Publications, Newspaper Cuttings, Photographs and Correspondence about Persia and the Persian Gulf [‎270v] (541/879)

eatly pleased Mr. Gladstone by his mastery of,
e Irish Land Bill and his valuable assistance
carrying it through the House.
IR SALAR JUNG IN EUROPE.
Xy Macmillan s Magazine for March there is a
arming article on the first Sir Salar Jung
r Colonel G. II. Trevor, late Governor-General’s
gent to K jputana, who accompanied the great
yderabad Minister on his tour to Europe in
76. The article is by title a description of
at tour, but it is a good deal more besides, as
e reader will find. It gives a delightful
cture by an intimate acquaintance of the
•ivate life of one who impressed all that came
contact with him as a great man. The
awab's visit to England in 1876 rose out of the
rince of Wales’s visit to India. Although as
blonel Trevor shows Sir Salar Jung was far
love the conventional ideas of personal dignity
merally prevalent among Oriental magnates,
enerally local public opinion compelled him to
iddle himself with a monstrously cumbersome
id expensive following.
THE TOUR AND THE SUITE.
The Minister had been persuaded to engage a
nall ship of the Rubbatino Company, and to
ike with him a large following amounting to
ore than fifty persons, including servants,
store a medical officer of the Hyderabad
ontingent and myself were attached to him.
his mistake did not add to the comfort of the
yage or of the journey from Naples, especial-
r as very few of the suite had any acquaint-
lice with Western customs or the English
nguage. To stuff cabins with Bombay mangoes
nd plantains and let ’ them rot, to lie down
nywhere unturbaned and in the lightest attire,
) have no particular desire for water except for
rinking purposes, to cook their food in the
edrooms of foreign hotels,—these and other
ccentricities demanded constant disinfecting
owder, and action on my part which was only
olitical in the sense that sanitary maxims
annot be enforced, or hotel keepers appeased,
ithout a certain amount of diplomacy. The
aptain of the ship would say, when I urged
ipon hfm the claims of discipline and suggested
aily washing of the decks : " My orders are to
make things comfortable for His Excellency ; he
•as taken the whole ship.” His Excellency would
charge up exactly at the appointed time, and
hence A- laboured to instil the idea that in
Europe to keep a King- waiting, even for a
minute, was esteemed a crime. The King and
his Court were so much impressed by Sir Salar
Jung's distinguished appearance and by his suite
(the Arab Jemadars being par i ularly noticed)
that a visit to the Crown Prince and Princess,
(the present King and Queer ) was invited’
and I received a message that full dress on
the part of the Oriental attendants was
especially desired. It was amusing to see some
of the great ladies surreptitiously pinch the
gold-embroidered garment of one of the Jema-
dars to test its thickness, and all of them inspect
the wearer and his companions with open-eyed
curiosity. The artless questions I had then to
answer, accompanied by an expressed wish to
hear Hindustani spoken, prepared me for sub
sequent repetitions of the same performance in
London, where even in the-present day fashion
able people are sometimes unaware that ques
tions as to whether an Indian prince is married or
unmarried, how many wives he has, and so forth
are as foreign to his ideas of etiquette as
inquiries from him regarding their age, income,
or position in society would be to theirs. We
are getting on, however ; in 1876 the spectacle
of a Maharaja waltzing with an English lady
would have been impossible.
THE ACCIDENT AT PARIS.
On the day of Salar Jung’s arrival at the Grand
Hotel while he was ascending the staircase his
heels slipped on the polished landing and he sat
down heavily, as a man falls on the ice, before
an arm could be stretched out to.his assistance. I
was close behind, but unfortunately too late. The
Na wall’s courage as he was carried to his room,
and his own assurances subsequently confirmed
by his two private physicians, a French doctor
who was summoned, and Surgeon-Major W.,
permitted us to hope that a violent contusion
was the extent of his injury and that he would
be up and about again in two or three days. It
was not until the end of the month that, still
helpless, he was carried to the train and con
veyed by a special steamer from Calais to
Folkestone, where he landed on June 1st and met
with an official reception from the Mayor and
Corporation. 1
in replying to the Mayor’s address of welcome
the Nawab An honorific title; an official acting as a provincial deputy ruler in South Asia; or a significant Muslim landowner in nineteenth century India. said :
It affords me the highest interest and pleasure
carryout my long cherished desire to see this
untry, with which the family of my master,
is Highness the Nizam, has been so closely
nnected during the past century. I can also
tim an intimate association with some of the
ghest officers of the British Government, dat-
ig back as far as the year when my great
randfather, Mir Alam, on the part of the
izam, proceeded to Calcutta to arrange with
ord Cornwallis the treaty and alliance for mak-
ig the first war against Tippoo Sultan. You
ave alluded to the recent visit of His Royal
lighness the Prince of Wales to India. I must
sk your permission to add my assurance to
our conviction on this subject, namely, that
jiglaud and India are thereby knitted closer
ogether in bonds of unity and peace. The op-
ortunity afforded to the Princes and Nobles of
he Native States to do honour to the Heir-
upparent of the British throne has been gladly
nd faithfully accepted wherever it was possible,
nd I can affirm the result is that this royal visit
as very materially strengthened the affections
nd developed the feelings of the Native Princes
nd people of India to the British Crown and to
lie Empress of India. I shall ever pray for the
prosperity of Great Britain and her Indian
Empire.
Under the escort of the Duke of Sutherland
in 1 other English friends the Nawab An honorific title; an official acting as a provincial deputy ruler in South Asia; or a significant Muslim landowner in nineteenth century India. then tra-
relled to London, where he occupied for two
nonths Lord Rosebery’s house in Hamilton
’lace (now the Bachelors’ Club) which had been
aken for him. The Prince of Wales sent Sir
ames Paget and Mr Prescott Hewett to attend
his injuries, and their examination discovered
fracture in a bone of the fight thigh which
ecessitated splints and a long rest. This acci-
.ent crippled the Nawab An honorific title; an official acting as a provincial deputy ruler in South Asia; or a significant Muslim landowner in nineteenth century India. for the rest of his tour,
nd induced him, after two .months of England,
o give up his idea of visiting Berlin, Peters-
urg, Vienna, and Constantinople, and to return
o India. Those two months, however, were one
ontinued ovation. In spite of his being con-
ined to, and carried about in a specially con
structed chair, he saw and did a great deal, win
ning golden opinions on all sides by the simpli-
city and charm of his manners. By the aid of
crutches he was enabled to stand when invested
at Oxford with the degree of Doctor of Civil
Law, an honour shared in company with Sir
William Mansfield (afterwards Lord Sandhurst),
Matthew Arnold, and Canon Liddon, and appre
ciated as highly as he enjoyed the cheers and
remarks of the undergraduates which accom
panied it. On other great occasions also he was
compelled to use crutches, notably on the presen
tation of the Freedom of the City of London at
the Guildhall, an unprecedented honour for the
Minister of a native Indian Ruler ; but though he
managed to pay his respects to the Queen at
Windsor, to stay at Dunrobin Castle for a few
lays, and to see E linburgh, his journeys by rail
were curtailed by his accident, and he was oblig
ed to decline invitations to Liverpool, Manches
ter, and other places. Deputations from various
Associations were numerous; as were banquets,
receptions, and other social gatherings, from
those of Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace,
and Marlborough House to the entertainments
given in his honour by the elite of London society.
Some of England’s most, distinguished men were
entertained at his own table; all classes, from
the highest to the lowest, were anxious to see
and welcome the man whom the newspapers
hailed as having been chiefly instrumental in
saving Southern India from revolt at the time
of the great Mutiny.
SALAR JUNG ND DISRAELI.
Beyond inviting him to a grand reception at
the Foreign Office held in honour of the Prince
and Princess of Wales, Mr. Disraeli, the Pre-
mier, left him severely alone. “ 1 thought you
told me" he said to me, "4 that Mr. Disraeli was
one of the eleveret men and best talkers in
England." “ He has t it reputation,” I replied ;
on which the N iwab innocently informed me
that, though the Prince of Wales,had introduced
him and placed him next to the Prime Minister
at dinner at NirlboroughHouse the Sphinx had
hardly opened his lips the whole time. 1 call
this remark innocent because. I knew that cer
tain persons thought the Nawab’s . visit to Eng
land was not wholly unconnected with a politi-
cal object which the Premier was not anxious
to encourage. Mr. Gladstone, on the other
hand (being then out of office), dined with
the Nawab An honorific title; an official acting as a provincial deputy ruler in South Asia; or a significant Muslim landowner in nineteenth century India. and elicited his genuine admira
tion so far that he went back [to India more
in sympathy with the Liberal than with the
Conservative party. When I asked him what
I were the two things which had struck him most
on his tour he answered : “ It is difficult to say,
but perhaps I should name the English man-of-
war we saw in Bombay Harbour when the men
were turned out for action and fired the guns,
and Woolwich Arsenal.”
SIR SALAR JUNG’S CHARACTER.
Hyderabad, or indeed India, cannot expect to
see his like again, for though grateful admirers
may have overdrawn his picture as a statesman
and administrator, they cannot exaggerate his
priceless services during the greater part of his
long rule of nearly twenty-nine years. East or
West, little men who receive favours from and
tender c unsel, interested or disinterested, to a
great man apt to invest him with colossal
intellect and virtue when he follows their advice.
This was at the bottom of the adulation in the
Italian, French, and English newspapers which
spoke of Salar Jung as a combination of
Machiavelli, Richelieu, and Disraeli combined.
It was much to his credit that he was never
puffed up by it. His cleverness and tact, the
enlightenment and liberality of his ideas were
as patent to those who knew him as his kind
heart and sunny, cheerful disposition. They
knew also how he shrank from inflicting pain,
even at the demand of justice, or from hurting
the feelings of the most humble dependant;
how, though an Oriental, he disliked deceit, even
when it appeared necessary to countermine
opposition ; how his patriotism desired the
welfare of the Nizam’s State more than his own,
and left his family lakhs One lakh is equal to one hundred thousand rupees of debt at his death, in
stead of accumulated wealth. But more remark-
able then any other of his gifts was a fascination
of manner and bearing that attracted every one,
young or old, and made all sorts and conditions
of men regard him as greater than he really was
outside Hyderabad. Whatever difference of
opinion there may be about this estimate of Sir
Salar Jung, he was without doubt the most re
markable Indian subject of the Queen-Empress
who has ever visited England.
sir salar jung’s loyalty.
But a brief infraction of this rule may perhaps
be pardoned, since a letter has recently been
made public in Mr. Thornton’s Memoir of Sir
Richard Meade in which Lord Lytton, refer
ring to an infamous newspaper-attack on his
old subordinate when Resident at Hyderabad,
wrote to him these startling words :
" The intrigues of Sir Salar Jung were regard
ed by me as the greatest danger to which the
British power in India was exposed during
my own Viceroyalty—a danger far greater than
any which was involved in war or famine. That
danger was imminent, and if the gravity of it
remained unknown to the public and to
Parliament, it is because it was unostenta
tiously but effectually averted, and its
recurrence rendered impossible, by the
skill and courage with which you most ably
carried out your onerous instructions in deal
ing with it.”
To be told on such authority that Salar
Jung’s intrigues were a great danger to the
British power in India will come as a sudden
shock to those who remember and admired him.
With the utmost deference I cannot help
thinking the statement overstrained. That Sir
Salar Jung was induced to sanction secret at
tempts to circumvent the authority of the
Indian Government, by bringing outside in
fluence to bear on it with a view to remove
opposition to his own wishes in one or two
important matters of state, is not to be
denied ; nor was it to be made light
of by a Viceroy, whose first duty in the
East is to govern. Yet I feel sure that the
Hyderabad Minister would honestly have repu
diated the slightest intention of disloyalty to
wards the Queen-Empress, or her representa
tive. He was probably induced to think that
the latter might be converted to his views, or
have his hand forced, through the advocacy of
persons in high places and of the Press. This
remark refers especially to the dominant idea of
his later years, which was to secure the restora
tion of Berar, a province ceded by the Nizam to
the British Government in 1854 for the mainten-
nance of the Force known as the Hyderabad Con
tingent ; an idea which attracted sympthy from
Englishman who could derive no personal benefit
from it and whose loyalty to the Queen was
beyond suspicion. He knew of course how apt all
Governments are to overlook a staunch adherent
in the desire to propitiate a possible opponent,
and how efficacious a show of resistence or discon
tent often is. His visit to England and the atten
tions he received there as a political and social
celebrity served, as was natural, to heighten the
view he was entitled to take of his own services as
indispensable to his own State and the Govern
ment of India, and . unfortunately did not
weaken the effect of the wretched counsel
that tried to divide him from the Resident
at Hyderabad. To this counsel all, or
most of his mistakes were due, and the pity
of it was that it came from foreigners of English
birth or education. They taught him for a time
to distrust his responsible advisers, and to
resort to intrigue when there was positively no
necessity for it, lie himself being the best
advocate of his own claims and the most likely
to obtain whatever the Government could give,
while one or two of them were enough to dis
credit any cause, however just. Confidential
communications between the Resident and
the Minister were, I am afraid, shown to agents
whose profits lay in disunion between the two,
while disinterested sympathy was attracted by
one sided and inaccurate information calculated
by its authors to fetter the Viceroy. But in all
this Salar Jung was, I feel convinced led away
by bad advice, and cherished no desire incom-
patible in his own mind with sincere loyalty to
the Paramount Power which he had done so
much to sustain in 1857. It would be more
difficult to defend one or two measures he took
to strengthen his own position by weakening
that of his chief rival at Hyderabad; measures
which time has avenged to some extent by mak
ing a son of that rival the present Minister
to the Nizam, while Salar Jung’s own two
sons and son-in-law have passed away.
A young grandson remains to represent the
famous Minister,—of whom it may justly be
said that, whatever his mistakes, no statesman,
with a like environment, possessed of equal power
and control of the public purse, has left a whiter
memory.
north of Persia having beaten all competition.
Prints from. Moscow are paramount in the
North-West, they divide about equally the
Teheran market, with those from Manchester,
and they begin to appear in the bazars of
Central Persia. At Tabriz, Manchester has
only been able to keep a firm hold of the
market because, the freight from Moscow is
higher than that from Lancashire. At any
time, a change in the railway freight between
Moscow and Odessa may alter the situation in
favour of Russian prints. In glass and earthen
ware, candles. petroleum, and a few other
articles of less importance, Russia is, in most
cases, without opposition in North Persia. By
far the chief articles are, however, sugar and
cotton. It is well known that their success in
Persia has been secured by an elaborate system
of bounties. The system has been often decried
in England, but Russia is a new country in an
economic sense, and her commerical policy
should be judged in that light. Her tariff has
in any case created a flourishing industry, and
the sugar, candles, and certain classes of
cotton goods which she exports to Persia,
generally represent the over production of her
works. Their output helps to cheapen, or
rather to enhance the profit on what is sold in
the home market, and the whole system has
the same effect in Persia that the Continental
sugar bounties have on consumers here. The
trade that Russia does in Persia may be called
artificial, but it is nevertheless a rapidly growing
one. It is, however, confined to the north.
We find clear proof of this in the consular
reports. For instance, at Bushire the total
imports in 1897 amounted to £1,145,329; of this
the United Kingdom and India contributed
£974,386, Russia £750. The exports amounted
to £392,532, of which £172,653 went to the
United Kingdom and India, and £1 to Russia.
If we compare these figures with those of the
Tabriz and the Meshed reports (which indicate a
large proportion of English trade notwithstand
ing the fact that Russia is so near) there seems
no reason to grudge her an extension of trade
which has been obtained at such great sacrifices.
The new road from Resht to Teheran is the
latest move that Russia has made to widen the
circle of her Persian trade.
During a recent visit to Teheran and Russia
] had an opportunity of obtaining the following
details with regard to this undertaking
The concession to construct these roads was
given in 1895 and includes the right of widen
ing the entrance to the Murdab at Enzli. It was
granted to “The Compagnie d’Assurance et de
transports en Perse,” founded by Mr. D. S.
Poliakow, of Moscow, who is also the founder
of the International Commercial Bank of Moscow
which has a branch office at Teheran. It is said
that the Russian. < lovernment have shown a keen
interest in this scheme, and that it was at their
request that Mr Poliakow undertook the enter-
prise. At all events, it was no doubt through
official pressure that the chief merchants and
manufacturers at Moscow who have, or are in
the future likely to have, business relations with
Persia, became shareholders of the company
to which the concession was sold, and which was
formed with a capital of 1,000,0000, roubles in 1,000
shares of 1,000 roubles. Some of the Moscow firms
took as many as 103 and 150 shares.
After describing the great engineering diffi.
they divide bel ween them ■
At all events, the road that is now in course
of construction will be a very poor substitute
for the Karun one. Travellers’ accounts
abound with reference to the physical diffi
culties met with. General Schindler, who
visited both the Bakhtiari and the Karun roads—I
by the Shah's order, with the object of erect
ing a telegraph line between Shushter and the
capital, unhesitatingly selected the latter. The
late Colonel Wells, who, by his extensive
travels in Persia was well qualified to form an
opinion, has pronounced against it both on
account of the uncompromising formation of
the ground, and of the absence of towns or
villages of any importance on the line of march.
The road will for ever remain a mule track.
Wheeled traffic is out of the question and a
railway by this trad still more so, considering
that about 80 miles to the North the country is
all but level, between Isfahan and Sultanabad by
way of Khonsar, and is excellently adapted for
railway building.
The Bakhtiari tribes, Mr. Hotz pointed out,
are savage and poor. The main value of the
road will be that it may have an influence in
pushing forward the construction of the Karun
road, as it will give an impetus to the trade
on the Karun. The lecturer concluded as fol
lows : —
The Indian Government has for some years
paid a subsidy for the maintenance of a fort-
nightly steamer service between Mohammerah
and Ahwaz. If the new road should realise
the expectations that are formed of it, this
subsidy could probably be dispensed with, and
the money could certainly be employed to better
purpose as a means to enable the Government
to guarantee the interest of the required capital
to build a road from Ahwaz to Teheran, utilising
the concession that is now in the hands of the
Imperial Bank of Persia. It has also been pro-
posed to use the money to subsidise the Lur
chieftains on condition that they keep the road
safe. It is thought that £1,000 to £1,200 a year
judiciously distributed would attain this object.
But there would be then no funds avail
able for guaranteeing interest on capital, and
the road would remain a mule track. On the
other hand, the existing concession to the Im
perial Bank of Persia would be left undisturbed,
and if the measure of subsidising the tribes
succeeded, it would enhance the value of this
concession, and would perhaps make it possible
after a time to raise the necessary capital
(without Government guarantee; to build a well
metalled road for wheeled traffic all the year
round.
There is no reason to fear Russian opposition
to this road. In fact, the commercial position
of Russia will become so strong by the con
struction of the Resht road, that the stimulating
question will arise, which trade will be more
assisted by the Karun road; that from the
North or that from the South.
THE DISCUSSION.
After the lecture an interesting discussion
took place.
The Chairman said that Persia was in very
much the same position as China. On the North
was a great power determined to push her trade,
whereas Britain on the South had gone from
pillar to post and doue very little indeed as a
country to push her trade and her interests in
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