Coll 28/67 ‘Persia. Annual Reports, 1932–’ [‎207r] (413/644)

ridiculous lengths as was still the case. His Majesty’s Minister referred specially,
but not exclusively, to the situation at Meshed, expressing particular disappoint
ment that, although the post had been reorganised to avoid the suspicions (though
unwarranted) felt by the Iranian authorities in the past, the consulate-general
was still treated as before. This was, incidentally, extremely bad propaganda for
Iran, for what must be the feelings with which the unfortunate officials left Iran,
whose fate had been to live in the provinces. M. Samiy realised and regretted
the position, but he thought it an inevitable consequence of past history and of
the spirit of nationalism which was raging everywhere. The treatment of foreign
consulates resulted largely from the behaviour of the Russians, and the necessities
that undue foreign influence should not recur, and that the representatives of all
countries should be treated alike. On His Majesty’s Minister repeating his
conviction that senior police officials were pushing things much further than the
Government would wish, M. Samiy seemed to assent and promised to speak to the
Prime Minister. Subsequently M. Samiy was sent notes of the various cases of
which His Majesty’s Minister had had to make complaint. It is satisfactory to
record that, towards the end of the year, Sarhung Nawai, chief of police at
Meshed, was recalled to Tehran. This may augur some improvement. It was
satisfactory, too, that a burglarious attempt on the house, and even bedroom, of
the British vice-consul at Zahidan by a disreputable soldier, after being frustrated
by Major Campbell’s presence of mind and energy, was severely punished by the
local military authorities. At Zahidan, indeed, where the Governor-General of
Mekran, Taj Baksh, was personally friendly, the lot of His Majesty’s British
Indian subjects was not too bad. The competition threatened by the Government-
owned East Iran Transport Company with the Indian lorry drivers did not
materialise; there was even a prospect that the victims of the lorries commandeered
in December 1935, would extract locally something nearer a fair repayment than
seemed likely early in the year, and the universal smuggling, in which army and
Amnieh and all participated, gave the Indian colony a means of livelihood and
a zest in life.
Baluchistan Frontier Questions.
84. No reference was made in 1937 to the measures which the Government
of India had offered to take to assist the Iranian authorities. Throughout the
year the Iranian Ministry for Foreign Affairs transmitted the usual complaints
against British Baluchis of murder, brigandage, thefts of camels and donkeys
and attempted seduction of Iranian tribesmen. There was also an obscure and
ill-founded complaint as to the cutting of telegraph wires in Iranian territory
near Mirjawa, and an appeal that the Indian authorities would accept an
Iranian Baluchi named Abdul Karim who had previously given trouble in
British Baluchistan and was presently in prison in Zahidan. On neither of these
last points was it possible to give satisfaction to the Iranian Government, and
a request for the extradition of three Iranian soldiers had to be met with a
reminder of the attitude of the Government of India in this connexion. For
the rest, the complaints were transmitted to the Government of India in cases
where reasonable particulars had been furnished. The Government of India had
their counter-complaints against Iranian Baluchis.
85. Early in the year His Majesty’s Minister told the then head of the
Ministry for Foreign Affairs that the only hopes of settling such matters was
on the spot by the local officials. M. Soheily replied that the Ministry of War
could not agree to this procedure. The unconvincing reason given was that there
were no local Iranian officials who could properly treat these matters with British
consular officers. None the less, it was impressed on the Ministry on the occasion
of every complaint transmitted by them that only through local co-operation could
effective action be taken.
Visits by Non-Moslem British Subjects to the Shrine at Meshed.
86. Though the Iranian authorities continued to encourage visits, always
under escort, by Christians to the Shrine, it remained British policy that non-
Moslem British subjects should not seek nor avail themselves of facilities for
visiting it. Thus the party of British, Australian and American students of
the National Union of Students, who toured Iran in 1937, with the good offices
of His Majesty’s Legation and consular posts, abstained from repeating the
[16966J d* 4