IOR/L/PS/12/2880

The file contains papers, mainly correspondence and India Office Minute Papers, relating to the Shaikh of Koweit’s [Kuwait’s] date gardens at Fao [Al-Faw] in Iraq. It includes correspondence concerning:

• Unrest among the fellaheen [agricultural labourers or peasants] on the Fao estates in 1933, with the fellaheen refusing to pay rent and reported to be committing acts of sabotage and intimidation, claiming that they are the owners of the soil and that the Iraqi Government would make them proprietors in place of the Sheikh of Koweit.
• The role of the Mutasarrif of Basra in the unrest.
• HMG’s representations to the Government of Iraq to take action to stop the unrest amongst the fellaheen.
• Legal issues preventing the Shaikh of Koweit from proceeding with law suits in the Iraqi courts against certain of the fellaheen at Fao, relating to the refusal of the Iraqi Ministry of Justice to confirm the Shaikh’s Power of Attorney to his agent.
• Trees of the date gardens at Fao being cut down in the Spring of 1938 by the local Iraqi authorities to clear the ground for a road, and the question of the Shaikh of Koweit obtaining compensation.

The correspondence mostly consists of correspondence between the India Office and the Foreign Office, correspondence between the India Office and the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf, and copy correspondence sent to the India Office by the Foreign Office and the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf. The main correspondents in the copy correspondence are as follows: the Foreign Office; the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf; HM Ambassador, Baghdad; HM Representative, Baghdad; the Political Agent, Kuwait; the Iraqi Ministry for Foreign Affairs; and Shaikh Sir Ahmed Al-Jabir As-Subah, Shaikh of Koweit.

The file includes a divider, which gives a list of correspondence references contained in the file by year. This is placed at the back of the correspondence.