File 3874/1908 'Railways:-Trans-Persian Railway.' [‎43r] (87/536)

India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. ,
io (q(i
Sir,
I am directed by the Secretary of State for India to acknowledge the
receipt of your letter, marked confidential, of the 20th instant, regarding the
proposed Trans-Persian Railway, and to forward, for the information of the
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, copy of a letter, No. 18, Secret, dated
23rd February 1911, and enclosures, that has been received from the
Government of India on the same subject.
The communication from the Russian promoters appears to add nothing
to the information conveyed in Sir G. Buchanan’s Despatch No.. 29 of 31st
January last, except the fact that they seem to think themselves justified by
the attitude of the Russian Government in proceeding with the scheme.
That attitude is described by the Russian Government themselves as
follows
“ The council was generally favourable to the proposal brought forward
by the promoters of the enterprise that a special commission
(‘ societe d’etudes ’) should be instituted for a preliminary study of
the question, on the understanding, however, that the realisation of
the scheme shall not involve loss to the Russian Treasury or damage
the economic interests of Russia.
“ The decision of the Council of Ministers on this subject will take
final shape as soon as the Ministries interested have arrived at an
agreement.”
3, And it has been added in conversation that the only financial support that
the enterprise would receive from the Russian Government would be a
certain share in any surplus profits that might accrue to the State railways
from increased receipts due to the transit traffic in goods and passengers
through Russia. Sir E. Grey expresses the hope that it may be possible for
His Majesty’s Government to adopt an attitude towards the scheme not less
favourable than that of the Russian Government.
It will be seen from the Government of India’s letter and the papers
enclosed therein that from the point of view of through traffic, whether of
goods or passengers, a Trans-Persian railway such as that proposed is
thought to have no prospects of financial success, and, furth er, that India
can_ hope to derive from the development of local traffic no commercial
advantage at all commensurate with that which Russia may expect. If this
view is sound—and I am to say that Viscount Morley concurs generally in it
—the question arises Why should India sacrifice all the strategical advan
tages of her geographical isolation in order to encourage a scheme which,
whatever prospect of profit it may offer to her commercial rival, offers none
to herself ?
An indirect answer may perhaps be given to this question. It may be
pointed out that with the advent of other Powers in Persia, seeking spheres
of commercial if not of political expansion, the geographical isolation of India,
is necessarily doomed, and that it behoves those who are responsible for her
interests to be foremost in the race for concessions, so as to ensure that such
at least as may be strategically and politically essential to her security shall
be in her own hands. One or more of these concessions would be for
railway lines which, though their immediate purpose would be different,
might, without disadvantage, form connecting links in a Trans-Persian
railway.
(\Lord Morley thinks that this is, on the whole, a reasonable answer. But
certain corollaries appear to follow from it:—
(1.) Whatever the alignment of the rest of the line, it is essential that f
that part of it which will be in the British sphere shall be determined
solely with a view to Indian interests. The line must therefore, in
Lord Morley’s opinion, enter the British sphere at Bunder Abbas,
and not at Kerman, and run along the coast to Karachi; and there
must be a break of gauge at Bunder Abbas.
f
/cf.
S. 62.