"بلوشستان وبلاد فارس. مذكرة كتبها السير دينيس فيتزباتريك" [ظ‎‎١‎٢] (٢٤/٢٤)

6
that we shall be drawn on gradually from one thing to another, and that the
view r will come more and more to prevail that we are bound to find the
money for whatever the Foreign Office may think it necessary to do in
connection with the parts of Persia to which I refer. It must be borne in
/ mind in this connection that, as a result of the system under which we work
here, the majority of the Council, by which money grants must he sanctioned,
would usually not have access to all the papers connected with matters of
this kind, and further that they would on many occasions, as on this present
occasion, not be applied to for sanction until after the Government had been
irrevocably committed to the expenditure.
15. In conclusion, I desire to explain that nothing is further from my
mind than any desire to interfere with the Foreign Office in their manage
ment of Persian business. I see plainly that even as things now stand
this Council cannot reasonably expect to have much of a voice in Persian
affairs, and year by year, as other European nations come to have more and
more to do with Persia, those affairs must pass more and more under the
exclusive management of the Foreign Office—indeed, as my colleagues may
perhaps remember, in a note I wrote some months ago, I urged that the
control of all affairs west of Baluchistan and Afghanistan should be vested
exclusively in the Foreign Office, who would seek our advice or aid only
when they thought fit. All that I insist on is that we should, without further
delay, come to some definite understanding as to the incidence of the charges
for expenditure. I will only add that, even as things now stand, we are, in
my opinion, paying a very much larger share of the expenditure than is fair
to the Indian taxpayer.
D. Fitzpatrick.
22nd November 1899.
?!;