THE
ASIATIC QUARTERLY
REVIEW.
EDITED BY
DEMETRIUS BOULGER
VOLUME VIII.
JULY-OCTOBER, 1889.
British and Russian Commercial Competition in Central Asia (1)
It is supposed to be the peculiar prerogative of the Englishman in the
quarter of the nineteenth century to croak over the alleged decline of
his country; and of the travelling Englishman in particular to dilate upon
its loss of supremacy in the markets of the world. The average Englishman
is perhaps somewhat hypersensitive of foreign rivalry, while the traveller
is apt to jump at hasty conclusions, or to be caught by one-sided tales.
These admissions may readily be made, and will justify the deduction of
a modest discount from the Jeremiads of the normal wanderer returning from
foreign parts. But, whilst making this concession, I must also point out
that there are quarters of the globe where the process of commercial competition
may be going on, and assuming a form positively hostile to the interests
of this country, unknown to, because far removed from the ken of, those
at home; and that even the unprofessional traveller may have it in his
power to render a humble service by drawing the attention of his countrymen
to fields of action where those interests may be actually at stake. To
one such arena I propose to invite your notice this afternoon, supporting
my conclusions by personal observation in the course of a Central Asian
journey last year, by unimpeachable, and in some cases hitherto unpublished,
figures, and quotations from official reports.
The subject of my paper is British and Russian
Commercial Competition in Central Asia; and its object is to show that
within the expanse of territory commonly so described, and which may be
defined as extending from the Caspian on the west, to Chinese Turkestan
or Kashgaria on the east, and from the Persian Gulf and India on the south,
to the Aral Sea and Siberia on the north, the existing trade routes, many
of them of immemorial antiquity, are, in the main, passing from British
under Russian control, or are being superseded by new routes, favourably
aligned to Russian, and unfavourably disposed for British commerce; that
markets are every year being shut to the British and opened to the Russian
merchant; that money, in fine, is being taken from the pockets of Bombay
and Manchester, and transferred to the pockets of Nijni Novgorod and Moscow.
I have purposely excluded Eastern or Chinese Turkestan from the area of
my observation, because the problem of commercial competition across the
Chinese border is on a somewhat different footing, and because I understand
that that branch of the subject is in the infinitely more capable hands
of Colonel Mark Bell.
When I speak of the rivalry of Russia, and
when presently I shall discuss the methods by which it may be met and possibly
counteracted, I hope that no one will either suspect me of political bias,
or accuse me of resenting fair competition. There ought to be no politics
in the market-place; and that patriotism need have no partisan colour that
is begotten in the Exchange or the bazaar. I shall say nothing that the
most bigoted Russophile can justly interpret as anti-Russian in complexion;
and imperial politics may with safety be altogether eliminated from this
discussion. Nor to the give and take which is the normal condition of commercial
life, and particularly of an acute commercial struggle, can any fair-minded
man find reason to object. Great Britain early obtained and has long enjoyed
a practical monopoly of some of the most lucrative markets in the worlds.
She must expect and she can afford to witness the entry of other candidates
into the same arena. But when we are confronted with a rival who aims not
at partnership, but at exclusion, who retorts to Free Trade by uncompromising
Protection, whose motto is War to the knife, and whose smallest success
is a measurable loss to ourselves, no misplaced scruples should deter us
from realizing the danger, or from taking every possible means to render
it unavailing. Russia is entirely with in her rights and is probably wise
in pursuing so selfish a policy. An Englishman is not less within his rights
in combating it, and would be worse than foolish if he refrained form doing
so.
An economic policy of strict protection for native
produce and manufactures, and cumulative burdens upon foreign trade, has
for some time been a cardinal principle of Russian statesmanship, and has
reached its highest point under the administration of the present Czar.
The English Consuls stations at the various trade centres and ports are
continually reporting to the Home Government a further revision of the
Custom-Tarrif of Russia, and this revision, it is needless to say, is invariably
in one direction. Quite lately the Russian Imperial Ministry of Finance
has announce that a further general readjustment is contemplated and has
invited suggestions for its determination. That England is the special
object of many of these dispensations might be inferred from the commercial
hegemony at present enjoyed by her in the markets of the world, and may
be illustrated among many other example, by an order, recently issued,
prohibiting Englishmen from engaging in future in the coasting trade in
Russian waters.
For the execution of this policy on a large scale,
the Central Asian conquests of Russia, which have been comprised within
a period of little more than twenty years, have lately suggested to her
an unequaled and long-desired opportunity. Whatever may have been the primary
motives which impelled her to these regions, and of whatever character
be her sway over the conquered territories, she has never lost sight of
the possibility that, limited on the European side by land, and handicapped
by sea, the opening of which she stood in such sore need might be found
in the boundless steppes and almost untapped resources of Central Asia.
Russia writers of fifty years ago, at the time when, immediately before
the outbreak of the first Afghan War, England was exhibiting great activity
among the Khanates, based their appeal for prompt and energetic action
on the part of their government, not so much upon the danger to Russia
of British political ascendancy in Central Asia, as upon the prospective
loss of those markets of which Peter the Great had dreamed, for which the
Empress Anne had plotted, which a series of futile embassies and missions
had hitherto failed to secure, but which must at all hazards be rescued
from the omnivorous clutch of the British Lion. The extraordinarily rapid
conquest of the disputed regions, their even more rapid consolidation in
the corpusof the Muscovite Empire, and finally the easy intercommunication
achieved by means of the Transcaspian Railway, built for strategical objects,
but serving at the present a commercial purpose of unsuspected magnitude—
have within the last few years placed within the hands of Russia the power
of gratifying these long-cherished ambitions, have given her the industrial
command of a new continent, and have established her in a position where
she has only one rival, the old enemy, Great Britain, and where she can
confront that rival, not, as hitherto, at a loss, but at a positive advantage.
The Russians have awakened to the fact that the trade of India and the
surrounding countries, which has enriched those who had control of it from
the days of the Phoenicians and of Solomon, which made Alexandria, which
sustained Genoa and Venice, and which has magnified the British Empire,
is within measurable distance of the fingers, and may perhaps be partly
won to their grasp. At the same time, they have realized that the conquered
steppes, though surrounded by and often merged in deserts, are capable
of resuming the fertility which once made them the site of populous empires;
and that from their own provinces in Central Asia they may expect before
long to derive the whole of their cotton, a good deal of their silk, and
a considerable portion of their wool.
Upon the development, however, of the strictly Russian
possessions, whether in Transcaspia or Turkestan I do not now propose to
enter, preferring to confine my observations to such regions as may fairly
be considered middle ground between Russia and Great Britain, and afford
in consequence a reasonable criterion for an estimate of their respective
measures of success. These regions may roughly be divided into three: (1)
The Khanates, (2) Afghanistan, and (3) Persia. I shall endeavor to show
that the foreign trade of each of these regions is becoming increasingly
Russian and diminishingly British; that the arteries through which commerce
shows a tendency to percolate are in danger of being finally absorbed by
Russia; and that strenuous and immediate efforts are required to retain
for this country not her supremacy— for that is gone— but at least her
share in the profits of Central Asian trade.
First, let me premise that the pivot upon which
my whole argument hangs, and upon which the newly-achieved superiority
of Russia in the main depends, is the now completed Transcaspian Railway,
which runs for a distance of nearly 900 miles from Uzun Ada, on the east
shore of the Caspian Sea, to Samarkand, in the heart of Central Asia. Its
bearing upon the problem as stated above may at once be demonstrated by
a glance at its alignment upon the map. It will there be seen, shortly
after leaving the Caspian littoral, to run for a distance of nearly 300
miles parallel to and at the base of the mountains which constitute the
northern border of the rich Persian province of Khorasan. Next follows
a direction, also parallel to, but at a greater distance, viz., from 100
to 200 miles from, a second foreign frontier, that of Afghanistan. Finally
it crosses the Oxus, and plunges into the most fertile portion of the Khanate
of Bokhara. In other words, between start and finish, it runs in immediate
contiguity to, where it does not actually traverse, the very regions of
which we are speaking, and of which it therefore becomes at once the natural
conduit either for export or for import. General Annenkoff, who designed
and built this railway, and is now its Director-General, had the wisdom
to foresee and to work for these results. In a pamphlet, published in 1887,
in which he recommended and vindicated the undertaking to the public, he
claimed for the railway that it would ensure to Russia a monopoly of the
trade of Khorasan and Bokhara, and that the only produce which it might
not be expect to import into those countries would be green tea. This his
anticipations were entirely justified in the two specified cases I shall
now proceed to show. That in the third case, viz., that of Afghanistan,
they have been absolutely surpassed, figures will also be forthcoming to
demonstrate.
I. The first region of influence to which I alluded
was the Transoxian Khanates; but these may practically be restricted to
a single Khanate, viz., that of Bokhara. The only other still existing
Khanate, that of Khiva, is too far removed, both from India and from the
sea, to render commercial competition on the part of Great Britain possible.
Khiva is commercially what she is politically, a Russian helot. There is
a nominally independent Khan; but he has about as much power as the Governor
of the Isle of Wight, and may accordingly be dismissed from consideration.
There remains Bokhara, still under the rule of a native sovereign, and
retaining some pretence of autonomy. The city of Bokhara has for centuries
been the great trading emporium of this part of Central Asia; and the privilege
of supplying its foreign custom has been the object of the ambition of
both Russia and England for a period of over half a century. The far superior
commercial resources and experience of England enabled her to get the start;
and the few visitors to the city during the middle and even later years
of the period named reported its bazaars as being well stocked with English
manufactures, imported viâ Kurrachi or Bombay, India and Afghanistan.
As late even as 1883 a Russian merchant, sent by a large mercantile company
to investigate the opening of a new trade route to Bokhara, reported the
bazaars of that place to contain an immense amount of English goods, i.e.,
prints, muslins, handkerchiefs, dyes, sugar, and green tea, imported from
India viâ Afghanistan.
I was in Bokhara last autumn, and though I spent
many hours each day in the Bazaar, I only on one occasion saw English goods
offered for sale; and they were cotton prints bearing the stamp of a Bombay
firm. Birmingham and Manchester formerly did a considerable trade with
Bokhara. I believe that that trade is absolutely extinguished.
In 1887, before the Transcaspian Railway had yet
approached the city, the Russian Resident reported that "English goods
are not able to compete with Russian products, and English prints are rarely
to be met with in Bokhara." (2)
Since the advent of the line, the process of the
exclusion has become complete; and this year the Journal of the Russian
Ministry of Finance reported not merely that "the import trade from Russia
into Bokhara had made enormous progress," but also that "it had visibly
driven out goods of English origin from the Bokharan market, whither manufactured
goods from India are never sent, with the exception, perhaps, of
English muslin."
Simultaneously I find corroborative evidence from the opposite
quarter, in the annual report of the Deputy Commissioner of Kohat, on the
Indian frontier, who records his opinion that "No British cottons
from the Punjab now cross the Oxus." It must be remembered that British
goods suffer from a terrible handicap as compared with those of Russian
origin in the Khanate of Bokhara, owing to the exorbitant transit-dues
exacted by the Amir of Afghanistan (to whose illiberal fiscal policy I
shall presently again draw attention); while Russian imports, though under
the terms of the treaty of 1873 they are subject to an ad valorem
duty of 2 ½ per cent. On crossing the Bokharan frontier, yet have
no other custom house to pass in transitu, and can therefore be
deposited at a very reasonable price in the Bokharan bazaars. The magnitude
of the loss to British commerce was probably not exaggerated by the Turkestan
Gazette when it boasted, a few years ago, of having destroyed foreign—
i.e., English— trade to the annual value of £750,000 with Bokhara
alone.
I spoke just now of the immense increase of Russian
imports into Bokhara. When I was there the shops appeared to be flooded
with cheap Russian wares. Russian prints, calicoes, and cottons, Russian
iron, hardware, and crockery, even sewing-machines and kerosine lamps—
every one of them imported by the railway which runs within ten miles of
the native town— were to be seen exposed for sale. The latest statistics
of Russo-Bokharan trade show the exports from Bokhara to have reached the
considerable annual figure of £1,250,000 while the Russian imports
into Bokhara are not much less, viz., £1,060,000; and these figure
will in a very short time be doubled.
A further sign of Russian ascendancy is supplied
by the extent to which this trade is now in Russian, instead of native
hands. When Dr. Schuyler visited Bokhara in 1873, he related that there
was only one Russian merchant in Bokhara. As late as 1885, the only Russian
representatives were the agents of the single company, who were reported
to be living, almost as prisoners, in a caravanserai. There are now in
Bokhara representatives or branch houses of at least a dozen Russian firms
of first-class importance, as well as a branch of the Imperial Russian
Bank.
Bokhara has, in fact, dropped like a ripe pear into
Russia’s lap, and will never again be gathered into the British garner.
A commercial treaty with the Amir of Afghanistan might enable Anglo-Indian
trade to compete in the markets of the Khanate, though even so a more than
equivalent penalty would certainly be imposed by Russia; but it is to be
feared that Russian ascendancy will soon have been too firmly established
ever to be seriously shaken.
II. From Bokhara I pass to the second area of Russo-British
competition, viz., Afghanistan itself. Afghanistan has hitherto presented
a twofold interest to British commerce, arising (I) from the transit trade
to the provinces north of the Oxus, and (2) from the trade with the country
itself.
The former consisted principally of indigo, green
tea, drugs, and English muslin, and the route which it ordinarily followed
was viâ Kabul and Balkh to the Oxus Ferries. A second transit-route
was viâ Kandahar and Herat. I have spoken of the disabilities
from which this trade suffers in the ruinous imposts of the Afghan authorities,
and in the increasing competition of railway-borne Russian goods in the
Transoxian regions. Its decline may be illustrated by figures showing that
the transit-trade viâ Herat and Kerki to Bokhara, which in
1881 amounted to 3,600 camel-loads and 1,025 tons weight, sank in 1884
to 1,700 camel-loads and 490 tons weight, and has since all but vanished;
while during the autumn of last year (1888), when the rebellion of Is-hak
Khan agitated Afghan Turkestan, communication by caravan between Kabul
and Bokhara ceased altogether.
Transit-trade however, in a country of such precarious
political stability as Afghanistan is ipso facto a somewhat hazardous
venture, and cannot be expected to give uniformly satisfactory returns.
But the prospect is a much more ominous one when we turn to the trade with
the country itself, to which I now invite your attention.
Afghanistan is only actually touched at one point
of its border by a railroad, and that the English railway (Sind-Pishin
Line) recently pushed out from Quetta to the Amran Range in the direction
of Kandahar. Farther to the north-east the main Punjab line from Lahore
is produced as far as Peshawur , near the embouchure of the Khyber Pass.
From these two termini long strings of camels convey British and Indian
merchandise into the interior; the caravans in correspondence with the
Sind-Pishin line serving the Kandahar region, and ultimately Herat; those
that start from Peshawur serving Kabul, and ultimately Afghan Turkestan.
On the north-west the Russian railway runs parallel
with the English, several hundred miles apart, but at a rather greater
distance from the Afghani frontier on that side that is the Indian railway
on the south-east. From Merv, however, from Tcharjui on the Oxus, and from
Bokhara, communication is made with the Afghan interior; and caravans,
made up for the most part in Bokhara, but charged with Russian merchandise,
serve the frontier markets of Maimena, Andkui, Shiberghan, Akcha, and Siripul,
whence the goods are redistributed into the inland villages of towns.
The situation which it is my object to indicate is
this. The Russian, or more strictly Bokharan, caravans, in correspondence
with the Russian railway on the north, are not only seriously competing
with, but are even beating the Afghan or Indian caravans in correspondence
with the Anglo-Indian lines on the south. In other words, Afghanistan,
which has hitherto been regarded as a peculiarly sacred preserve of the
British or Indian trader, is fast becoming a battle-ground of international
rivalry, and is little by little yielding to Russia that which it steals
from Great Britain. Let me take my evidence from both quarters, the north
and the south, i.e., both from Russian and from Indian official
sources.
The principal Russian exports to North Afghanistan
are printed goods, sugar— lump, moist, and candied— trunks, iron, hardware,
copper, drugs, and matches. The extent to which this trade has already
been developed is demonstrated by returns that have been publish by the
Russian Journal of the Ministry of Finance, according to which in the summer
of last year (1888) the value of Russian goods exported to Afghanistan
from Bokhara during the month of June alone amounted to £123,581;
and of imports into Bokhara from Afghanistan to £215,390. In the
following months this trade, both export and import, suffered seriously
from the general dislocation arising out of the rebellion of Is-hak Khan.
But the high level which it had previously reached, and which it is said
since to have recovered, will illustrate the extent to which Russo-Afghan
trade, in connection with the Transcaspian Railway, has already been carried;
and justifies the sanguine declaration of the Russian Finance Minister
that— "Northern Afghanistan presents a market in which Russian goods find
a ready sale, and compete successfully with Anglo-Indian and other European
merchandise."
I now turn to the evidence supplied by the
trade returns on the other side, viz., on the Indian frontier in the provinces
of the Punjab and Sind. The value of the exports from the Punjab to Kabul
during the eleven months from April to February has been as follows during
the past three years:—
1886-7. 1887-8 .
1888-9.
Rupees … 6,036,751
5,336,431 4,933,640
The value of imports from Kabul across the Punjab frontier during the
same period has been—
1886-7. 1887-8 .
1888-9.
Rupees … 2,432,846
2,265,622 1,875,914
It will be observed that the figures both of exports
and imports exhibit a steady progressive decline. The Deputy Commissioners
and the Financial Commissioners in their reports to the Indian Government
attribute this to various reasons, among which Russian competitions finds
a place. The Report of the Assistant Financial Secretary for the year 1887-8,
part of which is printed as a Parliamentary paper in London (3), contains
the following paragraph:—
"Trade with Kabul is not progressing
as it might have been expected to do, seeing that the railway runs right
up to its border, and that the country has been free for the last few years
from serious political convulsions. Whether the stagnation of the trade
is to attributed to Russian customs restrictions on the other border of
Northern Afghanistan, to the illiberal fiscal régime of the
Amir, or to tribal disturbances from time to time, it is certain in any
case that the trade gives no indication of material increase."
As an illustration of the oppressive custom-dues
exacted by the Amir, I may here mention that the taxation on the road to
Ghuzni upon cloth coming from India is as follows:— Eighteen rupees on
each camel-load at the Shutargardan Pass, and a forfeiture of one piece
out of every forty; and a further eight rupees upon each camel-load on
arrival at Ghuzni.
Similar evidence to that which I have quoted is also
forthcoming in the returns from the Sind Province, which commands the great
southern trade route into Afghanistan by the Bolan and Khojak Passes, and
which is now served by the Quetta or Sind-Pishin Railway. The returns of
exports and imports by this railway are somewhat delusive. The bulk of
the trade appears to be in exports; but this is explained by the fact that
more than half of the total consists of railway material, while a substantial
portion of the remainder goes for the requirements of the garrison and
inhabitants of Quetta.
Perhaps the most reliable figures that we can take
are those of the annual caravan-borne trade across this section of the
frontier to Kandahar, which, in spite of its proximity to the frontier—
less than seventy miles— exhibits a steady decline. They were as follows
for the eleven months from April to February in the last three years:
1886-7. 1887-8 .
1888-9.
Rupees … 154,327
123,413 89,987
The value of the imports during the same period was:
1886-7. 1887-8 . 1888-9.
Rupees … 133,260
107,830 97,601
Now I do not say that the decline of trade with Kandahar is directly
attributable to Russian competition, because I have no evidence that Russian
goods penetrate so far south; nor can we be certain to what extent Kandahar
is fed by the railway as distinguished from road-borne goods. But Kandahar,
it must be remembered, is the trading-point of transfer for Girishk and
Herat, and it is indisputable that Russian competition has in the
latter place ousted us from the field, and that whatever our ascendancy
in the southern market, it is more than balanced by our exclusion from
the northern capital, which appears, from all accounts, to be almost as
much lost to us in a commercial, as it is in a political sense.
Summing up, therefore, my observations on Afghanistan,
I have shown that over the northern zone, which includes Afghan Turkestan
and Herat, Russian trade, fed by the Transcaspian Railway, is acquiring
a control that, if we may judge from cognate cases, is likely to develop
into a monopoly; whilst over the southern zone including Kandahar, Ghuzni,
and Kabul, Anglo-Indian trade, so far from making that progress which the
more pacified condition of the country, the alliance of the Amir, and the
excellent railway communication on the Indian side would appear to warrant,
is either stationary or is definitely on the decline. We have lost part
of Afghanistan— commercially. Our foothold does not become a firmer one
in the remainder.
III. Finally I turn to Persia, the concluding
but perhaps the most important illustration of my thesis. For the purpose
of my argument let me divide that country into four quarters, or zones,
of commercial influence, in each of which I shall balance and contrast
the respective advantages of the two rivals. The first zone is the western,
or Azerbaijan province, whose centre is Tabriz; the second is the northern,
whose centre is the capital Teheran; the third is the eastern, or province
of Khorasan, whose centre is Meshed; the fourth is the middle and southern,
whose centre is Ispahan, and which possesses the sea-ports of Bender Abba,
Linga, and Bushire. These zones are fed commercially by certain channels,
the character and adaptability of which to Russian or British mercantile
interests I will briefly indicate.
I. The province of Azerbaijan was formerly
approached by British merchandise in the main from two directions: from
the north-west viâ Poti, or Batoum, Kars, and Erivan, and
from the north-east viâ the Caspian. The abolition by Russia
of the transit-trade across the Caucasus in 1883, and the annexation by
the same power of Batoum in 1886, have absolutely closed to England these
two avenues of approach, which are now left under the unimpeded control
of our rival; they have driven English trade with Persia to the more circuitous
and costly overland route from Trebizond; and they have destroyed and English
trade with Caucasia which I have seen estimated at an annual value of £1,000,000.
Here, in a comparatively restricted space, but on a scale of scientific
precision, may be seen exhibited the merciless results of Russian Protection,
and its especial antagonism to British trade. Nor is the loss to Great
Britain to be estimated by the closure of these routes alone. The figures
of the British import trade into Persia viâ Trebizond, so
far from showing an increase resulting from the enforced concentration
upon that line of approach, exhibit since 1884 a progressive decline. (4)
1880.
1881. 1882.
1883.
£548,921
527,462 679,428 652,823
1884.
1885. 1886.
1887.
704,493
578,850 522,480 471,700
The British Consular Report of the trade of Trebizond for the year 1887
contains the admission that "the decrease in cotton goods, especially from
the United Kingdom, is to be explained by the greater importation of Russian
stuffs, which appear to be yearly on the increase, that of Trebizond alone
figuring for 1887 as £10,000, against £1,920 in 1886."(5) The
British Consul at Constantinople, in his report for the years 1887 and
1888 on the trade of that port, makes a similar confession. He says with
reference to Central Asia in general that large import houses in Constantinople
which formerly did business as middlemen between European manufactures
and the merchants of these parts have lost their custom, and are being
extinguished by the opening of new and more direct i.e., by Russian
routes; and with special reference to the zone which I am discussing that
"In Persia the provinces of Azerbaijan, Khoi, and Mazenderan alone continue
to take their supplies by way to Constantinople, and then only when
the Russian competition permits of their doing so"; and that "owing
partly to this competition dealers in Manchester goods have suffered considerably."(6)
I derive kindred testimony from another official, and in this case, an
outside quarter, in a letter from the French Consul at Tabriz in 1888 to
French commercial publication, which contained these words:
"It seems likely that the trade
of Europe with Persia will be very seriously affected indeed by the influence
which are linking that country in a closer commercial union with Russia.
But it is England which will suffer most by the new situation; for Russia
makes muslins of better quality than those of Manchester; and when the
price of the Russian muslins, which is rather high at present in consequence
of their novelty, begins to fall a little, the English manufactures will
have no chance of competing with those of Russia."
2. I pass to the second or northern zone, consisting
of the provinces of Ghilan and Mazenderan, and containing the capital Teheran.
Teheran is fed by three main arteries, from Baghdad viâ Kermanshah
and Hamadan on the west, from Resht on the Caspian on the north, and in
a less degree from Meshed-i-Sar further to the east along the same coast-line.
Here again Russian superiority is gradually but surely being establish,
the proximity and monopoly of the Caspian giving them an advantage with
which it is almost impossible for the long and circuitous overland routes
to compete. The latest report on the trade of North Persia says that at
Teheran Russian prints received by Resht and Kasvin compete strongly with
the English, thought the latter still have the advantage except in Turkey
reds.(7) Should the road from the Caspian to the capital, for the construction
of which the Russians have recently been putting diplomatic pressure upon
the Shah, be taken in hand, there can be no doubt as to which way the balance
will in future incline. East of Teheran, in Mazenderan, we have the authority
of the same report for saying that "English prints are beaten by Russian,
and it would even be difficult to find a piece of English origin." In fact,
the second zone, like the first, must be increasingly credited to the Eagle
rather than to the Union Jack.
3. More deplorable, because more decisive, is the
spectacle presented by the third zone, that of the wealthy province of
Khorasan, with its capital Meshed. Here Russian influence, commercial as
well as political, is omnipotent, and British competition is, except in
the case of Indian imported tea, almost a negative quantity. Hitherto the
main avenues of approach to this province have been on the north viâ
Shahrud from Teheran, viâ Astrabad from the Caspian, viâ
Heart from Afghanistan, and on the south from Bender Abbas on the Persian
Gulf. The last-named route is practically the only one available to British
or Anglo-Indian trade, which is limited to a few articles such as tea,
which Russia cannot supply, and which is in the hands of Hindu and Kashmiri
merchants. The three northern routes which have for some time been practically
Russian, have now been supplemented, and will in time be superseded by
a new route opened up by Russia over the border mountains from Kuchan to
Askabad, where at a distance of only twenty miles from the frontier connection
is establish with the Transcaspian Railway. Already Russian merchandise,
transported from Baku and Uzun Ada, is being poured over the frontier by
this line into Khorasan, where Russian dress, Russian commodities, and
Russian drinks everywhere abound; and when the carriageable road, for which
the Russians are pressing, is completed from the frontier to Kuchan and
Meshed, the process of commercial absorption will be complete. I may mention
that with a view to encourage trade by this route the Russian Government
has recently issued a proclamation at Askabad, offering free transit to
all goods from Persia, if sent by Askabad to Uzun Ada and Baku; a concession
which has for some time been in existence on the Caucasian border in the
opposition direction. Unless, therefore, England can speedily develop and
extend her communications from the south, she may say good-bye for ever
to the markets of Khorasan.
4. It is with positive relief, after these
lugubrious reflections, that I turn to the fourth and final zone of influence,
viz., the Central and Southern Persian, the chief towns of which are Ispahan
and Shiraz, and which is in connection with the ports of the Persian Gulf.
British influence is here, owing to her command of the maritime approaches
as completely in the ascendant as I have shown Russian influence to be
Khorasan. English prints defy all competition at Ispahan, and south of
that place command the entire market. The proportion of British shipping
that entered the port of Bushire in 1888 was 93,555 out of 97,775 tons;
of Linga 82, 780 out of 119,280 tons; and of Bender Abbas, 76,586
out of 85,599 tons.(8) The statistics of British and Indian trade with
these ports stand in approximately the same ratio to those of other European
countries. Quite recently the Kuran River concession, about which so much
has been heard, has opened up a new trade route into the interior; though
until the Persian Government shows some willingness to assist traffic,
by improving and securing roads and by removing restrictions on commerce,
too much must not be expected in this direction. The supremacy of England
in Southern Persia is a satisfactory symptom, and will provide us with
a clue to a more energetic policy in other directions. But even here it
must be noted that the Russians, undaunted by physical or material obstacles,
are boldly attempting competition; and the latest report from the British
Consul-General at Bushire contains this paragraph: "As a rule, Manchester
cotton goods hold their place, and the tendency has been to receive more
costly goods. But at Bender Abbas Russian red chintz has superseded that
formerly imported from India, the traders alleging that they obtain an
equally good stuff at cheaper rates from Russia." (9)
I have now exhausted the range of observation to
which I limited myself in commencing this paper; and it only remains for
me to sum up what I have advanced and to suggest the steps that should
be taken by British commerce either to extend its operations, to recover
its influence, or to guard against extinction.
I have shown that in the Khanate of Bokhara,
Russia, by means of the Transcaspian Railway, has acquired a complete monopoly
of the native markets. It is as impossible for England to enter into any
independent commercial relations with the Amir of Bokhara as it would be
for Russia to make a similar arrangement with the Maharajah of Kashmir.
The utmost that we can do is to assist the Indian transit-trade through
Afghanistan by prevailing upon Abdurrahman Khan to lighten the extravagant
dues imposed by his office of Customs. I have not, however, much faith
in this remedy; and I look upon the trade of Bokhara as lost.
I have shown that in Afghanistan British commerce
is not making the headway that might be expected in the south, and is suffering
from Russian competition in the north. I should like myself to see Great
Britain exercise a much greater commercial control over what I cannot exactly
call a feudatory state, because the vassal, so far from paying, is paid
by us, but over a state which is admittedly and solely under the suzerainty
of this country, and from which we are entitled to demand substantial returns
for our considerable outlay and immense responsibilities. I should like
on the Indian side to see railroads pushed further into Afghanistan, certainly
as far as Kandahar, and possibly as far as Kabul. British ascendancy in
that country is for more likely to be perpetuated by such methods than
by intermittent campaigns, or even by regular lacs of rupees.
Lastly, in Persia I have shown that while Russian
ascendancy in Khorasan is at present balanced by British ascendancy in
the south, yet that in the western and northern zones of influence, British
trade is declining and Russian trade is progressing. In these cases our
share of the spoil may, to some extent, be revindicated (as Mr. Law has
shown in his report, previously quoted [10]) by the bestowal of greater
attention upon the tastes and fashions of our Persian customers, and by
the employment of trained middlemen or brokers speaking the native languages
and understanding native customs, who should both supply the English manufactures
with information and facilitate the discharge of business on the spot.
But in Persia, as elsewhere, our control is only to be retained and fortified
over the south, and projected into the east and north and west, by the
new and bloodless weapon of nations, viz., the extension of communication
by rail. The principal trade routes of the Orient are marked out by physical
conditions and by immemorial usage. But those who aspire to their control
must realize that though the routes remain the same the methods have changed.
Caravans are doomed, and goods-waggons drawn by steam must take their place.
It is to her quick realization of this fact that Russia owes the extraordinary
success that is now attending her commerce in Central Asia, and that has
swollen her exports over her Asiatic border from £2,470,000 in 1884
to £3,530,000 in 1886; and her imports over the same frontier from
£3,620,000 in 1884 to £4,530,000 in 1886. The lesson that she
has taught us in the Transcaspian and the Khanates we should apply in Persia.
British trade with Khorasan can only be recovered, with Teheran can only
be extended, and with Ispahan can only be permanently secured, by the introduction
into Central and Southern Persia of a railway system connecting the principal
towns, and in communication either with the ports on the Gulf, or, as is
even more desirable, with the already existing British railway in Beluchistan.
This line supplies the natural starting-point from which a railroad could
be pushed forward primarily into Seistan, a region of great potential fertility,
and continued thence to Kerman, Yezd, and Ispahan, which might also be
approached by improved road communication from Shustar on the Karun, and
perhaps ultimately be connected by rail with Kermanshah and Teheran. This
is an ambitious, but it is both a practicable and a pacific, policy. I
see no reason why, if the attention of the people of this country can be
drawn to the critical condition of British commerce in Central Asia, and
if they can be convinced, as is easily done, of the value of importance
of its maintenance and extension, they should not merely acquiesce in,
but should insist upon, a policy that is directly devoted to the ends I
have described, and that would unquestionably be fraught both with profit
to ourselves and with blessings to the people of the East.
George N. Curzon
