Papers of the War Cabinet's Eastern Committee [‎247r] (493/544)

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SIR CHARLES MARLING : They will make extraordinary demands.
LORD CURZON : We have an intimation of the things they want to bring
before the Peace Conference. Whether they will get to the Peace Conference or
not is not quite certain. I was thinking rather of their pourparlers with ourselves.
Nasr-ul-Mulk indicated to me that when these people come over, no doubt with the
hope that the Peace Conference is going to take up their ideas, and when they
find that, whether they come before the Peace Conference or not, the latter will
be completely indifferent about these points, and they feel that they are not going
to get much out of it, they will then come themselves, to us and say, ‘ We know
that we are incapable of standing by ourselves, and we hope that you will consider
the question of helping us.” You are assuming, Mr. Montagu, that a situation may
arise in which the Conference, or the League of Nations will say, “ Will you undertake
these responsibilities ” ? I am assuming that the Persians themselves come and ask
us to do it.
MR. MONTAGU : In either case, if it is necessary for anybody to be there, I think
it must be we. If we are to be there then we must either be there at the invitation of
the Peace Conference or at the invitation of the Persians. I think that there is just a
chance that sooner or later we may find that it is a case of nobody being there.
We can never try the experiment unless we have perfectly safeguarded ourselves,
either by the Peace Conference, or by the desire of the Persians, against anybody else.
LORD CURZON : You really mean that we are not to force ourselves
upon them.
MR. MONTAGU: Yes.
LORD CURZON : That, I believe, is the common desire of all of us.
MR. MONTAGU: We have been doing it during the war.
LORD CURZON : Yes, under war conditions, and nobody was stronger about
that than yourself, and rightly so. We have been driven to it.
MR. MONTAGU : I know that I am going to have more and more difficulty in
getting half the cost of the Persian matter out of India. The intelligentsia that does
not take much interest in foreign politics does take an interest in finance, and takes
an interest in the expenditure of money in Persia, as it is, it is alleged, against the
will of the Persians.
LORD ROBERT CECIL : I really do think that the present position is perfectly
intolerable. We are getting nothing out of it really, as far as I can make out. There
is at any rate a very strong difference of opinion whether there is any political
advantage in our being there. The commercial advantage is very trifling. We are
spending immense sums of money. We are incurring, at any rate potentially, great
unpopularity in this country. I cannot conceive why we should go on doing it and be
frightfully unpopular in Persia at the same time. I cannot see what the object of our
present policy is at all. We pay a lot of Russian ruffians, who call themselves officers,
who are almost hopelessly hostile to us.
SIR CHARLES MARLING: Some of them.
LORD ROBERT CECIL : Yes. Sir Charles Marling told me yesterday that, if
we tried to make any terms with Starosselski by which Starosselski should definitely
come in and work with us, he would certainly be deposed by his other officers, and
probably shot.
SIR CHARLES MARLING : It is quite possible.
LORD ROBERT CECIL: Could one conceive a more grotesque thing than that
we should be finding money for this force, which is really anti-British ?
LORD CURZON : That is why I raised that point. If we leave the country
altogether and allow it to fall into chaos, it does not really matter what happens in
our absence. But suppose that we remain there. What is to be our attitude towards
these Russians ?
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