'Lord Curzon's Notes on Persia: About 1889-1890' [‎672v] (1365/1486)

20
THE KARUN RIVER AND THE COMMERCIAL
expected to result from the active development of the Karun trade route.
If it he asked why I have not laid greater stress upon or devoted more
space to railways, I reply that sufficient for the day is the good thereof.
There is a natural sequence of events which no diplomatist can revolu
tionise or invert. Mule-tracks must precede cart-roads; cart-roads must
precede railroads. We shall not conquer Persia by lightning, or convert
her by steam. It will be time to discuss a Karun railway when we
have seen what becomes of a Karun road. In the meantime it rests
with British enterprise to make worthy use of an opportunity which wo
owe to the successful efforts of British diplomacy and to the friendly
disposition of an allied sovereign.
Mr. H. F. B. Lynch asked permission to make a few remarks, in order that he
might lay before the Society some of the information which he was able to collect
during a journey last summer, from the mouth of the Karun to the furthest
mountains in which it took its source, and also because he felt he might have
gamed some useful knowledge on the general question during a three months’ sojourn
in 1 eheran, devoted to an attempt—-in some measure, he hoped, successful—to remove
those obstacles under which the navigation of that fine river had hitherto seemed a
vain labour to those who had conducted it. Many of those present knew the terms
on which the Karun river to Ahwaz was thrown open to general commerce in
November 1888. The present was not the occasion to dwell on those subsequent
restrictions and rescissions which, in the eyes of many, long held the balance doubtful
between progress and abandonment. But they must not forget that whatever pro
gress might have been achieved, and whatever results were likely to ensue, were due
to the enlightened, if perhaps over-cautious, policy of his Majesty the Shah, and to
the energetic initiative of the British Minister in Teheran, Sir Henry Drummond
Wolff. The medieval gate which severed Persia, weak in her isolation, from tho
busy expansion of the modern world, had been thrown ajar, and they might attri
bute many of the difficulties which had been met with to the protracted absence of
his Majesty the Shah from his dominions. He was thankful to be able to inform
the meeting that many of those difficulties had now been removed. He had heard
by telegraph that a steamer belonging to the company navigating the Lower Karun
had been successfully taken above the rapids, and was about to commence, in the
service of the Persian Government, to ply continuously between Ahwaz and Shushter,
in conjunction with the company’s steamers below Ahwaz. Shushter, the point from
which the trade routes to the interior would naturally commence, was thus brought
into immediate contact with the commerce of India and of Europe. If the goodwill
of the Persian Government continued ; if the British Government would support, as
they had already supported, the interests of general commerce on those waters, and
enable those to continue the navigation who had striven their utmost to establish
it; then the tracks which Mr. Curzon had described were likely to be beaten by the
tread of caravans, or furrowed by the novel roll of wheels.
From a short sketch of the progress and the actual position of commerce,
which, it seemed to him, it was important to state in connection with a paper
dealing largely with commercial geography, he passed to a very brief examination
ol the ground which Mr. Curzon’s paper had traversed. He felt that the thanks of
all those who were interested in the East were due to Mr. Curzon, for the diligent
research and the intelligent observation which he had brought to bear on these
subjects. Following his general division, he would attempt to offer a few brief