338 THE NEAR EAST. 



the timely arrival and vigorous action of the commander 

 of H. M.S. Lapwing. 



In the hinterland British activity has likewise been 

 displayed. We have a right by agreement with the 

 Persian Government, whenever railway construction 

 takes place in Persia, to construct, or procure the con- 

 struction of, railways in the southern part of that 

 country, and such agreement, "though it may not be 

 recorded in any very formal manner," is looked upon 

 by the British Government as " a binding engagement 

 on the part of the Persian Government." ^ With regard 

 to roads, a British company, with the title of " the 

 Persian Boad Company," has lately been formed to 

 take over the concession held by the Imperial Bank for 

 building roads from Kum to the Karun, and from the 

 same place to Ispahan ; and as a concrete example of 

 British enterprise, the " Lynch road," between Ahwaz 

 on the Karun and Ispahan, the offspring of an agree- 

 ment arrived at in 1898, under the auspices of the 

 British Legation, has recently come into being. Another 

 feature in connection with ways and communications is 

 the convention providing for the construction, by the 

 staff of the Indo-European Telegraph Department under 

 the Government of India, of a British line from Kashan 

 to the frontier of Baluchistan. 



In the field of commerce a vast concession for exploit- 

 ing the oil-fields of the whole of the south of Persia 

 has been secured by a British company, a vice-consulate 

 has been established at Kermanshah, — which, indeed, 

 should have been done long ago, seeing that it com- 

 mands one of the chief avenues of British trade, — and 

 in the course of the last four years consular ojfficials 

 have been appointed, or have received increased rank 

 and pay at Bandar Abbas, Sistan, Bahrein, Shiraz, 



^ Speech by Lord Lansdowne in the House of Lords, May 5, 1903. 



