File 339/1905 ‘Koweit: - Political Agency. Expenditure. Steam Launch’ [‎144r] (292/368)

[Copy of Government of India despatch of 5th January 1905, amended
m accordance with Government <f India Despatches Nos. 16If. and
165 (General), dated the ftlfth August 1905.]
No. 2 of 1905.
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA.
FOREIGN DEPARTMENT.
GENERAL.
To
The Right Hon’ble St. JOHN RRODRICK,
Bis Majesty's Secretary of State for India.
Dated Fort William, the 5th June 1905.
Sib,
In the eleventh paragraph of our despatch, No. 224 Frontier, dated
25th July 1901, we promised Lord George Hamilton that we would shortly
present to him proposals for reorganising our Political Lepartment, so as to
include the appointments and service which are required for the North-West
Frontier Province, and to place the Department 'generally upon a sounder
footing.^ The subject had been even then under our consideration for some
time, since it had become evident that the service, which is constituted on the
basis of the proposals which were submitted in,the despatch from Lord Elgin’s
Government, No. 156, dated 14th November 1897, was not sufficiently strong
to meet the demands upon it. The ever-increasing improvement and specialisa
tion in the system of administration of the Native States in India necessitate
the employment of a larger number of more highly trained officers to exercise
the necessary political control over them. Further, if the internal administra
tion of the North-West Frontier Region of British India bordering Afghanistan. Province is to be maintained on its former
lines of efficiency, the services of expert officers must be secured, and such
officers are also required to ensure the full development of the tracts in
Baluchistan and elsewhere that have come under our direct control.
At the same time the introduction of Consular Officers trained in the
diplomatic service of Foreign Powers into those tracts in Persia and in the
Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. where our Political Officers formerly worked alone has rendered
it necessary for us to select our Consular and Political Agents with special care
in order to ensure that they possess proper qualifications for their delicate and
important duties.
All of these considerations have led us to the conclusion that a radical
reform in the conditions of our Political Department was inevitable.
2. The desirability of a reorganisation of the Department has been greatly
emphasised in recent years by the facts that the number of the appointments
which have to be filled from its ranks has increased, and that there has for some
years been an increasing difficulty in attracting to the lower grades members of