Papers of the War Cabinet's Eastern Committee [‎264v] (528/544)

14
MR. BALFOUR: That is very good as between us. It contains very good things
as regards our relations with our Allies and with other Powers, but I do not see why
Turkey comes in at all.
LORD CURZON : Turkey has interests there.
MR. BALFOUR: If you say she has no share in the interests outside her
territories, cut it all off.
LORD ROBERT CECIL : She merely comes in like everybody else, as one of the
people who ought not to interfere any more.
LORD CURZON : Is it the idea at the Peace Conference that we shall go with
a draft treaty of that sort in our hands and suggest to our Allies that it is to be the
basis of our future arrangements with Turkey ? ^ 4
LORD ROBERT CECIL : That is the object, yes. When we come to discuss
the thing we shall have a draft ready and say, “ This is what we mean.”
MR. BALFOUR: If you are reciting all our claims, are you wise to omit our • •
traditional and historic work in the policing of those seas, our traditional connection
with that area, and all the work we have done for mankind there ?
LORD ROBERT CECIL : I should think that ought to go in.
LORD CURZON : That argument is developed in the paper which has been
prepared in the Foreign Office.
MR. BALFOUR : It does not, however, get any mention there, if I heard the
recital rightly.
MR. MONTAGU : No, it does not.
SIR A. HIRTZEL : I think the idea was that the British representatives at the
Conference would simply make a statement as regards what we had done in the Persian
Gulf, and leave it at that as something not to be discussed—as something we were not
prepared to discuss.
LORD CURZON : I would like to ask the 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. about the point I did
touch on more than once—namely, what is to happen with Bin Sand and Hussein ?
I said I had it in my own mind that these two people would have to fight it out.
There are telegrams urging us to put pressure here, and withdraw troops there, and
so on.
MR. MONTAGU : It seems to me we ought to hope that our efforts will be
successful in keeping them apart to the end of the war, and that then we should offer
to fix, as we are pledged to do, I think, the boundaries between them.
A MIDDLE-EASTERN DEPARTMENT. ' *
LORD CURZON : One great question in regard to the future of the areas we are
dealing with, and these chiefs in Arabia, is, “Will they be, as they are now, under the ^ ^
Indian Government ” ?
MR. MONTAGU : I suppose they will come under the new Middle East Depart
ment.
LORD CURZON : I was raising the question, with what Government in the
future will the relations with these people be ? The bulk of them have been in
relationship with the Government of India alone for 100 years. Mesopotamia, we
understood, was going to be regulated from this country, either under a Middle East
Department or a Middle East Secretary of State. If such a Department is created
with a Secretary of State, will the whole of these chiefs go to him ?
LORD ROBERT CECIL : I think so. I do not know what the view^s of this
meeting are, but, as far as the Foreign Office are concerned, we have put everything
into the Middle East Department, including Egypt.
MR. SHUCKBURGH : That was approved in principle.
LORD CURZON : That would mean that they would be taken—for instance,
the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , or at any rate the Arab shores of the Persian Gulf—entirely away
from the Government of India ?