'Memorandum on the Drafts of Despatches regarding the Affairs of Muscat and Zanzibar' [‎27v] (4/24)

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Time presses; and what is now to be done cannot
be well deferred. But the only plan which seems
to me likely to enable us permanently to maintain
the position w r e have held in the Arabian seas for so
many years past, is that which was proposed by
Sir G. Clerk to Lord Canning, to have a Governor
of Aden, as we have of Malta and Gibraltar, ap
pointed by the Indian Government, but corre
sponding direct with the Secretary of State, as the
Governors of Madras and Bombay do, and having
Assistants with political and consular powers, much
as at present, but reporting to Aden from Zanzibar,
Jeddah, and Muscat.
The Agencies at Bushire and Bagdad should, in
like manner, report to the Minister at 1 ehran,
who should be an Indian Officer selected by Her
Majesty’s advisers from among the men qualified
for the posts of Lieutenant Governors, Chief Com
missioners, and the higher grades of political
officers.
I think this would be a better field for selection
than is afforded by the less favoured attaches of the
Turkish and Persian missions.
I would pay the whole cost of these arrangements
from India, but there is no reason why all the
Persian correspondence which relates to Luropean
foreign affairs should not come before Her Majesty’s
Government through the Foreign Office, as at
present, while, as regards purely Indian affairs, the
the Minister corresponded direct with the Viceroy,
the Governor of Bombay, or the Secretary of State
for India, as the case might require.
Just as, for the last century and more, the Ad
miral in the Mediterranean has had as much diplo
matic as naval correspondence, without leading to
any misunderstanding between the Admiralty and
Foreign Office.
In dealing with all these questions, we must not
forget—
(1.) That all our interests with Persia, Arabia,
and East Africa are primarily Indian interests.
(2.) That the Indian interests in those countries
are not modern, but reach back to the ages of the
ancient Persian, Assyrian, and Egyptian dynasties.
(3.) That the most modern feature in our rela
tions is the very serious interruption to trade in
those seas for more than a century, caused by the
increase of piracy, which was consequent on the
decay of the modern Ottoman, Persian, and Mogul
empires, and in which oiir own countrymen, with
the Dutch and Portuguese, 150 to 200 years ago,
unhappily set the example.
(4.) That the Indian trading communities now
found in almost every port on those coasts had been
there from time immemorial, when Vasco de Gama
first rounded the Cape, and that we cannot now,
either safely or honourably, repudiate our obli
gations as the rulers of the country of which they
are natives and to which they owe allegiance.
(N.B .—These traders very rarely take their