File 815/1917 Pt 7 'Persian Gulf:- Lighting and Buoying. Lighthouse Tender, and Despatch Vessel.' [‎280r] (260/567)

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. , London
17th June 1926.
Political,
No. 1.
To His Excellency the Right Honourable the Governor
General of India in Council.
My
Lord,
In their
Cost of mauitainivg a despatch
vessel in the Persian (Julf for use
of the Political Resident A senior ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul General) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Residency. .
Marine Department Despatch No. 3, of the 29th .lanuaiy
1914, Lord Hardinge’s Government, in
supporting the proposal of the Political
Resident in the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. that a new
and faster ship should be put at his
disposal in replacement of the existing despatch vessel, recommended that the
cost, initial and recurring, should be shared in moieties by the Home
Government as “ in the exactly j^arallel case of the lightingand buoying of the
Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. ,” a service at that date regarded as largely of political significance.
This view was urged upon the Foreign Office and Treasury, with the additional
argument that the despatch vessel was an integral part of the establishment
of the Political Resident A senior ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul General) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Residency. and Consul-General at Bushire, the whole cost of
which, apart from the despatch vessel, had been shared, since the date of the
Welby Commission, by the Home and Indian Governments in accordance with
the arrangement in regard to political charges generally in Persia. The Home
Government offered a strong resistance to the suggestion that Imperial
revenues should henceforth share the burden of an expenditure which they
had so far escaped, and, the war with Germany having broken out before this
resistance could be overcome, the question was left in abeyance for the time
being.
2. Jn the meantime an order was placed with Messrs. Beardmore for a new
despatch vessel, at a tender price of £69,500. In the event, the vessel, which
was not delivered in India till 1920, cost over £172,000 before she was put
into commission ; and by that time the recurrent expenditure on a vessel of
her size had increased also very considerably as a result of post-war rises in
the price of fuel, stores, &c., and of improvements in the pay of the Loyal
Indian Marine. It appears very doubtful whether, if the great excess over the
original estimates of initial and recurrent cost of the vessel could have been
foreseen, the Government of India would have recommended or the Secretary
of State in Council would have sanctioned so large an expenditure.
3. However that may be, the attempt was resumed in 1921 to induce the
Home Government to share the cost of building and maintaining the new
Lawrence, as the despatch vessel in the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. was now named. Copies
of the ensuing correspondence have been supplied to the Marine and Foreign
Departments of Your Excellency’s Government, and it will suffice here to say
that by October 1922 a definite impasse was reached, the Treasury taking the
line that ‘‘ the standing arrangement regulating the incidence of expenditure
in the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. does not include any obligation on the part of His Majesty’s
Government to bear a moiety of expenditure which they do not approve.”
4. Ihe position from which the Secretary of State for India had hitherto
maintained the contention that a despatch vessel, constantly at the sole
disposal of the Political Resident A senior ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul General) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Residency. in the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , was an essential part
of the establishment necessary for the execution of his political duties, and
therefore constituted an item of expenditure divisible between the Indian
and Imperial Exchequers, was somewhat weakened when in 1923, in pursuance
of a recommendation of the Committee on Indian Retrenchment under Lord
Inchcape’s presidency The name given to each of the three divisions of the territory of the East India Company, and later the British Raj, on the Indian subcontinent. , the Government of India decided in the interests of
economy to make one vessel perform the work on which previously two had
been employed, and fitted out the despatch vessel, the Lawrence, to execute.