Page 143 - Historical Summaries (Persian Gulf) 1907-1953

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station was to bo subject to an agreement
between Turkey and Persia. The Indian
authorities objected to the proposed station at
Ormuz on political grounds, bolding that it
would give tho maritime control of the Persian
Gulf to Turkey, and might become a means of
harassing British shipping. Tho proposals were,
however, accepted by the British Government,
and Persia also ratified tho Convention, subject to
the reservation that tho station at tho entrance
of the Gulf should ho under the Persian flag and
should have Persian guards. The provisions of
the Venice Convention, in so far as they relate
to the Persian Gulf, have remained, like those of
the 1891> Convention, a dead letter. No lazaret
was established at the entrance of the Gulf, and
the Bussorah lazarot remained, to quote the
words of Dr. Clomow, “ the sole and very
imperfect quarantine station in those regions.”
The Paris Sanitary Convention of 1903, which
was ratified iu April 3907, provides for the
Bussorah station as before, and for a sanitary
station at Ormuz, both to bo under the control
of the Constantinople Board of Health. The
Convention was signed by the British Delegates,
subject to reservations which, it was hoped,
would result in the abandonment of the Ormuz
scheme. Theso reservations were (1) that the
establishment of tho Ormuz station should bo
deferred until the Board of Health had been
reformed in the manner provided by the Con­
vention ; (2) that nothing should be done to
carry out the schemo until the Mixed Com­
mission, on which we, with other European
Powers are represented, should have unanimously
voted the necessary funds. Doubts were at the
6ame time expressed by His Majesty’s Govern­
ment, through the British Delogates, as to the
necessity for a station near the entrance of the
Gulf, which was not proved by the experience
of recent years, and as to the suitability of
Ormuz, with its unhealthy climate, as a site for
the purpose proposed.
The Persian Government made a further pro­
posal. in ti.c form of a Declaration Additionnelle
to the Paris Convention, that the station at the
mouth of tho Gulf should l»c controlled by Persia,
and should bo placed on the Island of Henjara
a
instead of Ormuz.
1 In this connection Dr. Faivro was sent by the
d
French Government in tho early part of 1905 to