papers relating to the eventual proposal to abandon attempts to secure a modification of the Muscat Commercial Treaties with France and the USA, and instead to raise the tariff rate against all goods other than those carried in French and American vessels and those covered by the Commercial Declaration between Muscat and the Netherlands of 1877. This was due to the United States Government only being willing to consider the modification of the 1833 Treaty with Muscat on the basis of the accord of most favoured nation treatment to US nationals as well as US goods, which the Muscat Council had raised objections to, and which the India Office considered unacceptable.

The papers consist of correspondence, draft treaty articles, India Office Political and Secret Department minute papers, reports, memoranda, and copies of the Maskat [Muscat] Order in Council, 1915 and the Maskat (Amendment) Order in Council, 1922.

The main correspondents are as follows: the India Office; the Government of India Foreign and Political Department; the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf; the Foreign Office; the British Embassy, Washington; and the British Embassy, Paris.

The volume also includes: letters from the Sultan of Muscat and Oman to the Political Agent at Muscat, dated 9 March 1930, and to the Officiating Political Resident at Bushire, dated 25 August 1931, which are in Arabic with English translations; and letters in French from the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs to the British Ambassador to France, dated 15 October 1930 and 29 September 1931.

The volume 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.