File 3852/1912 Pt 2 'Persia. Conditions in South Persia. German Documents' [‎245v] (122/280)

English Blue Books Persia No. 3 (1912) No. 123.
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On the 16 th of October 1910 England presented Persia
with that memorable ultimatum which demanded in the first'
instance for the Southern trade-routes the training, arming
and maintenance of a body of police under British command,
unless the security of the trade-routes which were supposed
to be endangered by tribal robbers could be restored within
three months. The fact that the impotency of the Persian
Government against these unruly tribes was a consequence of
the Anglo-Russian policy of strangling was ignored as well
as the circumstance that the gathering of the Anglo-Russian
troops and their provoking attitude in Persia was the chief
cause of the troubles, though Persia made just representations
on the subject to England. England insisted on her demands
that Persia must establish — in the so-called neutral zone —
a body of Gendarmerie at her own expense, and she modified
the ultimatum only in so far that she allowed officers of a smaller
power to be engaged as instructors in the place of the British
officers. Grey adduced as a reason for these incessant mo
lestations of the Persian Government that he could no longer
disregard the complaints of the Manchester merchants about
the bad state and the insecurity of the Bushire — Shiraz —Ispahan-
trade-route. These complaints were not founded on facts, as
appears from the telegram of the English minister in Teheran Sir
G. Barclay May 28 th , 1911 1 ) ,,On the Bushire-Isfahan road-and
I presume that complaints of Manchester firms refer parti
cularly to this route — His Majesty’s consular officers at
Bushire and Shiraz report considerable improvement since
last year. I can only suppose, therefore, that firms in question
must be under misapprehension —. No robbery has been
reported on the Bushire-Shiras section for a considerable
time, no robbery occasioning the loss of British goods has
taken place since December last. This year the telegraph line
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