'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.' [‎75v] (155/386)

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Persian Government might be relieved from paying the Assisfant Surgeons lent
to them,—the argument advanced by M. Nans being that as the Persian Gov
ernment paid the doctors they could select the channel, which they deemed most
convenient for giving them their orders—but that we should insist on the main
tenance of existing sanitary arrangements. lie also enquired what were («) the
present arrangements and (b) the co>t. The Government of India replied on the
12th August that they had positive proofs that it was intended to place quaran
tine in the Gulf under Belgian Customs officers ; that the Director of Customs of
Mohammerah, acting on instructions from Tehran, had ordered the quarantine
officer, contrary to the Venice Convention, to impose quarantine on arrivals from
Bahrein which had been previously declared free of plague ; that the customs
officer at Bunder Abbas bad been ordered to take over quarantine arrangements
at that port ; and that the customs officer at Jask had also interfered with the
quarantine officer at that staticm It was added that the Belgian Customs
officers had hitherto had no connection with quarantine, except that the fees
■were made over to them, and that they were wholly unsuited for the control,
while their partisanship was notorious. Under existing arrangements, which
had worked well and protected Persia, three Assistant Surgeons lent to the
Persian Government in 1897, were employed exclusively on quarantine duties
at Mohammerah, Lingah and Bunder Abbas: while at Jask and Bushire,
Assistant Surgeons attached to the telegraph station and to the Residency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, established in the provinces and regions considered part of, or under the influence of, British India.
performed the services required. The average monthly cost was stated to he
Rs. 866 in salaries for the Assistant Surgeons in foreign service while con
tingencies amounted to Us. 612. It seermd to the Government of India quite
wrong that Indian revenues should pay for the entire cost of Persian quaran
tine in the South, while the Persian Government paid for the political cordon
of the Russians in the North and the only condition on which such a charge
should he accepted would be that the cost should be add< d to the British loan
secured on the revenues of the Gulf ports. The question of payment was not,
however, considered important. It was suggested to the Secretary of State
that His Majesty's Government should resolutely resist the principle that
quarantine arrangements in the Gulf could be subverted without our knowledge
or consent, or that a body of foreigners cmld be put in expressly to hamper
British trade, the tonnage of which was over 90 per cent, of the total. Sir A.
Ilardinge was instructed accordingly.
7. In mentioning the matter to the Grand Vizier, Sir A. Hardinge referred
to a report of the Board of Health to the Shah, dated 24th February 1897, and
pointed out that orders from the Persian Government to the Residency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, established in the provinces and regions considered part of, or under the influence of, British India. Surgeon
and the doctors under his supervision were to be conveyed through the British
Legation at Tehran, and t:»e British Minister’s official protest in October 1903,
elicited from the Mu^kir-ed-Dowleh an assurance that there was no idea of
getting rid of the English doctors in the Gulf, but that complaints regarding
their partiality in applying the quarantine regulations to Europeans, as compar
ed with natives, had suggested to the Shah the advisability of closer supervision
over their work.
8. But, in spite of this assurance, further attempts were made by the Bel
gian Customs authorities to interfere in the sanitary arrangements of the British
Medical officers in the Gulf, and the British Minister found it necessary on the
3rd March 1901 to direct the British doctors firmly, but courteously to resist
any attempt to give them orders.
9. It wns also suggested by Lord Curzon in a telegram, dated the 19th
March 190*, to the Secretary of State that a vigorous protest should be made at
once against the disturbance of the existing sanitary arrangements which
had recently been accepted by the Sanitary Board of Constantinople as wholly
satisfactory. Sir A. Hardinge preferred, however, to reserve any vigorous
protests until confronted with a definite act of encroachment by the tactics of the
Persian Government. So far, he said, there had only been such a tendency on the
part of the local authorities which he thought could be cheeked without
raising the whole question at Tehran.
10. But encroachments still continued and during the summer of 1904 there
was renewed friction between the British quarantine doctors in the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran.
ana the Belgian customs officials. The complaint on the part of the Persian