File 200/1928 Pt 5 'Persia: Anglo-Persian Relations, Treaty Negotiations' [‎555r] (1114/1132)

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possible to get thirty (b) He said he could not possibly agree to the free receiot
and despatch of sealed postal matter at Henjam, L this waf contrary to the iSl
national Postal Convention. I said that what we proposTd w^^aTrad^i
The posttoS at Henjam
was I imagined a very small affair, and I doubted whether it would be caDaufS
dealing adequately with perhaps some thousands oj letters at ’ ca P able 0±
the officers and crews of His Majesty’s shipl “hI; Highness replied thhi hlf was
quite prepared to agree o any reasonable suggestion, provided it was not contrary
5 * wxr'JW (Ss 1 —. ^ythe ~i, m ,,,, tl „ onsl *,
one T Ship might be put into one bag at
Karachi addressed to the commanding officer. It was for us to suggest any practical
method which could be justified in the Majlis, (c) Quarantine He proposed I
said, that a countersigned certificate should be handed to the quarantine officer and
if he tv as not there that after an hour s delay the certificate might be handed to
the customs officer. I said that this hour’s delay seemed to me absurd and
unnecessary, and he finally agreed that it would be sufficient if the certificate was
handed m as soon as the ship arrived at the quarantine office, whether the quarantine
officer was there or not ^ - 1 • 1 - ’ ’
(d) Regarding the amount to be paid for the lease, I was
unable to extract anything definite from His Highness. I asked if he merely meant
a nominal rental. He said, in a certain sense, yes; the Persian Government did not
want to make money out of it. Eventually, I had the impression that if some such
rent as £1,000 sterling was offered, that might be acceptable; on the other hand,
whatever rent it is eventually agreed to pay will probably form part of the general
financial settlement come to under the treaty.
16. Regarding Basidu, His Highness also submits a counter-draft. I
objected to this on two grounds : (a) Because no mention was made of the buildings
we were handing over free; and (b) because the right for a British authority to see
that the cemetery was kept up was not given. He said that he was quite prepared
to add a reference to the property ceded and to agree to a visit once or, if necessary,
twice a year of a British authority to see to the upkeep of the cemetery.
17. We next came to one of the most contentious articles in the treaty, namely,,
the question of Bahrein. I said to His Highness that I understood from his letter
that the Persians were asking in return for withdrawing their shadowy claim to
Bahrein (a) that we should wipe out the Persian debt; (b) that we should provide
them with no less than ten gunboats; (c) that His Majesty’s Government should make
themselves responsible for British claims. I enquired if His Highness was serious
in making these proposals, to which he replied that I had not included all the
proposals he had in mind, because he also intended to include the debt owed by the
Persian Government to the Indo-European Telegraph Department.
18. I decided at once to say nothing about the discretionary authority I had
to give up the £1,510,000 of debt in return for a satisfactory all-round settlement.
I took the line rather of deriding his proposals as exaggerated and absurd. I
enquired if His Highness had followed in the telegrams the course of recent events
at The Hague. If so, he would have noticed that the present Chancellor of the
Exchequer was a very careful guardian of the British taxpayers’ money, and that
he could hardly imagine that Mr. Snowden would be prepared to agree to a sum of
money, which could be hardly less than 3 million sterling, being paid over to the
Persian Government in order to settle the sovereignty of an island when, if the
question were submitted to arbitration, we considered that our claim would almost
certainly be acknowledged. As His Highness said in his letter, there were two ways
of settling the question of Bahrein, either by arbitration or by friendly agreement,.
I understood he preferred friendly agreement. He interrupted to say that he raost
certainly did and that he had not the smallest desire for arbitration. I pien
the question of finance and attempted to elicit what His Highness had m mind when
in paragraph 22 of his letter he suggests that His Majesty s Government should
provide Persia with some ten gunboats. This part of our conversation I have
recorded in a separate despatch. . 1 ^ ^
19. In paragraph 23 of his letter Taimourtache speaks of the Persian Govern
ment having the°right to appoint their “ representative in Bahrein to protec
Persian interests. I explained to him that there could be no question of appointing
a Persian consul. The Sheikh of Bahrein would not hear of foreign consu s.
Bahrein was a small island, and once one country appointed a consu , a a ozen
others might wish to do the same, the Americans to protect their missionaries, e
Germans to look after the occasional German ship that might ca ere, an so o
[911 b—Ij B 2