Papers of the War Cabinet's Eastern Committee [‎93v] (186/544)

16
The Foreign Secretary is accompanied by the Permanent Under-Secretary, and
the Indian Secretary by his Political Secretary, the C.I.G.S. is sometimes
accompanied by the D.M.I.—sometimes replaced by him. Sir M. Sykes, Mr.
Oliphant, and Mr. Slmekburgh attend as Foreign Office and 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. auxiliaries
to the War Cabinet Secretary (Colonel Storr). As we do not vote, but decide by
discussion, no technical change in the position of those who attend the Committee
seems to be required. Even if carried out, it would make no difference in the way
in which our w'ork is done.
2 . Mr. Montagu lays it down as an accepted premise that action is delayed by
the necessity of awaiting the decision of a Committee which cannot meet often, and
the War Office think that this cannot be disputed, and that the Committee is over
burdened with executive work. I take leave to dispute both propositions. The
members of the Committee are, perhaps, not so well aware as the Chairman must be
of the conditions under which it meets. Any member of the Committee is at liberty
to ask for a meeting by communicating with the Secretary (who immediately consults
the Chairman) on any day. No meeting has ever been refused. On many occasions 1
have suggested a meeting, only to be told that the Departments concerned did not
require it. Ten days recently elapsed without a meeting, because the Departments,
not the Chairman, deprecated it. I am not aware of any question of importance, the
decision of which has been delayed by the procedure or constitution of the Committee.
Some questions—as, for instance, the discussion of the present subject—have been
delayed, not by the Committee, but by the slowness of the Departments in submitting
their views.
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 off 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 I 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
askea 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 majority 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. Ihe 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 be 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.