'PRINCIPAL DESPATCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE RELATING TO PERSIA CONNECTED WITH THE SUMMARY OF EVENTS AND MEASURES OF VICEROYALTY OF HIS EXCELLENCY LORD CURZON OF KEDDLESTON IN THE FOREIGN DEPARTMENT. JANUARY 1899 TO NOVEMBER 1905. VOLUME IV-PART IV. PERSIA.' [‎32v] (69/136)

distribution of the Telegraph subsidies, is vested in the Director-General of the
Indo-European Telegraph Department at Karachi, to whom a special salary
of £120 is paid by the Government of India for the purpose. It has been
proposed to us that this charge should be transferred to the Political Agent A mid-ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Agency.
at Maskat; and for the present we reserve our opinion as to the advantages
of such a change. It would be eminently desirable that Maskat should be
connected by cable with Task, since at present there is no telegraphic communi
cation with any part of Oman. But this too is a question that must wait for
a later solution.
85. Sir M. Durand has proposed that all British Consular officers in Persia
should have a small guard of Indian troopers similar to those now maintained
at Meshed. We are not clear that such a proposal is at present desirable, and
are apprehensive that it might lead to movements on the part of Russia, for
which not even the necessities of a plague cordon could be pleaded in justifi
cation, and which would scarcely be distinguishable from armed occupation.
In this respect we re-echo the opinion which the Government of India expressed
to Your Lordship as recently as August 10th, 1898, to the effect that Indian
interests are sufficiently involved to justify us in furnishing protective detach
ments, as we are now doing at Task and Charbar, for Telegraph stations on the
coast; but that our military provision must, for the present, be limited to this
service.
86. Her Majesty’s Minister also recommends the grant of a supply of
travelling tents to every British officer in Persia. As the majority of these,
under the proposed arrangements, will be upon the Indian list, the suggested
outlay would require in such cases to be met from Indian funds. We do not
think that any general rule is required. We are in the habit of includino*
camp equipment in the outfit of any officer whose duties require him to travef.
We may observe, however, that tents are more likely to be required in out-of-
the-way parts of the country than they are along the main roads, where the
existing chapar or postal service, although destitute of almost every superficial
merit, is nevertheless more rapid and therefore as a rule more convenient than
travelling by caravan.
87. Lastly, Sir M. Durand makes certain recommendations with regard
to the improvement and better organisation of the Telegraph service in Persia
both native and European. We concur with his suggestion that no oppor
tunity should be lost of getting the Persian wires, which are abominably
mismanaged, transferred to our control. He then revives a suggestion of which
much has been heard during the last 20 years, that we should “organise for
political purposes” the existing establishment of the Indo-European Telegraph
Department; although we do not gather very clearly from his despatch what
are the precise measures recommended for that purpose. The last occasion
on which a somewhat similar proposal appears to have been made was in 1887
^ he “ \ Memorandum, dated April 27th of that year, was drawn up by Sir
Murdoch Smith, who was despatched on a semi-political Mission to Persia and
who recommended that capable military officers should he scattered about the
country nominally m charge of the Telegraph stations, but in reality as
political agents In a despatch, dated June 24th, 1887, the Government of
India expressed a general, but guarded, approval of the scheme. In our opinion
there are two sides to the question, for each of which much can be said It is
surprising to us that an institution and a service that have exercised such an
influence and are so generally popular in Persia, as the Indo-European Telegraph
Department, should not have been attended with more visible political effect.
On the other hand, m proportion as the working of the line has become system
atised, so there has been less call for the type of Engineer Officer who was
required during earlier and more troubled days. The work at the maioritv
of the stations does not admit of much leisure on the part of the signalled
and line inspectors. At the more important posts we believe that a consider
able, though unobtrusive, influence is already exerted by the superior officers •
and we are not convinced that the appearance upon the scene of a number