Page 90 - Gulf Precis(VIII)_Neat

PART IV—CHAPTER XVI.
70
cost of maintaining the telegraph line to be about Rs. 18,000 a year, as
follows:—
Rs.
For 240 miles under the Jam of Beyla • •• • •• 10,000
For 120 miles under the Naib of Kcdgi 5.000
For 50 miles of the Gwadur territory under the Maskat ... 2.000
For the short distance belonging to the Khan of Khelat 1.000
beyond Gwadur.
Total 18,000
For this subsidy he stated the Khan of Khelat would undertake to afford
protection to the employes of the Telegraph Department, to give the necessary
land for offices, residences, etc., and to provide a suitable patrol for the line.
Mr. Walton, of the Indian Telegraphic Department, had been deputed to
Bombay in October 1861 in connection with the proposed telegraph. As there
was little to occupy him in Bombay, Government instructed* him to proceed
with the Major Green to Maskat in
• Government letter No. 265, dated the 17th
January 1862. January, and assist those officers in
enquiiies which they proposed to make as
regards an alternative line of telegraph along the south-western shores of the
Persian Gulf to a point opposite to Gwadur.
In issuing these instructions, the Bombay Government anticipated the
views of the Government of India,f who
f Colonel Durand's Despatch No. 236, dated the
nth March 1862. had, in consequence of the unsatisfactory
state of negotiations with Persia, arising-
out of her pretensions to sovereignty on the Mekran Coast, arranged to depute
Major Patrick Stewart, of the Telegraphic Department, to examine the Arabian
shores of the Persian Gulf, and, after communication with Mr. Allison at Teheran
to report on the feasibility of an alternative line, which would render the British
Government independent of Persia.
On the 18th MarchJ 1862 Major Malcolm Green reported on the feasibility
of such an alternative line, and in forward­
$ Letter to Government, No. 5 of 1862.
ing a copy of his communication on the
subject to the Government of India, the Bombay Government expressed its
opinion in favour of the conclusion arrived at by Major Green, of the facility of
completing telegraphic communication between England and India, without
encroaching on Persian soil.
The Commissioner in Sind reported, on the 26th February§ 1862, the
arrival of the Jane Blyth at Karachi
with stores for the Mekran telegraph.
March 1862. and, m reply to an intimation made to the
Government of India on the subject, satic-
tion || was conveyed for the commencement of the line from Karachi to Gwadur, In
pursuance of these instructions, Mr. Walton was directed to proceed to
^Letter to th« Commissioner, No. 1575, dated tho Karachi, and place himself under the orders
7th March 1862. of the Commissioner in Sind,IT the details
of the undertaking being left to that
officer.
These arrangements and others necessary for entering upon the construction
of the line were reported to the Government

June 1862.
services would be held as at the disposal of
the Governmemt of India in the Foreign Department, under the same authority
which controlled the operations of Lieutenant-Colonel Stewart, and that “ until
the question of the best line to be adopted beyond Gwadur is settled, and
Lieutenant-Colonel Stewart is set free from the preliminary enquiry in which he
is at present engaged, all arrangements must be regarded as temporary, and
open to future revision.11