'Lord Curzon's Notes on Persia: About 1889-1890' [‎682r] (1384/1486)

May 10 , iSgg.]
JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF ARTS.
wrought-iron grille for vestibule door. De
signed by G. F. Henney.
Third Prize (£s) to Henry Ross, 13 , Melton-
street, Drummond-street, N. W., for a wrought-
iron grille for a street door.
The whole of the work sent in for com
petition in this class is highly commended.
GOLDSMITH’S AND SILVERSMITH’S
WORK.
Second Prize (^ 5 ) to Tom Barker, School of
Arts, Sheffield, for a silver sugar basin, chased
with original designs.
Proceedings of the Society.
INDIAN SECTION.
Friday, May 3, 1889 ; Sir Lepel Griffin,
K.C.S.I., in the chair.
The Chairman, in introducing the reader of the
paper, remarked that in that place political ques
tions were discouraged, if not absolutely forbidden,
"but in the case of Eastern countries politics and
trade were indissolubly connected, and it was
an undoubted fact that trade followed the flag.
England held up the light of free trade, but many
other countries still relied on protection. England
wished only for a fair field and no favour, but
the basis of Russian policy in Central Asia was
■that wherever her flag flew the door was shut to
4he commerce of all other nations, except under
such differential duties as were almost prohibitive.
Where England bore sway she allowed every one
a full and free chance, encouraged no doubt by
the conviction that the larger part of the trade
would fall into her own hands. This had been the
•case with the Suez Canal, and no doubt would be so
with the Karun River, which His Highness the Shah
■of Persia, influenced by our enlightened and energetic
Minister, Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, had now
opened to the world. This river penetrated about
200 miles into the heart of Persia, and would open
up a large field for English commerce. He hoped
.that when the Shah visited England the Chambers of
■Commerce would in some public way testify their
sense of his enlightened policy in taking this step,
which he was quite sure would be as much for the
benefit of Persia as of England.
The paper read was—
56r
THE KARUN RIVER AS A TRADE
ROUTE.
By Major-Gen. Sir R. Murdoch Smith,
K.C.M.G., Royal Engineers.
The Karun is one of the branches of the
great river system which constituted the prin
cipal physical feature, and the main physical
means of support, of the mighty empires of
antiquity—the Babylonian, the Assyrian, the
Medo Persian, the Greek, the Parthian, and
the Sassanian. One empire succeeded the
other, but each in turn had its nucleus or
centre of gravity in the thickly peopled plains
which were watered by the great river system
of which the Kanin forms an important com
ponent part. Empire passed from one dynasty
and one nation to another, but its seat and
centre never left the populous banks of the
great rivers which converge on the head of the
Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , in the estuary now known as the
Shat-el-Arab. Even after the overthrow of the
Sassanian kingdom of Persia by the Arabs, the
eastern world was long ruled from the banks
of the Tigris by the Abbasid Khalifs of Bagh
dad. Babylon, Nineveh, Susa, Seleucia,
Ctesiphon, have all passed away ; even Bagh
dad and Bussorah, which in the early years of
Islam took in some degree the place of those
ancient seats of empire, are now but the
shadows of their former selves. Still the
physical conditions are now exactly what they
were in the days of Semiramis, Darius, and
Hanin-er-Rashid. The great alluvial plains
of Mesopotamia and Khuzistan are just as
fertile, and the rivers by which they are
watered—the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Diala,
the Kerkhah, and the Kanin—just as copious
as they ever were. It is hardly possible to
believe therefore that a region so richly
endowed by nature, and for so many centuries
the very centre of power and civilisation, should
remain for ever in its present condition. Signs
of an awakening to a sense of its great possi
bilities are not wanting, among which the
opening of the Karun to navigation is not the
least hopeful. In the East, however, move
ment is proverbially slow, especially if in an
upward or forward direction. We must, con
sequently, not expect to see all difficulties im
mediately removed, and a new era of pros
perity at once inaugurated.
With these preliminary remarks, suggested
as they are by the very names of the regions to
which they refer, I shall now endeavour to
point out what immediate commercial benefits
the opening of the Karun is capable of afford-