'SUMMARY OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS AND MEASURES OF THE VICEROYALTY OF HIS EXCELLENCY LORD CURZON OF KEDLESTON VICEROY AND GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF INDIA. PART I - The Persian Gulf.' [‎37v] (79/92)

75
some of the most highly respected, were gradually mdueed to participate m the
proceeds of the fund. The reorganisation was doubly beneficial inasmuch as it
redeemed the fund from the stigma of maladministration, under which it had
previously laboured, and at the same time placed in the hands of the Bntish
Besident an instrument of the greatest political efficacy. In IhOS the new
arrangements, though not as yet in full working order, enabled the British
authorities to moderate to some extent the dangerous campaign which was
then being directed from Kerhela and Nejef against the Government of the
Shah In 1905 only three important Mujtahids still persisted in their retusal
to accept allowances, and several of the body paid friendly visits to Major
Newmareh at Baghdad,—a civility without precedent in the previous dealings
of their class with British officers. An indirect consequence of the rectification
of the Bequest arrangements, was to leave the British Government politically
unrepresented in the Baghdad Wilayet except by the Political Resident A senior ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul General) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Residency. , and
this circumstance in its turn led to the institution of a regular British Vice-
Consulate at Kerbela.
In 1898, in consequence of a serious outbreak of piratical offences which
the Turkish and Persian Governments neglected or were unable to repress, a
British ^unboat was stationed in the Shat-el-Arab for the protection of shipping
in the date season, and during the seasons 1898, 1899 and 1900 there was a
total cessation of piracy. In 1901 piracies began again, but most of them now
took place in the off-season during the absence of the British vessel. A parti-
cularlv serious case occurred in 1904), when a Karachi boat returning to India
was followed over the bar of-the Shat-el-Arab by pirates from the river, who
killed two of the crew, wounded two others and endeavoured to drown the
rest • in this case a village at the mouth of the Hindian river, suspected of
complicity, was searched by a British naval party but nothing was found, and a
reward of Rs. 1,000 which was offered failed to elicit any information. In
order to remedy a state of matters which was becoming intolerable, efforts
were made by the British Government to bring about co-operation between the
Turkish and Persian Governments for the suppression of piracy; the Porte and
the Sheikh of Mohammerah signified their willingness to support the scheme,
but it was rejected by the Persian central Government who were unwilling to
commit themselves to any form of extradition between Persia and Turkey, and
piracy accordingly continued to floutish unchecked. British Indian vessels,
being unarmed, are the most exposed to piratical violence and before Lord
Gurzon’s final departure from India, the question of prolonging the annual
visit of the British gunboat to the Shat-el-Arab into the spring of the following
year had been raised.
In 1904 a serious fracas, attended by the loss of several lives, occurred
among the Indian military guard of the Baghdad Residency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, established in the provinces and regions considered part of, or under the influence of, British India. ; it had, however,
no political effects. At the end of the same year a scheme was prepared by Sir
W. Willcocks, the well-known British engineer, for the reclamation of Meso
potamia by a system of perennial irrigation, but up to the end of Lord Curzon’s
Viceroy alty it had not received the official support of the British Government
and no definite pronouncement in regard to it had been made by the Porte, to
whom it had been submitted for consideration through the British Ambassador
at Constantinople.
The German scheme for a prolongation of the Anatolian Railway by way
of Baghdad to the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. did not, up to the close of Lord Curzon’s
viceroyalty, assume any definite shape, nor did the work of construction enter
or even approach the limits of Turkish Arabia A term used by the British officials to describe the territory roughly corresponding to, but not coextensive with, modern-day Iraq under the control of the Ottoman Empire. ; in 1904, however, Lord Curzon,
after his tour in the Gulf, presented His Majesty’s Government with a clear
and vigorous statement of his views on the problem which was rapidly coming
into existence in Mesopotamia. Differing from opinions which were then en
tertained by some authorities in England, he declined to regard the projected
line as a flank defence to the position of Great Britain in Southern Persia and
the Gulf, and he deprecated the idea that British political and strategical
interests in those regions could only be adequately protected by an under
standing with Germany. In his estimation the interests of Germany in Meso
potamia were more likely to be antagonistic than favourable to those of