Coll 28/67 ‘Persia. Annual Reports, 1932–’ [‎234v] (468/644)

The Meshed Shrine.
62. Throughout 1938 it remained British policy that non-Moslem British
subjects should not seek nor avail themselves of facilities to visit the Shrine. On
the other hand, the Iranian authorities continued their policy of encouraging all
persons to visit it, and towards the end of the year showed their confidence in this
policy by abandoning the practice of giving formal permissions, and by throwing
the Shrine entirely open to the followers of all religions alike. Large numbers
of foreigners visited the Shrine : the British were becoming an increasingly
noticeable exception, and it became clear, in all the circumstances, that British
policy would shortly need to be reconsidered.
(d) India.
Iranian Representation at Quetta.
63. The Iranian Government continued to consider their passport officer at
Quetta a vice-consul, though they had never applied for his formal recognition
as such. In May they expressed the desire to promote their representative to
consul, and were informed that there was no objection to this. The Government
of India duly recognised the appointment.
Deportation of undesirable Iranians from India.
64. Towards the end of August the Iranian Consul-General at Simla made
representations to the Government of India on behalf of a number of Iranian
subjects who had been arrested in the Punjab. These turned out to be members
of a band of sixty Iranian gipsies who had been causing considerable trouble by
their thieving and rioting. Many of them were without passports, others had
deficient passports. These circumstances were explained in detail to the Iranian
Consul-General. Ultimately, in September, orders were issued by the Punjab
Government for the deportjftion of twenty-nine of the band. Though there was
no parallel between the deportation of such undesirables and the deportation
from Iran of British Berberis against whom no charges had been laid, the action
of the Indian authorities seems to have had, at least temporarily, a restraining
effect in Iran—see paragraph 52 of this report.
Articles in Indian Newspapers.
65. The Government of India were able on two occasions to obtain the
• publication of articles in the Indian press making amends for articles which had
been critical of Iran, though in one case the offending article had merely been a
verbatim reprint—in the Hindustan Times —of a story originally published in
the American periodical Time.
Locusts.
66. Late in 1937 the Iranian Government replied officially to a suggestion
that had originally been made to them in 1936 that an agreement should be
concluded between Iran and India on the question of anti-locust measures. The
Iranian Government stated “ that they were not prepared to enter into an agree
ment under which they would assume any obligation to take anti-locust measures,
and that they were only prepared to consider an agreement for the exchange of
information.’' The Government of India prepared' a rough draft of a proposed
agreement, which was forwarded to His Majesty’s Government in the United
Kingdom for consideration.
Customs
67. The Government of India decided to impose a land customs regime, on
the land fiontiers of India as from the 1st February. I his information was duly
communicated to the Iranian Government—a list of the articles affected had
already been given to them in December 1936. In July the Ministry for Foreign
Affairs complained about the effect of the customs duties at Nok Kundi on the
manufacture of silken goods in Iran, the Iranian Consul at Karachi having
reported that these duties were virtually prohibitive.