'SUMMARY OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS AND MEASURES OF THE VICEROYALTY OF HIS EXCELLENCY LORD CURZON OF KEDLESTON, VICEROY AND GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF INDIA IN THE FOREIGN DEPARTMENT. I. JANUARY 1899-APRIL 1904. II. DECEMBER 1904-NOVEMBER 1905. VOLUME IV. PERSIA AND THE PERSIAN GULF.' [‎97r] (198/386)

CHAPTER XIV.
Position in Seistan prior to 1899.
The chief scene of the rivalry between Russian and Anglo-Indian
interests since 1890 was Sdstan. In a Minute which accompanied the
despatch of 21 st September 1899, Lord Curzon, who had made a special
study of the question, discussed at length the importance of Seistan and our
position there, as it then was. A summary of the salient points in that Minute
is as follows;
2. Seistan was in 1892 a sub-division of Knin (capital Birjand) which was a
part of the province of Khorasan, capital Meshed. The Government of Kain
had for long been in the hereditary possession of a powerful family of Arab origin,
whose head bore the title of Amir of Kain, and who, until the centralising
tendencies of recent years, exercised an authority almost independent of the
Shah. On the death of Mir Alam Khan in 1891, the younger of his two sons,
known as the Shaukat-ul-Mulk, succeeded him as Governor of Kain at Birjand.
The elder son, known as the Hashmat-ul-Mulk, became Governor of Tabbas
£tnd Seistan, posts which he only retained by the annual payment of large sums
in cash to the Shah. The third son was made Sartip of the Kain forces, and
he and the Skaukat-ul-Mulk were believed to incline towards Russia whose
aim had been to get Seistan re-incorporated in Kain, from which it had. to some
extent, become separated and absorbed as an ordinary administrative district
in the province of Khorasan. Such an amalgamation would emphasize the
dependence of Seistan upon Meshed.
3. Thus in 1899 the local situation was that of Russia endeavouring to
increase her hold upon the ruler of Kain (to whom she sent in that year a
special mission conveying presents valued at £1,400), and the ruler of Kain
endeavouring to oust his brother and to establish a hold upon Seistan himself.
4 >. Numerous officers visited and reported upon Seistan after 1889,
when a British Consul-General was appointed at Meshed. Colonel Tate made
a tour thither in 1894, and strongly urged the appointment of a British Indian
representative in Seistan to balance the Russian Native Agent Non-British agents affiliated with the British Government. , whom he found
exercising considerable influence. He enlarged upon the wheat-producing
capabilities of Seistan, the cheapness of grain there as compared with the
dearness outside, the advantage of exporting the surplus supply to Quetta, the
utility of a postal service from Chaman via Seistan to Meshed, in place of the
Kandahar-Herat line, and he recommended the construction of a line of wells
and the planting of levy posts from Nushki to the Seistan border, so as to open
a new caravan route for In do-Persian trade.
5. The Government of India were, however, at that time under the impres
sion, which was since abandoned, that any evidence of British interests in
Seistan or in Eastern Persia would merely bring down the Russians (who
have come down without it) and would tempt them to extend their railway
southwards (which they have since done independent of any British move).
Accordingly, Colonel Yate’s proposals were rejected.
6 . Two years later Captain McMahon, who had been employed upon the
demarcation of the Baluch-Afghan boundary, recommended the opening of the
route which had been negatived in 1894 and the proposal was accepted by the
Government of India and the Secretary of State.
7. Lieutenant Webb Ware was appointed Political Officer at Chageh, and at
once took steps, by the opening of wells, by the building of guard-houses and
godowns, and by the institution of levy posts, for the energetic promotion of the
new trade route, on the commercial possibilities of which he reported most
favourably. In April of the same year, 1897, Surgeon-Major Brazier-
Creagh was hurriedly despatched by the Government of India to Seistan
to carry out any plague precautions that might be required in that neighbour
hood in anticipation of the preventive proceedings that Russia had
announced her intention of putting into effect. His report also testified to
the great activity of Russia in Seistan, and contained a glowing picture of the
capabilities of the country. In 1898, Lieutenant Webb Ware submitted his first
annual report, which, in spite of the obstructive measures adopted by the Russian
officers on the pretext of plague in Khorasan, recorded that, out of nothing,
a trade had been created, which had risen fromlj lakhs One lakh is equal to one hundred thousand rupees in 1896 to Rs. 5,90,000
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