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APPENDIX TO REPORT FROM SELECT COMMITTEE
Appendix, No. 2.
PAPER handed in by the Honourable C. Vivian, 20 July 1871.
Extract from Letter from Dr. Kirk to Mr. Vivian, dated 10 June 1871.
Appendix, No. 2.
I GET the oddest rumours from the native house here of Jairam Seiojee. Atone time it
is that Toorki is to be permitted to take the subsidy, and, if refused, take Zanzibar ; when,
for having been allowed to do our dirty work, he is somehow to abolish the slave trade for
nothing. Natives laugh at the idea that Bombay is likely to carry it out ; Burgash laughs,
and says that he can öfter loorki better terms. In this Burgash is quite mistaken ; we can
offer Toorki Zanzibar, and I can secure it to him if he comes with one hundred men ; but
3ve must before then have his written bond to sign our new Treaty, and, more than all,
we must have a ship of war, and on his hesitation to ratify, at once present our claims for
indemnity under the Commercial Treaty, and remove him if he then longer hesitates.
But this is a nasty roundabout and Oriental mode of dealing, and Toorki, who hates us
quite as much and loves us quite as little as Burgash or any other one of the family, would
feel that he had been made a tool of.
My idea is, we had better go boldly at it ourselves ; inform Burgash he acts in bad
faith, and that his past behaviour is not such as should induce us to spare him ; that he
simply must accede, and that when he does to the total abolition of the slave trade, we
will see that the Arabs are quiet. The same day that this is demanded it will be necessary
to follow it up by enforcing the Commercial Treaty which, duly carried out, will cut
off about two-thirds of his income.
Burgash’s fanaticism was all assumed ; his national tendencies will give way also when
he sees the choice between the Throne and bankruptcy.
I do trust that soon we may have orders to do something, for it were better to withdraw
from the struggle than carry it on as now.
There is a very false idea as to the paramount claim of Bombay to the guidance of
matters here. True, there are many Kutchees here, but Kutchees at best are not
British Indians, and I ])resume, under the new Naturalization Acts, that even British Indians
may become Arabs when they please. We hold fully two-thirds of our nominal subjects
here against their will ; that is under our jurisdiction, but not under our protection, for
they refuse to register. This state of things cannot long continue, for Indians get on
so much better here than at home, that none of the Mussulman sects return to their land.
Their children, when over 21, even now become Arabs. To the wealthy man, British
protection is a thing worth having, but to poor men the Arab regime is better. If,
therefore, the Naturalization Acts apply here to Indian and Kutchees, our Bombay interest
here is not much, and even now it seems that it is but matter of detail, not of policy, it
is a branch that had better be done by a junior officer, and a glance at past history for
10 years will satisfy anyone that England’s policy with the Zanzibar state must all
emanate direct from home.
Every year other nations are gaining greater interests here, and soon, whatever is done
will be closely criticised by Germany and the States, with which Zanzibar is as closely
related by treaty as with us.
Excuse this long letter, but my wish is, if possible, to urge the necessity of immediate
action ; we cannot afford to delay.
