Papers of the War Cabinet's Eastern Committee [‎269r] (537/544)

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ANNEX.
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Shorthand Notes of a Meeting of the Committee held in Lord Cnrzons Room at the
Privy Council Office on Monday, 30th December, L918, at 12 noon.
PERSIA.
LORD CURZON : At our last discussion on Persia we did not come to any very
definite conclusion. Indeed there was some con diet of counsel and division of opinion.
Since then we have had papeis circulated to us by Sir Charles Marling,* Sir Louis
Mallet,! and Sir Hamilton Grant,^ which have cleared away some of the difficulty and
obscurity, and in my own mind I feel very much clearer than 1 did before as to the kind
of decision to which we ought to come. Most of the papers balance against each other
the various possible solutions, and if we run through them we shall see that most of
them can he dismissed instanter.
There is first the solution which found some favour with the Secretary of State for
India, namely, that we should disinterest ourselves completely in Persia; that we
should at the earliest possible date (and he would have liked to start at once) withdraw
our troops, cease our subsidies, and, in the words of Sir Charles Marling, “leave Persia
to go to the devil in her own way.” I take it that this policy would please the Persians
better than any other, but I submit to this Committee that it would be immoral, 'eeble,
and disastrous. It would tear up the whole work of more than a century in Persia,
which has cost us not only many many millions of money, but has involved us in great
political and moral obligations, which, in my judgment, it is quite impossible to escape
or ignore. It would mean sacrificing a trade which is valued at the present moment at
five millions a year, and under better conditions might be greatly increased, all the
more so that Russian competition in the north has largely disappeared. It would be
throwing millions of money, even if you confine it to our present expenditure, which is
for the first time apparent in this Treasury paper, into the sea. It would mean the
abandonment of our telegraph stations, our consuls, our commercial communities, and
in fact our position in Persia altogether.
If anybody imagines that this would really quit us of Persian responsibility he
really must be blind. It would not only not relieve us of responsibility, but it would
recreate it in a very short time in a much more serious form. Persia may wish to go
to the devil in her own way, but there are people round about who will not allow her,
and the moment you create a vacuum there, in her deplorable state of disorganisation
and weakness, somebody, we do not know whether it will be the Bolsheviks or the
Turks or a revived Russia, will come in to fill the place, and if nobody comes in to do so,
Starosselski and his guard will become dictators. The repercussion of such a situation
both upon India and Mesopotamia would be absolutely deplorable. Therefore I hope
that we shall spend not five seconds more of thought in deciding that the suggestion
that we should clear out altogether and leave the Persians to stew in their own juice is,
in the circumstances of the case, impracticable.
Then there is the policy of the Government of India, which has been put forward
in a very aide and persuasive paper by Sir Hamilton Grant. that is the suggestion that
we should go on with our present policy, but do it in a more ingratiating way ; use
rather nicer phrases and try to humour the Persian National Government more than
the Government of India thinks that we have so far done, and that our better manners
should take the form of repeating the statements we have alreauy made in a pleasanter
way and of coupling them with others which we are already or may be willing to make,
and that somehow or other we should convince Persia that we really are her friends,
that we are billing to go on paying, but we want them, as far as possible, to follow
their own inclinations, and that while we remain a financial support we do not wish to
be a political nuisance, That is very plausible on paper, but I think that it has the
fatal objection of being a compromise, as Lord Robert Cecil pointed out the other day,
between the two extreme solutions of complete abandonment and a more resolute policy.
It is to be noted that all the authorities who speak with actual knowledge of Persia
itself are against it. Sir Percy Cox is strongly against it, and he has argued against it
in more than one well-poised telegram. Sir Charles Marling is also against it. 1 believe
* E.C., 2842.
t E.C., 2865.
\ 2802.