A letter from Mr. G. M. Trevelyan in the Westminster
Gazette of Wednesday is an example of how the Persian policy of the British Foreign Office may be misinterpreted by the friends of Persia,—misinterpreted in such a way as to prevent the attainment of the very ends they desire. Mr.
• Trevelyan says :--" In order to show how anxious we are to get our officers into Persia, we actually make this arrangement the condition of allowing Persia to raise money." This is surely a perverse comment on Sir Edward Grey's postponement of his scheme of sending British officers to organise the policing of the Southern roads, and on his perfectly reasonable argument that the Persian measures for policing the roads should be a charge on the ordinary revenue. If the friends of Persia in this country tell the Persian Government that Great Britain desires the eontinu- same of disorder on the trade-routes in order to have an excuse to step in and begin an occupation, there will only be one result: Persia will not take the trouble to ward off an event which she will believe is duly planned and inevitable. We venture to say that Sir Edward Grey, while feeling it his duty to protect long-established British interests, would do any- thing he possibly could within reason to avoid the necessity of intervening in Persia, and all his countrymen are of one mind with him.
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