مجموعة ٥٩/٣٠ "الخليج الفارسي. تأسيس البحرية الفارسية، إلخ" [و‎‎٢‎٠‎٩] (٦٢٤/٤١٨)

HIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPE
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TANNIC MAJESTY’S GOVERNMENT.
PERSIA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
January 15, 1930.
Section 1.
E 36/36/34]
No. 1.
Mr. A. Henderson to Sir R. Clive (Tehran).
( No - 32) vl\<n
Sir, J (j* ~> Foreign Office, January 15, 1930.
WITH reference to your cfespatch No. 440 of the 21st August, in which you
reported a conversation with the Persian Minister of Court regarding the
establishment of a Persian naval preventive service in the Persian Gulf,
I transmit to you the accompanying copy of a memorandum,* embodying the
result of full discussion by the various Government Offices concerned.
2. I shall inform you by telegram of the eventual decision of His Majesty’s
Government.
I am, &c.
ARTHUR HENDERSON.
Enclosure in No. 1.
Memorandum.
NEGOTIATIONS have for some months been in progress for a general treaty
settlement with Persia, as it is desirable that our relations with that country should
be established on a satisfactory and permanent basis by the settlement as soon as
possible of various difficult questions.
2. The present moment is a favourable one for such a settlement.
Teymourtache, the Persian Minister of Court, is at present a powerful factor in
the sphere of foreign relations, and possessing more experience of the outside world
than most Persian statesmen, he is for that very reason a more astute negotiator.
But he is also prepared to accept greater responsibility, and exercises greater
personal influence with the Shah, than is likely to be the case with any successor.
3. As a part of the proposed settlement, we are asking Persia for facilities
for our ships’ companies to land for recreation at Hen jam. We are asking her to
renounce her claims (which we regard as without foundation) to certain Arabian
islands in the Persian Gulf, and to repay the capital of her pre-war debt, on which
she has hitherto paid only interest. These British requirements are reasonable,
but, on paper, they mean a series of apparent concessions by Persia. In return for
them we are prepared to offer certain important financial concessions (see para
graph 12 below); but the negotiations may none the less be not easy, and any further
concession, real or even apparent, which we can make on our side, would enable the
Persian Government to save face—an important factor in all negotiations with an
Eastern Power.
4. On the 20th August the Persian Minister of Court made an important
suggestion to Sir R. Clive, His Majesty's Minister at Tehran. He explained that
Persia desired to develop her own control over the contraband trade, &c., in the
Persian Gulf, and wished to appeal to Great Britain for assistance in the form
of a small fleet of armed patrol vessels (four of 1,000 and six of 200 tons). He added
that what he, personally, would like would be for British naval officers to command
these vessels, and for His Majesty's Government to accept a number of Persian cadets
for training in England. Persia had been negotiating for the supply of such ships
from Italy, and had, in fact, already sent twenty young Persians for training in
an Italian naval school at Leghorn; but she would much prefer to obtain the
assistance she needed from Great Britain, who alone, he explained, “ with her
outstanding knowledge of the Persian Gulf, and the finest naval service in the world,’’
could effectively help Persia to put down the contraband trade in this area.
5. In putting forward this proposal, Teymourtache attempted to link it on to
the entirely separate question of Bahrein. Persia recently revived an ancient claim
to the ownership of the Arab islands of Bahrein, off the Arabian coast of the Gulf,
with the independent rulers, of which His Majesty’s Government have been in
special treaty relations for more than a century. Teymourtache has provisionally
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