"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الجزء II. ج. ج. لوريمر. ١٩١٥" [‎٢‎٥‎٥‎٠] (١٢٦٢/١٠٦٧)

2550
Successful
British
protest, 1904.
the British Legation the Assistant-Surgeons met these attempted encroach
ments by declining in courteous terms to recognise the authority of the
Customs. On the 16th of May an ingenious attempt was made to under
mine the authority of the British Residency Surgeon by constituting a
" sanitary council " at Bushehr ; M. Bussiere being appointed Secretary,
to concert local measures in view of the prevalence of cholera in Bahrain and
at Basrah and of plague at Lingeh; by this council the town of Bushehr
was subsequently divided into three sanitary sections of which one was
entrusted to the British Residency Surgeon/one to the Assistant-Surgeon
and one to JVI. Bussiere. The policy of the anti-British party was appar
ently to call in question the right of the Residency Surgeon to direct
sanitary measures on shore, and to restrict his authority, if possible, to
measures affecting the harbour and shipping. A test case occurred about
the 20th of June 1904 when M. Bussiere, without consulting Captain
Condon, the Residency Surgeon, proceeded to visit some, cholera-infected
villages in the neighbourhood of Bushehr against which quarantine had
been instituted by the Persian Governor of Bushehr at the instance of the
Residency Surgeon. On his return from tour on the 24th of June
M. Bussiere was met at the town boundary by Captain Condon and brought
in under a special exemption,—an act of politeness which he did not appear
entirely to appreciate. At the end of July the Director-General of Cus
toms at Bushehr caused some detention-sheds erected on the landward side
of the town by the Residency Surgeon to be removed, and thereafter arri
vals from the country were absolutely denied admittance ; and in the
beginning of August the Director-General even went so far as to order the
detention of a native vessel in the harbour although it had received pra
tique from the British Residency establishment.
On a protest from the British Resident, Major Cox, the detention-
sheds were re-established after a few days; but the reply of the Director-
General to his communication was highly unsatisfactory, and a strenuous
protest founded on these incidents was accordingly made on the 22nd of
August by Sir A. Hardinge, the British Minister at Tehran. The atti
tude of the Persian Government, who ignored the wider aspects of the
question and argued, not without plausibility, that the Shah retained
his sovereign rights in sanitary matters and might therefore issue orders
to the British medical staff through any medium including that of the
Belgian customs administration, was obstinate ; and the possibility of a
British war-vessel being sent to Bushehr and a guard landed in support of
the British Minister's protest was at one time contemplated. At the
beginning of September, however, the Persian Government yielded, and
instructions were sent to the Customs authorities to abstain from inter
ference in sanitary matters ; the precise terms of the orders are uncertain,
and qualifications were probably introduced by the Director-General at
Bushehr in repeating them to his subordinates, but the effect has been
to put an end, since 1904, to the encroachments of the Customs on the
duties of the sanitary staff. In 1905, however, a flagrant breach of
quarantine was committed by M. Passek, the Russian Consul-General
at Bushehr, but he with his whole house was placed in quarantine, and
an explanation was demanded of him by the Governor of Bushehr acting
on behalf of the Persian Government.