IOR/L/PS/12/1450

The file contains papers regarding proposals to alter the basis of treaty relationships with tribes in the Aden Protectorate, comprising annotated treaty drafts, plus correspondence between the Foreign Office, the Colonial Office, the India Office Political Department, the Aden Resident (later Chief Commissioner, then Governor), and the Air Ministry.

The correspondence primarily concerns a proposal by the Resident (Sir Stewart Symes) to replace existing individual tribal treaties with a single instrument, and to cease payments of fixed stipends for general service in favour of payments for services rendered. The proposed change in policy was later abandoned by the Chief Commissioner, Sir Bernard Reilly.

The correspondence also concerns Symes's conference at Lahej, and the pact with the Lahej and other Chiefs to defend against Yemeni incursion into the Aden Protectorate; the deteriorating relationship between the Aden Protectorate and the Imam of San'a; and the suggestion by the Resident that a Chiefs' council should be established along the lines of the tribal councils in Baluchistan, to act as the central authority for the settlement of tribal affairs.

The papers dated 1939 concern the Tripartite Agreement with the Qu'ayti [Qu'ayṭī] and Kathiri Sultans in the Aden Protectorate; the treaty between the British Government and Sultan Salih bin Ghalib Al Qu'ayti [Ṣāliḥ bin Ghālib Al Qu'ayṭī], Sultan of Shihr and Mukalla; and the reconstituted Qu'ayti-Kathari Agreement of 1918.

A copy of the Report by Sir Gilbert Clayton on his Mission to the Imam of San'a (Colonial Office, 1926) is enclosed at folios 156-187.

The following treaty and agreement drafts are found within the file:

• the agreement [the Lahej Pact] between the Chiefs of tribes and districts within the Aden Protectorate made 6 April 1929 in the presence of the Resident and Commander-in-Chief, ff 119-120;
• a draft treaty between the Chiefs of Upper Yafa and His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, agreeing to adhere to the purposes of the Lahej Pact of 6 April 1929, ff 84-85, 64-65, and 46;
• a draft agreement reconstituting the Qu'ayti-Kathiri Agreement of 1918, between His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, His Highness the Qu'ayti Sultan of Shihr and Mukalla, and the Kathiri Sultan of Seiyun, on behalf of the Sultans of the Family of 'Abdulla al Kathiri, dated 26 February 1939, ff 19-23;
• a draft treaty between His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, and Sultan Ja'far bin Mansur al Kathiri, Sultan of Seiyun, dated 2 March 1939, ff 17-18;
• a draft treaty between His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, and Sultan Salih bin Ghalib al Qu'ayti, Sultan of Shihr and Mukalla, dated 13 August 1937, ff 3-6.

The file includes a divider which gives a list of correspondence references contained in the file by year. This is placed at the end of the correspondence (folio one).