"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎٣‎٨‎٥] (١٧٨٢/٥٢٨)

't
o35
The acceleration of the Persian Gulf mail steamer service in 1904 was British
steam
a notable achievement of the period ; it resulted from the establishment by C ommuni-
the British India Steam Navigation Company in return for an increased a1 ^
subsidy, of a fast mail line in addition to an existing slow cargo and mail services in
line. The extra subsidy on account of the rapid service, borne entirely by Q®]^ els ' an
the Government of India, was Rs. 3,00,000 per annum; and the average
speed of the fast line was fixed at 13, and of the slow line at 8 knots an hour.
Kuwait was for the first time definitely included among the Company's
ports of call, and Dibai, though not entered in the schedule of the contract,
was henceforth regularly visited by the Company^ vessels.
A postal subsidy of Rs. 24,000 a year paid by the Government of
India to the Euphrates and Tigris Steam Navigation Company for a
weekly mail service in both directions between Basrah and Baghdad was
renewed for ten years with effect from 1904.
The period was also remarkable for the first considerable extensions of British
. . telegraphs
the telegraph system of the Persian Gult made since 1869 ,• they were in the
dictated by considerations of policy and strategy as well as of commercial Q^" a11
advantage.
The inadequacy of the communications between Masqat and the out- ^shk-^
side world was remedied, first of all, by the laying ol a cable from Jashk cable,
to Masqat which was opened for traffic in November 1901; in this enter
prise, approved though it was in principle by His Majesty s Government,
no financial assistance was rendered to the Government of India by the
British Treasury.
A second and perhaps more important scheme was propounded by the
Government of India in 1900 along with the first, but its realisation was CO nnection.
delayed bj the refusal of the Home Government to undertake a share of
the cost and by doubts of a technical nature as to the best means of caiiy-
ing it into effect; its object was the inclusion of the port of Bandar
'Abbas in the circuit of the Persian Gulf cables. This it was originally
intended to arrange by looping one of the existing cables between Jashk
and Bushehr into the bay of Bandar 'Abbas; but in 1902 a proposal by
the Naval Commander-in-Chief, that telegraphic communication should
be extended to Basidu, suggested the alternative of landing a cable on
Hanjam, where a British telegraph station had existed from 1869 to 1880,
and of constructing a branch thence to Bandar 'Abbas. This alternative
project was finally accepted by His Majesty's Government on the advice of
Lord Curzon after he had personally visited Hanjam in 1903; and in Apiil
1904 one of the Bushehr cables was relanded on the island and the tele
graph station there re-occupied without notice to the Persian Government,
- iUji;