Letters and Papers Concerning the Trans-Persian Railway and Other Railways in Persia [‎202r] (403/442)

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The Trans-Persian Railway. [ 15 July 1912 ] The Trans-Persian Railway.
line. I further urge that they should not
guarantee a sixpence of interest on the cost of
the construction of a railway from which we
have nothing to gain either from a political,
a military, or a commercial point of view.
For, after all is said and done, the first line
of a country’s defence is solvency; and I
think we should refrain from embarking on
an enterprise, however attractive the name
may be, which is calculated to hang a
financial burden round our necks for vears
to come.
♦The LORD PRIVY SEAL and
SECRETARY op STATE por INDIA
(The Marquess op Crewe) : My Lords, I
had no intention of intervening in this
debate, but perhaps I might say a word
upon one or two of the points which have
been raised by noble Lords opposite. I
think that my noble friend Lord Morley
showed that the picture which the noble
Earl opposite drew in his opening speech,
a somewhat alarming picture, as to the
extent to which His Majesty’s Government
were implicated in the proposition of a
Trans-Persian railway, was not entirely
accurate. But, in spite of that fact, I
noticed that when Lord Lamington pursued
his share in the debate he again accused us
in no measured terms of being completely
committed to this project, and he seemed
to regard the railway as being as good as
made and the frontier of India in almost
immediate danger. I am bound to say that
my noble friend behind me who has just sat
down and whose intervention in the debate
I am sure we all welcomed, speaking as he
does with great authority, also went further
than the facts altogether justify in appear
ing to assume that the Government of India
was on the point of undertaking, if it had
not already undertaken, serious financial
responsibilities in connection with this
project.
On the question of defence, we should all,
I suppose, agree that as a purely abstract
proposition, India being what it is and
governed as it is, it is a thorough con
venience to ourselves and no real disad
vantage to the people of India that it should
be isolated from direct communication by
land with the outer world. The great
mountain ranges, the inviolable desert
frontiers, the impenetrable stretches of
jungle, all have had much to do in making
the history of India what it is to-day, and we
should all admit, as I say, as an abstract
proposition, that a continuance of that
state of things could not be altogether
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distasteful to us. I do not mind admitting
a personal view which is of no particular
interest to anybody but myself, that I have
more than a sneaking sympathy with the
objections which Lord Palmerston took to
the making of the Suez Canal from the
point of view of our Indian Empire. I am
quite prepared to admit that if we had had
the great sea route to India as our main
route and the overland route for those who
were in a hurry, crossing the Isthmus at
Suez, we in India should not have been
greatly the worse. At the same time we
have to admit—the noble Earl has expli
citly admitted it himself—that even if we do
not like to call a particular railway inevit
able, yet the tendency of railway construc
tion, of increased trade, and also of inter
national relations, points in the direction
of railway construction in Persia, and that
construction, whether it involves or not—
as to which I will say a word in a moment—
the construction of a Trans-Persian railway
as such, undoubtedly awakes new questions
of frontier defence.
I might say, for the information of the
noble Earl and of the House, that this
particular matter of a possible Trans-
Persian railway has not been formally
considered by the Committee of Defence
because it is not in any sense yet a live
project. The subject has been considered
by the General Staff in India, and in con
sidering it they, of course, expressed
marked preferences for certain schemes of
alignment in comparison with others.
Some they thought far more disadvantageous
and even dangerous than others from the
Indian point of view. But on the whole
subject they took the view that it might be
a disadvantageous and even a dange ous
thing to pronounce an absolute veto on the
proposal when it was made in this quite
tentative form, on the ground that if you
were prepared not to dismiss the principle
altogether, and if—which is a very
large “ if ”—the money was forthcoming
for the making of the railway and prepara
tions proceeded for its construction,
then you would be able to secure that it
should be made in the way least detrimental
to your interests ; whereas if you attempted
to interpose a veto, and nevertheless the
railway was made, it would very probably
then be made in the manner least advan
tageous to Indian interests. From that
point of view the General Staff in India did
not consider themselves debarred, but quite
the contrary, from examining the project