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'Russia, India and the Persian Gulf' [13v] (26/46)
The record is made up of 1 volume (21 folios). It was created in 1903. 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. .
Transcription
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22 The Western Frontiers of India,
of British Beluchistan, and unless it is understood that
the acquisition of a port on the Gulf would be equiva
lent to a declaration of war, it is hard to see how we
can prevent its construction. Our present policy counts
upon the
North-West Frontier
Region of British India bordering Afghanistan.
as sufficiently protected,
and upon a friendly and independent Persia on the western
border ; but Russia, with a railway to, and a port upon, the
Gulf, would turn the flank of this position, and leave India
unprotected, and indeed the weaker, for the unnatural
extension of her limits into Beluchistan, and for the addi
tions to the Afghan kingdom, which the Amir only holds
by our help. P'or these, in the case supposed, together with
the Belooch border, we could not without vast expendi
ture fortify and hold against Russia. Whence would the
funds be drawn ? It w^ould be hard, indeed, to get much
more out of India, and would the British taxpayer stand
another shock such as that occasioned by the South African
War, the full effects of which are not yet felt in Britain ?
Russia, warned off Afghanistan, makes Persia her protected
pensioner, and it is hardly too much to say that this ancient
kingdom now stands in much the same relation to her, as
Afghanistan does to the Indian Empire.
With the sole exception of the shores of the Gulf, there
is no position in Persia in which the intrusion of Russia
would so much embarrass us as in Seistan, and the country
lying between Khorassan and the Arabian Sea. Yet
nowhere is she more actively engaged. Since 1895 her
Customs tariff has practically prohibited the importation of
British and Indian trade into her Transcaspian Provinces
through Khorassan, immediately south of which Seistan is
situated. The latter district lies half-way between the point
where Persia, Afghanistan, and Russia meet at Zulfikar, and
the point where British Beluchistan and Persia meet upon
the shores of the Gulf. It commands the all-important road
from Herat to Kandahar, and it was in part as a counter
move against the prohibitive Transcaspian tariff that the
trade-route was opened from Quetta along the Belooch side
About this item
- Content
An article on the western frontiers of the Indian Empire by Sir John David Rees. The article deals with the threat posed by Russia from northern Persia and Afghanistan and discusses the measures that should be taken to defend and strengthen the British Empire in India.
At the front of the volume (folio 2) is a short foreword note signed by J D R, 31 March 1903.
At the rear of the volume (folios 17-22) is the record of a meeting of the East India Association that took place at the Westminster Palace Hotel, 23 March 1903, and at which the article was delivered as a lecture.
The article was published by Harrison & Sons, at 59 Pall Mall, London, 1903. It was also published as an article in the Asiatic Quarterly Review, for April 1903.
- Extent and format
- 1 volume (21 folios)
- Physical characteristics
Foliation: the foliation sequence (used for referencing) commences at the front cover with 1, and terminates at the inside back cover with 23; these numbers are written in pencil, are circled, 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 View the complete information for this record
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Copyright: How to use this content
- Reference
- Mss Eur F111/380
- Title
- 'Russia, India and the Persian Gulf'
- Pages
- front, front-i, 2r:22v, back-i, back
- Author
- Rees, Sir John David
- Usage terms
- Public Domain