'Papers relating to transfer of Middle Eastern Affairs to the Colonial Office and creation of a new Department there, 1920-1921, with Cabinet notes of Milner, Montague, Churchill, self, and others' [‎27r] (53/136)

Tribunals, the Caisse de la Dette, and the like, will involve an immense strain upon
the Foreign Office. Palestine, with the jealous and complex interests ot toreign
Powers arising out of their ecclesiastical pretensions, their commercial interests, and
their acute rivalry, will give us a great deal of anxiety, ihe League of Nations, to
whom the Mandatory will be responsible, will hold the loreign Office answerable tor
explanation or defence. The Zionists throughout the world will look to us 101 the
protection of their interests and the reconciliation of their position with that pt the
Arab inhabitants of Palestine, a problem which must in any case be dealt with by
the Foreign Office, since it brings us into sharp and immediate contact \\ ith the
French in Syria and with Feisal at Damascus. ior the execution ot the Peace
Treaty with Turkey, with its infinite opportunities for international complication,
the Foreign Office will have to answer, at any rate for some years to come.
9. Let me give to my colleagues a single illustration of a situation that is suie
to arise. On the north-west frontiers of India lies Afghanistan, hitherto almost
exclusively m the Indian orbit, but certain, as time goes on and it secures diplomatic
representatives in foreign countries (for we have practically now surrendered a
control over its foreign relations) to be brought into closer contact with the roieign
Office. On the near side of Afghanistan lies Persia, wffiich must remain under the
Foreign Office so long as it is an independent kingdom, with foreign Legations
stationed at Tehran and with its own diplomatic representation m foreign capitals^
North of these countries lies Turkestan, now a focus of Bolshevik agitation and
intrigue, and an active breeding-ground of Foreign Office anxieties for years to
come. Next to Persia on the west lies Mesopotamia, whose problems of security, ot
frontier defence, and of trade will be closely bound up with those of I ersia. Is it
seriously proposed to leave Afghanistan under the divided control of the 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.
and the Foreign Office, to leave Persia under the Foreign Office, but to place
Mesopotamia under the Colonial Office? No present overlapping of functions or
conflict of jurisdiction wmuld be comparable with the friction produced by such a
system or lack of system. , ^ .
For these reasons it seems to me impossible to dispense with the roieign
Office connection at any rate at the present stage. If the attempt were made, it
would merely mean that the work would have to be done twice o\ei, and that there
w r ould be general confusion. At the same time. I realise that the Foreign
Office, as at present constituted is inadequate to the task, and that in addition to all
the foreign anxieties that will overwhelm us in the initial years, much administrative
work will have to be done for which special aptitude and experience will be necessary
10. I therefore propose that there should be created a separate Middle East
Department, with a Parliamentary Lfnder-Secretary to represent it in the House of
Commons, subordinate and responsible to the Secretary of State for Foieign
Affairs much as the head of the Department of Overseas Trade is an L nder-
Secretary of the Foreign Office and in the last resort takes his orders from the
Secretary of State. Such a Department would have Egyptian, Mesopotamian,
Palestinian, Persian and Arabian Sections with officials of local and administrative
experience who as time passes on w r ould be drawn from the services instituted in
those countries, there being a constant interchange of talent and experience between
them Failing the discovery of a neighbouring building, the Department would have
to be housed for the present in the Foreign Office, where indeed the majority of the
officials dealing with these areas already are. Later on, when the existing Colonial
Department has assumed its final shape, the Department will probably overflow
into the present Colonial Office. As is well known, the Foreign Office is already so
crowded that all the big rooms once available for receptions or purposes of btate are
now partitioned into sections for the accommodation of a grossly overcrowded staff
11 For the service of the new department, however, a new' Service of the Middle
East is essential. At present in addition to the Foreign and Diplomatic Services
(now amalgamated) and the General Consular Service, there is a special Levant A geographical area corresponding to the region around the eastern Mediterranean Sea.
Service applicable to the Ottoman Dominions, Persia, Greece and Morocco (just as
there is a Far Eastern Service for China, Japan and Siam). There are also special
administrative Services for Egypt and the Soudan. The bulk of these would require
to be amalgamated into a special Middle Eastern Service, to deal with the whole of
the areas n under the new Department, with sections dedicated to the various
countries, according as a Turkish or Arabic speaking official was required. There
might be interchange, but there would also require to be specialisation.
^ 12 I have not raised the minor questions whether the Soudan should continue
to be united or partially united with Egypt and should fall within the new adminis
tration or whether it should now or later be taken over by the Colonial Office, not