File 3852/1912 Pt 2 'Persia. Conditions in South Persia. German Documents' [‎264v] (160/280)

randums elaborated which all have one guiding motive: the
ousting of non-British commerce in Persia by England.
It is Russian commerce mainly which England attacks
with great vehemence. The commercial adviser of the Resident
of Bushire has already in February 1912 elaborated a con
fidential memorandum for the Indian Government and the
Foreign Office in London in which he urges a scheme for
transport of goods on the Bushire—Shiraz road, that is to
say, in the neutral zone, as being the most useful for English
interests.
It concludes with the words: “Our chief aim must be to
check as long as possible the conquest of the Isfahan market by
Russian commerce.” “H. M. minister at Teheran” it is further
stated in a memorandum of the resident of Bushire of Sep
tember 28 th , 1913 , to Grey “recently expressed the opinion
that Russia’s pretensions to a larger share of the neutral zone
will become the greater according as Russian influence is given
time to extend southwards”. And immediately afterwards
follows: “We are confronted with the proposition how to pre
vent a further increase of Russian trade in the Isfahan province
and southwards and how to win back, if possible, what Russian
trade has recently captured in that province.”
In this one memorandum reference is made no less than
a dozen times to the “Russian acts of transgression”, to the
“attack by Russian trade on Ispahan and her pressure south
wards” to the necessity of "bringing Russian trade on a de
cline" “of checking its development” and “not only in the
province of Ispahan in North Ears, but elsewhere 1 ).”
Jealous of every budding enterprise, especially of those
behind which they suspect Russian or other capital, the English
watched their development no matter whether they took place
in the Russian or the neutral zone. Persian merchants for in
stance planned the foundation of a company which was to
have constructed a railway between Shiraz and Bushire: “I
have reason to think,” the British consul at Shiraz telegraphs
to the minister at Teheran" — “that the scheme was sug
gested by the German Consul during his stay here last summer.
x ) “If then we are to prevent further increases of Russian trade in the
Ispahan province and in northern Pars and elsewhere ....”