RUSSIA AND PERSIA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 141, 11 December 1911, Page 5

RUSSIA AND PERSIA.

RUSSIAN INTERESTS IN NORTH PERSIA. had previously threatened, if Persia proved obdurate, to enter into An occupation (which the Tsar's Government ■ assures Sir Edward Grey, will be temporary) of the Persian provinces of Ghilan and 1 Mazanderaji, These provinces are situated on the shores of the Caspian Sea, the former adjoining Russian Turkestan. According to the new edition of the Encyclopadeia Britannica, Ghilan was an independent khanate until 1567, when it became Persian. In 1723 the reigning Shah, whose capital was in the hands of the Afghans, cede Ghilan to Peter the Great, together with Mazanderan and other, provinces, on condition that he drove the invaders out of Persia. It remained; in Russian hands until 1734, when they were compelled to evacuate it. The trade of both Mazanderan and Ghilan is principally with Russia. Ghilan. exports .cattle and rice; Mazanderan cavaire, fruit, and raw cotton. Both provinces export valuable timber. Ghilan ha« valuable fisheries, which are leased to a Russian Ann. By the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, Britain and Russia agreed to respect the integrity and independence of Persia. Britain undertook to seek no political or commercial concessions north of a line connecting Kasr-i-Shirin, Ispahan, \ezd, and Kliakh to the junction of the Persian, Russian, and Afghan frontier, Hence, no doubt, arises Sir Edward Grey's recently reported remark in the House of Commons that while no reflection is cast on the energy or inten* tions of Mr. Morgan Shuster (the American man who has become Persia's Trea-surer-General), his persistence in appointing British officials in North Persia •'makes things impossible." The disinterested policy of this financial reorgamser in thus Anglicising what Britain has practically declared is the Russian sphere of influence is, therefore, a source of embarrassment » the British Government, whose moral support of Russia has been ignored in Teheran. Under the Convention of 1907 Russia frivea with regard to South Persia, the same assurance as Britain gives with regard to North seek no political or commercial concession south of a linn from the Afghan frontier to Gazik Borland, Herman, and Bander Abhas