Papers of the War Cabinet's Eastern Committee [‎80v] (160/544)

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3. Should action so prompt or immediate be required as to render even the slight
delay involved in a meeting undesirable, the remedy is not only easy, but is frequently
applied. On several occasions Lord Robert Cecil has sent elf an urgent Foreign Office
telegram—which he has kindly submitted to me as Chairman—without the delay even
of an hour. The War Office has often done the same. The machinery in this respect
is quite adequate for any emergency; and l think the Departments concerned may
safely be trusted, in consultation with the Chairman, with the exercise of these
powers. They are in accordance with the policy recommended by Lord Robert Cecil.
4. In practice the departmental devolution that is recommended in some of
these papers already exists. The very fact that the Committee recently was not
asked to meet for 10 days is in itself conclusive proof that departmental action was
not suspended in the interim, but was going on all the while. Action is taken upon
the great ma jority of the telegrams that come in both to Foreign Office, India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. ,
and War Office, without any reference to the Committee (or, I may add, to the
Chairman) at all. The Departments have found no difficulty in discriminating
between what I may call departmental cases and Committee cases. If there is a
doubt the despatch of a telephone message or a red box can settle it in half an hour.
5. Neither does it appear to me necessary to draw a distinction between “ high
policy " and “ executive action ” in defining the functions of the Eastern Committee.
The despatch of Dunsterville and an armed British force to Baku, the reinforcement
of Bushire or Bunder Abbas, the despatch of emissaries to Bokhara or Tashkend,
the steps to be taken with regard to the Idrisi or Ibn Saud, are all executive acts
which could not possibly be dissociated from the Committee or left to other hands.
If the Committee were confined to discussion of policy and were to be divorced from
any control of action, 1 for one would not care to serve upon it any longer.
6 . For similar reasons I see no reason for the constitution of a Sub-Committee,
with powers either of decision or action. The proper depositories of these powers
seem to me to be (a) the Committee, (b) the Departments, co-ordination between the
two being maintained in the manner already described. If a Sub-Committee were
set up it would constantly he confronted with the difficulty of deciding what was of
primary and what was of secondary importance; time would be consumed in report
ing its decisions to the main Committee; they might even be disapproved of by the
latter. Recent cases in which the Eastern Committee declined to authorise action,
which a Sub-Committee might, if it had existed, quite conceivably have been disposed
to adopt, were the proposed despatch of a party of Dunsterville’s officers and men
to Bakhtiariland, Sykes’ proposal to move northwards with troops and South Persia
Rifles from Shiraz to Isfahan, the despatch of the Hejaz delegates to Central Asia.
None of these proposals appeared at the moment to be matters either of high policy
or of capital importance. The Eastern Committee, fortunately, and as events proved
rightly, intervened in all these cases. Had the responsibility been delegated to others,
and had a different decision been arrived at, the consequences, for which the Com
mittee would have been held responsible, might have been far-reaching and un
fortunate.
7. As a matter of fact, viewing the complexity of the problems concerned, and
the fact that five departmental or governing bodies, viz., War Cabinet, Foreign
Office, India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. , Government of India, War Office, with their various diplomatic,
military, and political agents, are involved, out of which medley of opinion and
advice a single coherent policy has to be evolved, it seems to me that the Eastern
Committee, now that it has settled down to its work, does it with the minimum of
friction, and on the whole very reasonably well.
8 . If I were to dilate upon what in my opinion is really its weakest point, I
should have to say more than I care about the position of the Chairman. Whereas
his colleagues of the Foreign Office, India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. , and War Office come to the
meetings well posted in all that is passing, with the resources of highly efficient
Departments at their backs, with memoranda prepared for them by capable sub
ordinates, and with the advantage of having talked over matters in advance, the
Chairman enjoys no such advantages. He has no Department, no Secretariat, no
Staff. In so far as he forms an opinion upon the papers or telegrams that come in
before a meeting he has to form it alone. He takes the chair without any idea what
the Departments concerned may have in their minds or be about to propose.
This is an exceedingly difficult task, and I have never concealed my view that
if such a Committee as the Eastern Committee is to survive the war, or even if the
area which it supervises is to remain a main theatre of British and Indian political
and military action, a Secretary of State for the Middle East will be required, with