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18
ashore each day, both on duty and for recreation, the cost of visas would have been
prohibitive. The Persian authorities also made difficulty about the landing of
mooring gangs. These new regulations were defended on the quite unjustifiable
ground that the Hormaq had been used for smuggling into Persia both goods and
persons without visas. The matter was put to Teymourtache during Sir Francis
Humphrys’s visit in April, and he promised to arrange immediately for the issue
of annual visas. But it was not until September, after five months of constai^^^
reminders, during which the staff of the Hormaq had suffered great hardships
the heat of a Gulf summer, that the visas were eventually issued, suitable arrange
ments for the points at which the employees might land in the course of their
duties being also reached. A condition made by the Persian Government was that
the Iraqi Government should grant annual visas for visits to Basra to a certain
number of Persian officials.
(D) International.
League of Nations.
107. A commission of enquiry into the traffic in women and children,
which had been visiting most of the countries of Asia, reached Persia in
February. A representative of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs was attached to
them throughout, doubtless in order to prevent them from seeing anything they
ought not to see. The commission had no illusions on this point, but were
nevertheless satisfied that, whatever the state of public morality within the
country might be, there was no reason to suppose that an international traffic,
with which they were solely concerned, existed in either direction. The
commission travelled under the authority of the League of Nations, but the
expenses were all met by the American Bureau of Social Hygiene.
108. In May the Persian Government communicated the statement of their
land, sea and air forces required by the League questionnaire in connexion with
the Disarmament Conference. The reply to Tables I and VIII (Land and Air
Armed Forces Stationed in the Country) was, in each case, “ In process of
organisation.” The answers given to Tables IV and XI (Formations Organised
on a Military Basis) were 71,017 and 743 effectives respectively—on the
20th March, 1932. The naval forces were stated without equivocation to be
824 effectives. According to a previous communication made to the League in
1931 the Persian army when organised would number 72,000 men, so that, if the
latest figures were correct, the total aimed at had been practically reached. There
was strong reason to believe, however, that the figures were greatly exaggerated,
perhaps in order to permit of Persia reducing her armaments, if required, on
paper, without doing so in reality; the number of effectives was probably 15,000
short of 72,000.
109. The example of the Finnish shipowners’ case gave the Persian
Government the idea of bringing before the Council the case of a certain
M. Atychides, a naturalised Persian subject of Ottoman origin, who claimed
some £900,000 for a ship, the Kara Deniz, condemned by the Bombay Prize
Court in 1915. The Ministry for Foreign Affairs were informed that the two
cases were in no way parallel, and that, even if the case were revived, His
Majesty s Government in the United Kingdom could not in any circumstances be
compelled to arbitrate. This explanation may or may not have been responsible
for the fact that the case was not placed upon the agenda for the September
meeting, as the Persian Government had said it would be.
White Slave Traffic Conventions, 1904, 1910, 1921.
110. The Paris Conventions of 1904 and 1910 and the Geneva Convention
of 1921 regarding the Traffic in Women and Children were ratified by the Mailis
on the 13th January, 1932, but the ratifications had not been deposited at the
end of the year.
International Agreement for the Prohibition of the Use of White Sulphur in the
, Manufacture of Matches, 1906.
111. I he accession of Persia was voted by the Majlis, in first readinsf in
December 1932. 6 ’