'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' [‎31v] (62/136)

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feeling sure how far its problems will in the future have an Egyptian or it Central
African orientation. Nor have I discussed whether Cyprus should be added—as
think it probably ought to be—to the new Department. Lord Milner will give us
much more authoritative advice upon both questions. Nor have I at this stage
attempted to draw a line of division between the spheres of the Ottoman Kingdom
of the future and the Middle East, not being at all sure in what shape the former
will survive.
13. With one suggestion, however, that has been made, I concur. I think that
it will be necessary to have an Eastern Committee, or something like it, to co-ordinate
the interests and work of the various Departments that will for many years to come
be concerned in the administration of the Middle East. They are the foreign Office,
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. , War Office, Admiralty, Air Force, and Treasury. I doubt if the Cabinet
is at all fully aware what the activities of this Committee in its various forms have
been during the last three and a-half years, or of the extent to which it has relieved
the Cabinet of the labours and responsibilities of Middle Eastern politics. In^ the
successive garbs of the Mesopotamian Administration Committee, Persian Com
mittee, Middle East Committee, Eastern Committee, and Inter-Departmental
Conference on the Middle East, this body, over whose deliberations I have had the
honour to preside throughout, has held 120 meetings, with an average duration of
over two hours each, since January 1917, and the general condition of the Middle
East during that period, in spite of some startling vicissitudes, until the collapse of
Denikin and the appearance of the Bolsheviks as a militarist and aggressive force,
has furnished a not unfavourable comment upon its labours.
14. But to render it a really effective instrument of co-ordination, responsible
Heads or Representatives of Departments should attend. The Foreign and Indian
Secretaries should always be, as they have hitherto been, members. The War Office
should be represented, -if not by the Secretary of State, at any rate by the C.I.G.S.
or D.M.I. or D.M.O. The functions of the Committee, by whatever name it be
called, should continue to be political and deliberative, not administrative; and the
superior authority of the Cabinet should in no circumstances be impugned.
15. The advice which I give to the Cabinet therefore is this :—
That a Middle Eastern Department be created.
That if it be considered inexpedient or premature at the present juncture to
constitute this Department a Ministry, and to place it under a separate
Secretary of State, the Department be placed provisionally under a
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, responsible to and taking his
orders from the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
3. That a Middle Eastern Service be created for the areas concerned.
4. That a permanent co-ordinating Committee be set up.
These recommendations do not differ in essence (except in one particular) from
those in 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. memorandum of the 1st June./c
Foreign Office, June 8, 1920.
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