File 948/1909 'Persia: Situation in the South; Condition of the Roads. Attack on Mr Bill. Road Guard Scheme.' [‎327v] (659/744)

case to hold up caravans till, under the orders of the inspector, a sufficient furce has
-been assembled to drive off the anticipated raiders.
The obstacles in the way consist of (a) the local khans and (b) the nomads.
Of these, the former are important factors at the southern end of the road, from
Bushire to Kazeroon, the latter, slightly overlapping, from Konartakhteh to Ispaha^
The former would be strongly opposed to the new force, less on account of its inter
ference with direct depredation than on account of its prohibition of the innumerable
illegal exactions which they now levy upon the trade. The success of the scheme
would, in fact, effect an enormous reduction in the income of each of the chiefs. The
principal men concerned are the Khans of Chahkutah and Angali in the maritime
plain, the Zabit of Borasjoon, Nur Muhammad Beg of Daliki, and Haider Khan of
Kamarij. They are, however, far too deeply divided by intestine quarrels to unite
even against a common menace of this character. The nomad chiefs, on the other
hand, would be less fundamentally affected, as the new force would merely prevent
their followers from using the telegraph insulators as targets, and would stop the
direct robberies, which do not form an essential source of any chiefs income, though
no doubt the percentage of stolen property which falls to the chiefs lot is an attractive
windfall. They would, however, have a natural objection to anything smacking of law
and order.
By far the most effective method of dealing with these gentry would of course be
the employment of military force adequate not only to provide the every-day police of
the road, but also to punish by its own strength any village or tribe infringing the
<c Pax Perso-Britannica ” which it is intended to establish. Such a force does not exist
in Pars, and there are no signs that it is to be found anywhere in Persia. If it is to be
employed it must come from outside, i.e., from India.
It cannot be too emphatically stated that, for the immediate object in view, the
direct employment of British troops is in every way preferable. It would cut at the
root of the evil of which the present scheme does not pretend to be more than a
palliative. It is only if the employment of British troops is judged impracticable
for political reasons that the scheme set out below is worthy of examination as a pis
aller.
It results from the above that the proposed force is not a military, nor even a
military police, force. _ It will confine its operations strictly to the actual route which
it has to guard, and its numbers are as insufficient as its organisation is unsuited for
anything in the nature of a punitive expedition, even on the most modest scale. All
that it could do would be to force marauders to work on such a scale as to make the
responsibility of the chiefs concerned not only clear but conspicuous, and it would then
be for the Persian Government to deal with them as best it could.
It is obvious that the weak point of the scheme lies just here. At the present
moment the Khamsah tribes, under the nominal control of Kawam-ul-Mulk, are
absolutely out of hand, and obey no one at all but their own headmen, and’that
imperfectly. The Kashgai for the moment yield a fairly general obedience to Soulet-
ed-Dowleh, but he has many enemies, both within the tribe and at Tehran, and the
appointment of his brother, Zeigham-ed-Dowleh, would suffice to break up the tribe
into sections and reduce them to the same condition of lawlessness as the Khamsah.
i 6 ^ ave obeyed and will obey no one at all, not even their own chiefs.
Anc t re village chiefs of the south habitually treat the Pars Government with open
contempt. r
\ Under these circumstances, little support can be looked for from the Persian
Government just where it is most needed, namely, to prevent concerted action against
the new force, which, if undertaken by any considerable khan or tribe, would be quite
irresistible by the force as provided in the scheme.
There is only one remedy for this difficulty, and it is one which may perhaps be
considered to go far to diminish the political advantage of the scheme over the direct
em Ji, °y ine ] n ^ 0 0 ice. Tliat remedy is for the local British consular authorities to be
aut orised to explain verbally to the chiefs concerned that the British Government
means to see this road put in order, that the new scheme is an attempt to do this by
^ eisian a g enc y> which it is to the interest of the local chiefs to favour, but that
! ^ 'g em ? 18 brought to nothing by the incorrigible misbehaviour of the inhabitants
it will be replaced by a British force capable of enforcing the maintenance of order by
punitive expeditions and arrest and punishment of the guilty parties.
T ,. eie is a certain temptation to propose a system of allowances as practised on the
n lan frontier, but I am strongly of opinion "tFiat such a proposal is to be deprecated.
I he Persian is not a Pathan ; he is easily frightened by a resolute attitude, and quick
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