Asiatic Quarterly Review (Full Title: The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, and Oriental and Colonial Record): Volume XIII, No. 26 [‎447v] (19/238)

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The Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. .
far towards counterbalancing our occupation of Egypt.
“ There is no motive,” he goes on to say, “ in the good of
Russia for the other states to consent to an arrangement
which carries with it hazard to them.” To this statement
it may be useful to append the vigorous sentence in which
Lord Curzon has summed up the conclusions he arrived at
after study on the spot: “ I should regard the concession
of a port upon the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. to Russia by any power as
a deliberate insult to Great Britain, as a wanton rupture of
the status quo, and as an intentional provocation to war ;
and I should impeach the British Minister who was guilty of
acquiescing in such a surrender as a traitor to his country.”*
This is all very forcible and clear; but your readers may
ask me for a constructive policy. What are my conclu
sions, as a traveller in most of these countries west of India,
as to the part which we should play ? Not, certainly, the
part of the dog in the manger. We do not desire, we have
shrunk from acquiring, even during our war with Persia,
when we were in possession, territory on the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. .
Moreover our commercial policy, for which our persistent
practice in all parts of the world is a sufficient guarantee, is
a policy of the door open to all comers. What we should
endeavour to prevent with all the means at our disposal is
the establishment on the Gulf of any European Power.
And, as regards the vast land areas which give access to
these waters, our policy should be frankly one of spheres of
influencef—the only policy which is any longer possible in
Persia, and which seems to be dictated by the counsels of
ordinary prudence in the case of Asiatic Turkey.
It is fortunate for us—though it is a fact which would
appear to be all but unknown to our statesmen—that Nature
has herself determined these spheres. In relation to Russia,
the natural division between her sphere and ours is formed
in Peisia by that broad zone of saline and scarcely passable
* “Persia and the Persian Question.” London, 1892. Vol. ii., p. 465.
f These words have been misunderstood in one or two quarters. They
are not intended to convey the meaning that we should abandon our
traditional policy of maintaining the integrity and independence of Persia.