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Coll 28/62 ‘Persia. Soviet commercial penetration in:’ [‎71r] (143/154)

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The record is made up of 1 file (74 folios). It was created in 10 Oct 1932-21 Feb 1945. It was written in English. The original is part of the British Library: 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. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .

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THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY’S GOVERNMENT
' i p,7.
PERSIA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
Septehiber 28, 1932.
Section 1.
[E 4627/47/34]
No. 1 .
Russian Trade with South Persia.
the following memorandum, written by Mr. Probationer Vice-Consul
Blanch was forwarded to the Foreign Office on the 1 st August by Mr. Hoare “ as
a valuable contribution to a subject that is becoming increasingly serious ”
Foreign Office, September 28, 1932.
Memorandum respecting Economic Characteristics of Russian Trade with the
South of Persia as Compared with British.
IN 1913 the United Kingdom could look back upon a period of 150 years
and more during which British trade in the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. and Southern Persia
had enjoyed steady, uninterrupted, and, with the disappearance of the Portu
guese and Dutch trading establishments, almost unchallenged progress.
During this time, and in particular during the latter half of the nineteenth
century, British enterprise had established in this region important commercial
interests, so that by the beginning of the twentieth century British goods
constituted in the neighbourhood of 75 per cent, of the total imports of Southern
Persian ports.
A virtual monopoly of the sea-borne trade of the Gulf was in the hands of the
B.I., Strick and Bucknall shipping companies. Banking was entirely in the
hands cf the Imperial Bank of Persia.
In 1913 Russia could look back upon a bare ten years of a commercial
activity in the Gulf, which consisted solely in the annual despatch to those waters
from Odessa of four vessels of the Russian volunteer fleet. This undertaking
cost the Russian Ministry of Commercial Marine some £20,000 a year in subsidies,
and could not, by the outbreak of the Great War, be said to have achieved results
of a commercial nature which were in the least encouraging. The Russian steam
ship service to the Gulf, however, while actuated no doubt to some extent by the
desire to obtain an early foothold for Russia in the promising markets of the
Middle East, owed its inauguration in large measure also "to the need for
upholding Russian prestige in the Moslem world and to counteract the ever-
extending growth of German influence in Asia Minor and Arabia.
I hus Russia s appearance in South Persian markets was largely due to
political motives and did not, in the period preceding the war, constituted "serious
menace. In Isfahan, within the Russian zone and towards the northern fringe
of what may be termed the almost exclusively British market in Persia, Russian
penetration was more apparent. The relative position of both Powers had,
however, been virtually stabilised by the 1907 agreement.
As regards the total trade of the country Russia predominated, claiming over
50 per cent, of the aggregate figure, the British Empire appearing as a bad second
with 25 per cent. Furthermore, Russian imports were at this "time little, if at
all, in excess of the British figure, and were approximately balanced by her
exports of Persian produce. Thus there seemed grounds for the Russian
contention that their country’s trade with Persia was founded on a very much
better balanced and, from the Persian standpoint, a more beneficial basis, than
the British. Certainly, Russia would appear to have been a far better customer
for Persia. With the advent of the world war and the Bolshevik revolution.
Russia disappeared from the Persian trade picture and the British Empire
stepped into her place.
It was not until the end of 1921 that Soviet Russia, till then fully occupied
with the establishment of a new order of things, was able to look outside her own
[579 ee—1]

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Content

The first part of the file (ff 52-75) contains correspondence dated 1932, exchanged between: HM’s Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary A diplomatic representative who ranks below an ambassador. The term can be shortened to 'envoy'. in Tehran, Reginald Hervey Hoare; John Gilbert Laithwaite of the 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. ; George William Rendel of the Foreign Office; Cecil Claude Farrer of the Department of Overseas Trade. The correspondence is in response to a memorandum entitled ‘Economic characteristics of Russian trade with the South of Persia compared with British’, written by the Probationer Vice-Consul at Bushire, J W Blanch (ff 71-72).

The second part of the file (ff 23-51) contains correspondence dated 1933, exchanged between: HM’s Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary A diplomatic representative who ranks below an ambassador. The term can be shortened to 'envoy'. in Tehran; the 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. ; the Foreign Office. The correspondence concerns the need for clear and regular despatches from Tehran on commercial relations between Soviet Russia and Persia. This part of the file contains a memorandum entitled ‘Effects of the Persian Trade Monopoly Laws and the Perso-Soviet Treaty upon Soviet commercial penetration in Persia’ (ff 34-40). The memorandum is undated and its author not stated. However, it bears annotations made by George Edmund Crombie of the 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. , which are dated 3 March 1933.

The third part of the file (ff 2-22) contains a letter dated 15 December 1926 enclosing two notes (also 1926) written by Reginald Teague-Jones. The notes were forwarded, in 1945, by John Walter Hose, formerly of the 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. , to Roland Tennyson Peel of the 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. . The notes are entitled ‘Soviet Commercial Policy in Persia’ (ff 5-14) and ‘The Crucial Problem in Soviet Russia’ (ff 15-22). The accompanying letter (f 4) is signed under Teague-Jones’s pseudonym Ronald Sinclair.

The file includes a divider, which gives a list of correspondence references contained in the file by year. This is placed at the back of the correspondence.

Extent and format
1 file (74 folios)
Arrangement

The papers are arranged in approximate chronological order from the rear to the front of the file.

Physical characteristics

Foliation: the foliation sequence (used for referencing) commences at the front cover with 1, and terminates at the inside back cover with 76; these numbers are written in pencil and are located in the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. side of each folio.

Written in
English in Latin script
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Coll 28/62 ‘Persia. Soviet commercial penetration in:’ [‎71r] (143/154), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/12/3470A, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100054939074.0x000090> [accessed 28 March 2024]

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