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'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' [‎30v] (60/136)

The record is made up of 1 file (68 folios). It was created in 1 May 1920-10 Feb 1921. It was written in English. The original is part of the British Library: 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. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .

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o
lion of a civilised State. In the other case we shall have to manage States with an
ancient history and a high conceit of their own importance, such as Persia;
communities as advanced, ambitious, and cosmopolitan in outlook as the Jews and
Egyptians; countries which are and will continue to be as much the focus of interna
tional rivalry and competition as Arabia and Syria; interests which will for years to
come require constant appeals to the Foreign Office and delicate handling by the
Foreign Secretary, whatever his degree of connection with, or responsibility for, the
new Department may be. It is safe to say that a lethal blow would be dealt at the
pride of Egypt if it were to be placed under the Colonial Office; and that the mandated
territories would utter a cry of rage if their condition were, by even the implication
of a misnomer, to be assimilated with that of British Colonies. Again, when Mr.
Churchill points to the successful results that have followed the taking over of
African and other Protectorates from the Foreign Office by the Colonial Office in the
past, he omits to recall that, in nearly every one of these cases, the burden of the
early years, when acquisition was taking place and foreign complications, often
of the most anxious nature, were being straightened out, was borne by the Foreign
Office, and that the Colonial Office entered into an inheritance which others had won
and nursed through an early and often tempestuous youth.
5. Again, while the Foreign Office has in its service a very large number of
administrators and experts possessing Oriental experience, and speaking Oriental
languages (Arabic, Persian, Turkish), the Colonial Office is necessarily almost wholly
unequipped in these respects, and could only slowly and laboriously acquire the staff
and the experience which would enable it to grapple satisfactorily with such
problems as those of the Middle East.
6. Like others of my colleagues, I look forward to the day when the Colonial
Office will probably part with its control of the great self-governing Dominions to
a new Imperial Department of State; and 1 have long held that the Privy Council,
with its traditions, its name, the titular precedence of its official head, and its
existing connection with the Dominions, in respect of the Judicial Committee, is
marked out for the purpose. But it does not follow from this that the remaining
functions of the Colonial Office, namely, the management of the Crown Colonies and
the British Protectorates in Africa and elsewhere, will best be combined with the
control of a great Eastern sphere, with which the Colonial Office, its staff and it-^
services have hitherto had nothing to do. Indeed, it is a matter of knowledge that
the administration of Cyprus by the Colonial Office—which is its sole Middle
Eastern responsibility—has not resulted in anything like that development of the
island which its interests and opportunities demand. The Department of the Middle
East will have, to a large extent, to be a specialised Department, attracting to its
service a particular type of ability, knowledge, training, and experience.
7. Mr. Churchill, as has been pointed out by Mr. Montagu, seems to be un
acquainted with what has been passing in Mesopotamia. Had he been present at
the meetings of the Eastern Committee, he would have known that the Foreign Office
has had nothing to say to the expansion of our responsibilities in those regions, except
in so far as the Chairman of that Committee, who happens to be myself, has on a
score of occasions laboured to contract the area of responsibility into which’an almost
exclusively military administration has dragged us, and to prevent the extension of
our activities into regions where he seems to think that the Foreign Office wishes to
spread itself of malice prepense, but where in reality in the majority of cases it has
not the slightest desire to go. When he says that “ the Foreign Office, rather than
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. or the War Office, gives the directing influence, and that the polittcal
officers under the civil administration push out into all sorts of remote regions on
various pretexts,” he seems to be unaware that the civil administration has been
exclusively Indian, that the remote districts have been penetrated because the military *
insisted upon it, that the Foreign Office has had nothing to do with the matter at all.
except when the activities of the military have involved us in foreign cgmplications,
and that, if the Foreign Office were disestablished to-morrow, not a single one of the
difficulties of which he complains would be diminished or would disappear; on the
contrary, they would be almost immeasurably augmented.
8. The Foreign Office has assuredly no desire to add to its already overwhelming
labours, or to undertake administrative duties for which it does not profess to be
fitted. If I were dispensed altogether to-morrow from having any say to the present
or the future of these regions, I should breathe a sigh of intense and jubilant relief.
But let not my colleagues imagine for a moment that, by a decision of the Cabinet
or by a stroke of the pen, this can be effected. The immediate future of Egypt, with
all the negotiations with foreign Powers in respect of the Capitulations, the Mixed

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Content

The file contains correspondence, minutes, memoranda, and reports concerning the administration of Mesopotamia and other Middle Eastern territories and the transfer of responsibility for Middle Eastern Affairs to a new department within the Colonial Office. Authors and correspondents include Curzon himself, members of the Cabinet, officials from 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. , Foreign Office, Colonial Office, Air Staff, Imperial General Staff, and High Commission in Baghdad.

Extent and format
1 file (68 folios)
Arrangement

The file is arranged in chronological order from the front to the back.

Physical characteristics

Foliation: the foliation sequence (used for referencing) commences at the first folio with 1, and terminates at the last folio with 68; these numbers are written in pencil, are circled, and are located in the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. side of each folio. An additional foliation sequence is present in parallel between ff 1-68; these numbers are also written in pencil, but are not circled.

Pagination: the file also contains an original printed pagination sequence.

Written in
English in Latin script
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'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' [‎30v] (60/136), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F112/281, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100076639645.0x00003d> [accessed 29 March 2024]

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