'Memorandum No 1. Zanzibar Agency and Consulate Expenses' [‎90v] (8/10)

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If the amount be reckoned in Crowns, at the rate
of 40,000 crowns = 8,500*., the charge on the
Imperial Treasury will be somewhat greater, viz.,
25,500*. But the account appears in Rupees Indian silver coin also widely used in the Persian Gulf. m
Indian books, and should therefore, I think, be so
passed on to the Foreign Office.
Expenses of the Agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. and Consulate General at
Zanzibar.
The origin of this branch of our claim is fully
explained in the memorandum prepared by Mr.
Wollaston in December 1874 whiqh is in the hands
of the Committee, and need not be recapitulated.
I understand that the principle of the Imperial
liability, which has never been disputed by the
Foreign Office, is now at last admitted even by the
Treasury, and that the points which the Committee
has to consider are, (1), the date from which the
Imperial liability should commence, and (2), certain
points of detail in regard to the cost of the existing
establishment.
In reference to the first point, we have always
claimed to be relieved of one half of the Zanzibar
expenses from the date on which the Departmental
Committee of 1869, composed of representatives of
this Office, the Foreign and Colonial Offices, the
Admiralty, and the Treasury, reported that it would
be an equitable arrangement that the charges of
the Agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. and its dependencies should be equally
shared between the Imperial and Indian exchequers.
This date was the 24th January 1870.
The Foreign Office, I believe, while admitting
our moral claim to be relieved from that date,
have suggested that, inasmuch as the Treasury
have persistently refused to admit any Imperial
liability on this account, our claim cannot be
substantiated, and that the earliest date from
which such liability need now be admitted is No
vember 1872, when it was formally recognized that
the maintenance of the Zanzibar establishment
would be essential for the carrying out of the
measures for the suppression of the Slave trade
which Sir B. Frere was commissioned to initiate.
That is to say, now that the principle of our claim
can no longer be disputed, and the long delayed
day of reckoning has come, we are to be fined
something like 8,000*. as a penalty for a delay for
which the other party to the dispute was alone
responsible. It should be borne in mind that our
right does not rest merely on the Report of the
Committee of 1869, but upon the Report of a Select
Committee of the House of Commons, dated 4th
August 1871, long prior to Sir B. Frere's mission.
It may be further observed that the duties of the
Zanzibar establishment in connection with the Slave
trade may be presumed to have been not less onerous
between 1870 and 1873, when the traffic was in
full blast, than they have been since that date and
the suppression of the trade. On this point, Lord
Granville's Letter to the Treasury dated 29th Au just