'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.' [‎24v] (53/386)

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could be eiven to intending travellers from Quetta. Carriers of innocent
merchandise within the Persian border were required to give proof, which was
frequently impossible, of the origin from which heir goods were brought or
he post by which their freights had entered Pena regulations were enforced
with a rigour and harshness which w'ould have been unjustified even if the
system had been more fully organised. Customs were levied on the flocks
i nomad Afghans and Baluchis who crossed the Persian border m their search
for pasture. Attempts were made to deny to traders from A ghamstan the
benefits of intervention by the British Consul. Ihe presence of a British
Mission on the Perso- Afghan border provided a peculiar opportunity for insult
and annoyance. The passage of Mission stores was impeded. _ Supplies were
seized, and the beasts which carried them impounded. Imputations were levied
that the Mission Camp was being made the centre of a wholesale illicit traffic;
and attempts were made to prove that the Mission was the cause of scarcity
and famine, while crops lay uncut in the fields and cultivators ueie unable to
find a market for their produce.
Nor was the sphere of Belgian activity confined to purely Customs measures.
Posts, passports, and quarantine were in their charge, and the management of
each became in Belgian hands a source of annoyance and a means of
obstruction. In 1900, the Persian Government had prescribed a system
which required that every foreign traveller
The passport system. should own a passport bearing the
visa of a Persian Consular official, or of a Passport Officer in Persia.
In 1902, the rules were revised, and the fees were enhanced. Ordinary
travellers were required to pay a charge of 12 krans 12 shahis, and labourers
and porters a fee of 4 krans 10 shahis, for the visa of their passports. In
August 1903, the Persian Government determined to apply the orders on the
Seistan border, and deputed a Passport Officer for the purpose. The introduc
tion of the system among the ignorant Baluchis and Afghans, who formed the
hulk of foreign travellers in Seistan, was obviously a matter requiring the
exercise of considerable tact: under Russian influence the rules were enforced
with an unreasoning severity which added a fresh impediment to British
trade. The newly-appointed official had hardly assumed his duties, when he
called upon the Governor to assist in requiring the members of Colonel
McMahon’s Mission to take out passports. The Governor declined his help,
and the attempt was abandoned. But no opportunity was lost of insisting on
the new procedure in the case of Afghans visiting the Mission camp. The fee
itself was burdensome; and the levy of the due was made a constant source of
hardship and annoyance to British traders in Seistan and to merchants and
carriers arriving from India. The first incumbent of the post of Passport
pfficer was soon dismissed. It is a suggestive fact that he was at once taken
into Russian employ. Por a time the service remained in abeyance. But it
was soon revived under the auspices of the Belgian Customs Administration.
Thenceforward the possession of passp orts was enforced with renewed vigour.
Every Afghan who crossed the border on a casual visit to the Persian side
was iequired to take ont a passport and to pay the full fee. By an informal
arrangement, M. Molitor subsequently consented to exempt from the charge
all Afghans other than bond jide traders or travellers. But the existence of
the rule supplied the underling officials posted on the frontier with oppor
tunities of extortion, of which they were not slow to avail themselves. It is
wcrthy of note that General Schindler, Chief of the Passport Bureau at Tehran,
miormed a member of. His Majesty’s Legation that the accounts of the
department for the province of Seistan showed a deficit of £1,400 in a single
vear. 3 °
The attitude of the Belgian officers made the position of the British
Belations Of the British Consul wth P onsul °Be of g re at difficulty. The
t - e Belgian officials. interests of British trade and the mainte-
unrpmiHino' i i j? Iiance °f British prestige required an
post of Comui wo eSS and - f f ( l 1 uent intervention. During this period the
Rarnsav 0 and hv Pw ^ Maj ° r Benri ’ Mr * Dobbs > b V Ca P tai n
animated hv a rteSot 111 Ma ?P herson - Eacl1 these officers went to Seistan
animated by a desire to remain on good terms with the Belgian and Russian