Page 348 - Gulf Precis(VIII)_Neat

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beyond India. The position was thus established that Persia is emphatically
an Imperial interest of Great Britain, and that the latter should be . prepared
to exert her full strength for the defence of that interest. . There was no desire
to add to the political or territorial responsibilities of India or to disturb the
status quo in Persia; for the present, our objects were merely to secure the
interests already built up.
136. The despatch then proceeded to draw a picture of the present state of
British interests and to examine the dangers by which they are threatened. It
pointed out that the political destinies of Persia are determined by her geogra­
phical position in relation to her neighbours, and while there is a curious
correspondence, there are also notable differences betweeq the positions of
Russia and Great Britain vis-a-vis with Persia, which must give Russia in the
north a power of persuasion and menace greater than that possessed by Great
Britain m the south. It is not surprising, therefore, that the supremacy of
Russia in the north should be increasing, and it follows that though we should
try to preserve what remains of our trade in Northern Persia and to assert
British influence in Tehran as much as possible, our energies will be best directed
to the preservation of our interests in the centre and south.
137. The despatch then defined the dc facto and de jure position in the
Persian Gulf to be as follows :—
The de jure position in the Persian Gulf is that of a sea open to the flag of all nations,
the northern shores and territorial waters of which are included in the dominions of Persia
while its western and southern coasts are partially owned and partially claimed by Turkey,
or are in the occupation of Arab tribes, who have entered into treaty relationship of varying
character, constituting a sort of veiled Protectorate, with Great Britain. The islands in
the Gulf are owned either by Persia, or by Arab Chiefs (in the case of Bahrein under British
protection)* but upon one of the Persian Islands, vis., Kishm, Great Britain possesses a
piece of land by virtue of an original grant from the Imam of Maskat, to which the island
once belonged. Outside the entrance to the Persian Gulf, but included in the same politi­
cal system, are, on the northern shore of the Arabian Sea,!the coasts of Persian Baluchistan,
along which the overland wires of the Indo-European Telegraph Company run as far as Jask
where a reserve of English territory exists under an agreement concluded in 1887 between
the British and Persian Governments, where a detachment of Indian Troops, who had
previously been stationed therebetween the years 1879 and 1887, was replaced in January
1898, in -consequence of a murder of a British telegraph official and the disturbed state of
Persian Baluchistan. A larger detachment was at the same time .despatched to Charbar,
near the'eastern limits ol the same province. On the southern and western coasts is the
still independent kingdom or Sultanate of Oman (Maskat).
The dejacto position upon the waters and on the shores of the Persian Gulf reflects a
more positive British predominance than the preceding paragraph might indicate. In the
early years of the present century, the slave trade was rampant in the Gulf, and the vessels of
the Indian Marine were engaged in a long and arduous struggle with the Arab pirates who
infested its southern coasts. This conflct which was conducted entirely by British Agency
and means, without any help from the Persian Government, resulted in the establishment of
treaty relations with the great majority of the Arab Chiefs, under which they bound them­
selves to observe perpetual peace and to refer all disputes to the British Resident at
Bushire. The pax Britannica, which has ever since, with rare exceptions, been main­
tained, is the issue of these arrangements and is the exclusive work of this country. Of
similar origin were the soundings of the channels and the surveys of the shores of the
Persian Gulf, which the navigators of all nations owe to the labours of a long line of naval
officers of the Indian service. Meanwhile, British trade has acquired almost a monopoly of
the foreign commerce of the Gulf ports. Indian Bunias from Shikarpur and other parts of
Sind have settled in considerable numbers at Linga, Bandar Abbas, Bushire and Bahrein.
They frequently form the customs. The foreign imports and exports pass through their
hands. These are for the most part conveyed to and from the Gulf in British ships, more
than one Anglo-Indian Company (the British India, the Bombay and Persia, and the ‘Anglo-
Arabian and Persian Gulf') having maintained for years a merchant steamer service
between Karachi and Basra, touching at the Gulf ports on the way, whilst the rival ventures
that have occasionally been attempted by foreign nations have uniformly failed and have been
withdrawn.
As the result of careful calculations of the trade returns of the three years, i895*96“97»
which are the latest at our disposal, we have ascertained that the total value of imports and
exports in the Persian Gulf (including the Persian ports of Bandar Abbas, Linga, Bushire

* The line from Tehran to Meshed is al*o under tho management of the Indo-Kuropean Telegraph Depart­
ment, which in 1904 was constructing the alternative trunkline from Tehran, vid' Y«*d, Kerman and Bam to the
Iodise frpntier, to be referred to below,