File 3839/1916 Pt 1 'Persia: - Incidence of expenditure in - question of revising the agreement of 1900' [‎324r] (660/880)

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^ substantial in themselves, which constitute a problem apart from the defence of
India and which have to be safeguarded and promoted for their own sake If such
things can be measured quantitatively, Indian interests are not now comparable
^~'th Imperial interests in Persia.
7. Of the Persian trade, it is true, India appears on the basis of statistics to
take the major portion. But the Indian trade is made up largely of transit trade
m goods of British origin carried in British bottoms. Moreover, the total bulk
is small and quite incommensurate with the enormous sums which of late years
India has poured into Persia. Indeed it would be hard to find a country trading
with India, in which India, if she had money to spend on trade development abroad,
could not spend it to greater profit. More pronounced still is the disparity
between British and Indian interests in the field of commercial and industrial enter
prise. In the Imperial Bank of Persia, in the great oil interests of the Anglo-
Persian Oil Company, in the concessions sought or obtained in Persia, India has
little or no share. These are interests of great importance it is true, but interests
almost exclusively British in character. And if our telegraph interests in Persia
are admittedly of great importance and will so remain pending the institution
of a wireless service between England and India, these are interests in which
His Majesty s Government share without sharing in the expenditure on the Indo-
European Telegraph Department. We are, however, considering a suggestion for
relieving ourselves altogether of responsibility on account of the Department’s
telegraph system and are addressing you separately on this subject.
8 . But nowhere does the old estimate of India’s interests call more insistently
for revision than in the strategical and political spheres. The day is past when
India can afford to spend money on India’s defences far beyond India’s borders,
unless such defences are immediately essential. Such is the financial stringency in
India that all the money that can be devoted to defence is required for defence
against the most immediate dangers. Persia herself is never likely to be a serious
menace, nor is any immediate military danger to India to be apprehended from
Russia or Turkey through Persia. Even,, should the old military danger to India
reappear the physical limitations imposed by the barrenness of the Persian terrain
preclude operations on a large scale, at any rate until it has been bridged by a rail
way. Our own difficulties in maintaining a force at Meshed show how unlikely it is
that an enemy would attempt an advance in force through Eastern Persia, and an
advance along the coast is at present equally improbable owing to our naval and
military supremacy in the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. .
9. Politically, India’s essential requirements are—
First, that no outside power with designs on India should consolidate herself
in Persia;
Second, that the Persian districts bordering on India and Afghanistan
should not lapse into anarchy.
The preservation of Persia’s integrity and the maintenance of an Anglophil
government in Tehran are both no doubt in India’s interest. But India is not pre
pared, is indeed unable, to devote her finances to securing either. Indeed that
neither could be so secured and that both might be secured otherwise is the
keynote of the many representations on Persian policy which we felt ourselves
^ recen ^ years to address to His Majesty’s Government.