File 2908/1907 Pt 3 ‘Persian Gulf:- Quarantine; German complaint’ [‎121r] (241/250)

Majesty s Government in 1897 on this question must of necessity create
an unfavourable impression.
These considerations were discussed at length at Conferences held at
the horeign Office, Local Government Board, and 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. , at which
two of our number were present. The possibility was not lost sight of
that an unreserved acceptance of the proposal would not of necessity be
followed by the construction of the lazaret—just as its (almost un-
icseiwed) acceptance in 1897 had not been. This possibility was
strengthened by the refusal of Turkey to allow the lazaret to fly the
Persian flag, and the absence of an ‘’entente” between Turkey and
1 ersia. but, on the other hand, the definite mandate given by the
present Conference, first, to the Constantinople Board to construct the
lazaret, and, secondly, to the Mixed Commission to provide the funds,
seemed not a little likely to lead to the actual construction of the
lazaret at no remote date.
Your Lordship s final instructions authorized our acceptance of the
proposals, hut subject to such conditions that the probability of the
lazaret being brought into existence practically disappears. At the
sixth plenary meeting of the Conference we stated that we accepted
the proposals, but at the same time we dwelt on the considerations
enumerated above as militating against the construction of the Ormuz
lazaret, and added that we should prefer to see the time and moiiey
spent in perfecting the Bussorah lazaret. At the final meeting, before
signing the Convention, we made the following reserves, as conditions
to which our acceptance of the proposed lazaret was subject:—
1 . That the decisions of the Mixed Commission concerning the
advance of funds for its construction must be unanimous ; and
2. That no steps should be taken for its construction until the Con
stantinople Board of Health shall have been reorganised in the manner
agreed on by the present Conference.
The positive refusal of Turkey, as already mentioned, to allow
this reorganization removes all likelihood, at any rate for the present,
that a Turkish sanitary post will be established at the entrance to the
Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. .
On the question of the reunion of the Mixed Commission, we repeated
the condition under which His Majesty’s Government has already
consented to its reunion, namely, that the Commission should put in a
prominent position in its programme the possibility of reducing the
sanitary dues in Turkish ports.
5. International Health Bureau.
A proposal to establish a central office, under international manage
ment, to collect and publish information on the course of epidemic
diseases all the world over, was first made by the International Sanitary
Conference held at Vienna in 1874, and the Austrian capital was then
selected for its seat. That proposal was never carried out. It has been
revived in a slightly modified form by Prance in the present Conference,
and Paris has been proposed for its seat. The Bureau is intended to be
organized on the model of the Weights and Measures Bureau, which also
sits in Paris. M. Barrere, who introduced the proposal, was careful to
state that the Bureau would he strictly international; that, wherever it
might be located, the local Government should exercise no controlling in
fluence over it; that its main object would be to collect and distribute
information about epidemics and the measures taken to deal with them;
and to indicate from time to time where the measures decreed by the
International Conventions seemed to require amendment; and that it
would in no way interfere with the sovereign rights of an infected
country, or do more than exert a “moral” influence in regard to the
sanitary measures taken in such country.
MG48. Gf