Papers of the War Cabinet's Eastern Committee [‎246r] (491/544)

SIR HAMILTON GRANT: It is a condition that India would not like to see
grow, because they have their trade interests on the Indian trade routes. It is a
condition they would be sorry to see in an extreme form, though they would be perfectly
willing to look on at Persia in a state of anarchy in the tribal areas. We would
contemplate the tribal areas of Persia in a state of complete anarchy with equanimity.
LOUD CURZON : Do you attach importance in India to the telegraphs ?
SIR HAMILTON GRANT : Yes. There is one of the main lines to
Constantinople and the West.
SIR CHARLES MARLING : The cable could carry all that now. The Persian
lines are of no value, for those purposes.
SIR HAMILTON GRANT : Except a local value to our consulates. Our
interests, really, as far as the Government of India is concerned, are that we must
exclude any other foreign Power from obtaining a dominant position ; or, indeed,
obtaining a political position at all in Persia.
LORD R( )BERT CECIL : The thing we have to consider is whether it is right
or wrong to take up the same kind of attitude as the Americans have taken up with
regard to Mexico—allowing Mexico to go into the very greatest disorder and confusion
and saying “ Nobody is to interfere. We are not going to interfere, and nobody
else shall.”
SIR HAMILTON GRANT : I think that we ought to be prepared to interfere
to a very small extent at the invitation entirely of the Persian Government, but not to
force ourselves on them. I am afraid that the Government of India have been
very importunate in the matter. Their view is that unless you can break down
this wall of suspicion, distrust , and dislike which was bred in Persia by the Anglo-
Russian Convention of 1907, we shall never be able to do anything satisfactorily
in Persia. Whether we leave it to stew in its own juice or whether we go in to
try to assist it, our ventures will fail because they will meet with a stone-wall
opposition at every point, and there will be ebullitions. Until we can regain the confi
dence of Persia, not of the Persian Government hut of the Persian people, by acting openly
in accordance with our pledges, and removing the obvious causes of irritation, we shall
never be able — whether we get a mandate from the Powers or not—to do anything in Persia
satisfactorily, unless we employ overwhelming force. Throughout, the Government of India
have been prompted in their recommendations by a desire to regulate our policy in
accordance with the military^ force at our disposal, and, since the war, to avoid involving
oui selves in diversions and commitments of an indefinite character, involving very
heavy expenditure, which would fall upon the people of India to a considerable extent,
and involve us also in the continual possibility of military operations in Persia, which
must affect our whole military policy in India, and necessitate the retention of a larger
force than we should otherwise retain.
LORD CURZON : What would you do at present ?
SIR HAMILTON GRANT : At the present moment I should get Percy Cox to
take some definite steps towards conciliating the Persian people. The steps I would
recommend would be that lie should make a pronouncement that it is our intention to
remove all our troops from Persians soon as external circumstances render that possible,
that is, as soon as our troubles in the Caucasus and Transcaspia are clear.
LORD CURZON : We have said that in identical terms. We said it when we
sent them there.
SIR HAMILTON GRANT : A reiteration of that will not do any harm.
LORD CURZON : We always find when we come to these recommendations of
what we ought to do, that we have done nearly all of them without any effect, and I
expect that you will find that they are things that we have already done, Certainly
Mr. Oliphant will bear me out that we said that in those words.
MR. OLIPHANT : Yes.
LORD CURZON : Because I think he and I drew up the phrase together.
SIR HAMILTON GRANT: I should actually withdraw the troops from Shiraz
in anticipation of the complete clearance of the situation, keeping them at Bushire in
[365—44] E