142 PERSIA IN 1903. 



sio-nilicaut, and shows the extent to which India suffers 

 under the new arrangement. 



Such in brief is the new tariff as it exists, and it is 

 fortunate that British diplomacy was successful in ex- 

 tracting a pledge from the Persian Government that it 

 should go no further. For it was common property in 

 Teheran that the tariff of 1903 was put forward ten- 

 tatively — a thin edge of the wedge — and that ere long 

 further changes were to have been made which could 

 have proved nothing less than disastrous to British 

 trade. The convention which was drawn up and signed 

 by Sir Arthur Hardinge on behalf of Great Britain, and 

 M. Naus on behalf of Persia, February 9, 1903, has 

 at least prevented the evil from spreading, and has 

 locked the stable - door upon what is still left. The 

 duties levied upon British goods, in common with those 

 of other nations, can in the case of Great Britain be 

 raised in the future only with her consent ; while in the 

 event of any other country at any time securing ad- 

 vantageous treatment she will be entitled, in virtue of 

 the most favoured nation clause, to claim equal rights. 



But Teheran was by no means the only scene of 

 political activity during the opening months of 1903. 

 Away to the east, on the nebulous borders of Afghan- 

 istan, the Indian Government were displaying an activ- 

 ity which left no room for doubt as to the part which 

 they considered themselves entitled to play in those 

 parts of Persia which abut upon the outposts of their 

 empire. The boundary defined under such difficulties 

 by the Commission of 1872, under the able direction of 

 Sir F. Goldsmid, which seems to have possessed the 

 distinction of displeasing the Persians only a degree 

 less than it did the Afghans, had ceased to constitute a 

 practical line of division, as was perhaps only to be 

 expected when so unstable a quantity as the river 



