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Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [105r] (216/1814)
The record is made up of 2 volumes with inserts (898 folios). It was created in 1892-1924. It was written in English, Urdu and German. The original is part of the British Library: 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. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .
Transcription
This transcription is created automatically. It may contain errors.
TEANSCASPIA
77
Russian Minister of Finance, who himself visited Transcaspia in
the autumn of 1890, returned the working cost of the Transcaspian
Railway and Oxus Flotilla combined in 1889 as 287,235L, figures
which are not irreconcilable with those above quoted from the
4 Novoe Yremya.’ On the other hand, the same Minister’s estimate
for 1890 contained an addition of 120,447^. to the figures of 1889, or
a total of 407,682L for the combined charges of railway and flotilla
during that year. I have since heard that a surplus of 29,000Z. is
claimed for 1890. 1
About one fact there can be no doubt—viz. that the goods traffic
upon the railway is enormously on the increase, and that it will
Goods reach infinitely greater proportions still. The total
traffic weight of goods carried upon the railway in 1889 was
21,741,880 ponds, or 350,675 tons; out of which Central Asian
indigenous product and raw material amounted to 9,069,081 ponds,
or 146,275 tons. In the same year the value of manufactured
goods and sugar imported by the railway into Transcaspia, Bokhara,
and Turkestan was 94 per cent, higher than in 1888; while the
value of exports conducted thereby from Central Asia to Russia,
and consisting of cotton, wool, silk, dried fruits, and grain, increased
127 per cent. Of the goods thus conveyed by far the most
remarkable, and an as yet unexhausted, rise has been that in
exports of cotton from the ever-spreading Asiatic plantations. In
1888 the amount so carried was 1,213,274 ponds, or 19,655 tons, 2
in 1889 it was 2,200,000 ponds, or 35,484 tons; in January 1890
it was 252,760 ponds, or 4,077 tons (of which 193,229 ponds, or
3,116 tons, came from Bokhara); figures which indicate a much
higher monthly average than in the preceding year, even although
they do not quite come up to General Annenkoff’s confident
expectation, which he confessed to myself, of a total of 4,000,000
ponds in the whole year. In June, however, more than a quarter
of a million ponds were reported to be lying on the piers at Uzun
Ada waiting for shipment, while the railway was said to be
bringing up some 20,000 ponds daily. The receipts for the first
five months of 1890 were also said, largely in consequence of this
increased export, to be larger by more than 50,000?. than in the
1 In February 1891, however, the JYovoe Vremyco stated the surplus at
323,610^., figures which I can hardly credit.
2 Before the construction of the Transcaspian Kailway the total annual export
of cotton from Central Asia to European Russia by camel caravan, via Orenburg,
was 9,680 tons.
About this item
- Content
These two volumes are George Curzon's own personal annotated copies of both volumes of his book Persia and the Persian Question , which was published in 1892. Alongside the volumes are various loose papers relating to Persia [Iran], consisting of the following: received correspondence; newspaper cuttings; publishers' press releases; cuttings from various booksellers' catalogues; various journal and magazine articles; two items of printed official British correspondence; several prints of photographs and sketches; and a few handwritten notes by Curzon.
In most cases these papers, which range in date from 1892 to 1924, relate to the chapters in the book where they were originally inserted, suggesting that they were kept by Curzon with the intention of using them to inform a revised edition of the book.
Of particular note among the small amount of correspondence are two letters received by Curzon in 1914 and 1915 from retired schoolmaster and Islamic scholar Sayyid Mazhar Hasan Musawi of Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India (ff 5-9 and ff 44-53). These letters, which are written in Urdu and are accompanied by English translations, discuss in detail several inaccuracies found in the Urdu version of Persia and the Persian Question .
The various prints of photographs and sketches, which were originally inserted into volume two, are of different locations in the Gulf region. Several of these appear to have been produced in preparation for the publication of the second volume of John Gordon Lorimer's Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , Oman and Central Arabia (i.e. the 'Geographical and Statistical' section) in 1908, as they are identical to the versions found in that volume.
Also of note among the loose papers are an illustrated article from Country Life dated 5 June 1920, entitled 'The People of Persia' (ff 36-37), and a printed family tree of the Shah of Persia [Aḥmad Shah Qājār], produced in preparation of his visit to Britain in 1919 (f 233).
Volume one of Persia and the Persian Question contains a map of Persia, Afghanistan and Beluchistan [Balochistan], which is folded inside the front cover (f 1).
The German language material consists of a publisher's press release for two books authored by German archaeologist Ernst Emil Herzfeld (ff 29-30).
- Extent and format
- 2 volumes with inserts (898 folios)
- Physical characteristics
Foliation: this shelfmark consists of two physical volumes. The foliation sequence commences at the first folio of volume one (1-463), and terminates at the last folio of volume two (ff 464-898); these numbers are written in pencil, are circled, and are located in the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. side of each folio. Each volume contains a large number of loose leaves, which have been foliated in the order that they were inserted into the volume; for conservation reasons, these loose folios have been removed from the volume and stored separately. The foliation sequence does not include the front and back covers of the two volumes.
Pagination: the file also contains an original printed pagination sequence.
- Written in
- English, Urdu and German in Latin and Arabic script View the complete information for this record
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Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [105r] (216/1814), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F111/33, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100157213843.0x000017> [accessed 7 April 2025]
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- Reference
- Mss Eur F111/33
- Title
- Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Questionby George Curzon, with Inserted Papers
- Pages
- 54r:135v, 147r:149v, 158r:180v, 183r:221v, 224r:224v, 227r:246v, 248r:257v, 259r:260v, 268r:362v, 364r:364v, 367r:388v, 390r:400v, 402r:416v, 419r:432v, 434r:444v, 448r:462v, 464r:471v, 475r:481v, 483r:513v, 516r:525v, 527r:544v, 546r:563v, 566r:598v, 600r:622v, 624r:656v, 658r:665v, 667r:675v, 678r:684v, 687r:688v, 691r:691v, 693r:693v, 695r:708v, 711r:721v, 724r:726v, 728r:729v, 731r:736v, 742r:742v, 746r:757v, 759r:761v, 763r:763v, 765r:765v, 772r:777v, 780r:789v, 793r:794v, 797r:809v, 811r:821v, 825r:840v, 843r:898v
- Author
- Curzon, George Nathaniel, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston
- Usage terms
- Public Domain