ملف ٥٦٤٦\١٩١٨ "بلاد فارس وبلاد الرافدين: ترتيبات التلغراف المستقبلية" [و‎‎٢‎٤] (٣٠٣/٥٧)

the telegraph traffic transiting that region. That fear is groundless because the
Company will, I am sure, forego the collection of the revenue, provided that their
out-of-pocket expenses are made good, and if that arrangement is- preferred to the
leasing to. them of a wire or wires. The former system lias been successfully adopted
in India, where the Eastern Telegraph Company work the transit telegraph traffic
between Bombay and Madras. The Government of India take the transit revenue
and pay the Company the actual cost of the work done by them, which includes such
items as personnel, battery power, office accommodation (if provided at the expense
of the Company), &c.
The working of such long circuits as those which existed between Karachi and
the United Kingdom before the war can only be satisfactorily managed by a single or
at most two administrations, from which it follows that Mesopotamia will either have
to delegate the working of the international circuits traversing that country to the
Company or to this Department, and there is reason to think that the Company will
be found the cheaper agency of the two to employ. By working their men for longer
hours the Company employ a smaller staff than it is found possible for the
Government Department to do. The reason for this is that their line has hitherto
run through a temperate region, where a greater strain can be imposed on men than
in the tropical regions through which the departmental lines run. Whether the
Company will have to reduce the hours their men have been accustomed to work
w r hen they come to be employed in Mesopotamia remains to be proved, but should
they find they can still work their men for the same number of hours as before they
will be able to do the work more cheaply than the Department or Mesopotamia
itself can do it.
I have stated above that the Company will not be content to -carry out their
project unless they are given access to their old terminus at Teheran, but if this be
granted they will not perhaps make access to Basra a sine qua non ; I think,
therefore, that this might be denied them, and the section from Basra to Baghdad
might, b^y arrangement with Mesopotamia, be worked by the Indo-European Telegraph
Department..
In 1924 the arrangement herein proposed might be reviewed and the Company
then bought out if such a course be recommended ; meanwhile, I recommend that
the Secretary of the Imperial Communications Committee should be informed that
the Secretary of State concurs in the terms of the resolution quoted above.
Annexure :—The Indo-European Telegraph Company, Ltd., to General Post Office,
dated 6th November 1919.
I.C.C. No. 168.
Sir,
As arranged with Mr. E. J. Brown at an interview Mr. Stratford - And re ws and
the writer had with him yesterday, and in the absence of any formal reply to the
Company’s letters of 21st November 1918, 21st August 1919 and 16th October 1919,
I now beg to inform you that the Mediterranean route would be the route favoured
bv the directors of this Company for the restoration of their through line to Persia,
I have now to submit for consideration a draft proposal for terms of a new r
concession wffiich it is hoped might be granted by His Majesty’s Government to carry
into effect the above object ; this new concession is necessitated by the fact that a
very considerable sum of money, exceeding 1,000,0006 sterling, wall be required in
connection with this route.
The scheme as now proposed involves the laying of two submarine cables
between Marseilles and a point on the coast of Syria or Palestine and further land-
line construction.
The route to be followed by the land-line from Syria or Palestine, as the case
may be, to Mesopotamia, is not within our competence to decide; but should it be
desired that it should cross the Syrian Desert to Baghdad, w r e submit that this is
entirety beyond the power of private enterprise to construct, or even survey. The
directors look vdth confidence to the Government to place at the disposal of the
Company telegraphic facilities and rights similar to those to be enjoyed by it in this
country for whatever may be chosen by His Majesty’s Government as this section of
the route, and onward to Khanekin, for the period of the concession. In this
connection we w ould make the suggestion that it would be in the interest of all parties
that radio communication stations of comparatively kwv powmr should be included in
the concession.
It will also be necessary to obtain from the 4'rench and Persian Governments
rights similar to those wdiich may be granted by the British Government, and the