We regret this policy extremely, and we sincerely hope that
the British Foreign Office is doing all that is possible to bring _about an arrangement which will be just and acceptable to the ,Persians. At the same time, we would ask those who are not
unnaturally apt to resent the temporising and the acquisitive- ness of Russia, and to think that the evil proceeds from the Anglo-Russian Convention, to ask themselves what the alter- native would have been if the Convention did not exist. As the official friend of Russia, Great Britain has the right tc exercise what restraint she can upon Russian actions. With- out the Convention she would have no such right ; and when we remember that at the time the Convention was drawn up the Russian commercial control of Northern Persia was already practically complete, we must admit that the Russian tendency to lay a still firmer hold on Persia would probably have been even more marked than it is now. We fear that there is no improvement in the traditional failure of the Russian Government to exact obedience in its military agents abroad. But it is our duty, as well as our right, to employ the whole of the restraining influence which the Convention puts in our hands.
