IOR/L/PS/10/115/1

The correspondence, which is primarily between the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf (Percy Zachariah Cox), the Foreign Secretary to the Government of India (Spencer Harcourt Butler), the Naval Commander-in-Chief of the East Indies Station (Edmond John Warre Slade), and representatives of the India Office and the Foreign Office, discusses efforts to cease the trafficking of arms in the Persian Gulf.

Two matters in particular are discussed:

• the rights of British vessels to search other vessels within the territorial waters of the Trucial Chiefs. Questions discussed include whether the Trucial Chiefs' commitment to end illegal arms trafficking in 1902 extended to the British Government, and whether the existing permissions given by Trucial Chiefs to the British Government to patrol territorial waters would permit them to stop and search vessels;
• The position of Katr [Qatar] and a possible agreement between the British Government and the Chiefs of Katr, particularly the Bin Thani [Āl Thānī] family, to make the trafficking of arms illegal in Katr.