IOR/L/PS/20/FO21

The volume consists of published copies of correspondence between the Admiralty, Foreign Office, Government of Bombay, Government of India, India Office, Treasury, British administrative and diplomatic staff, foreign governments and their staff, and private individuals. It was printed for use by the Foreign Office.

The volume contains the following publications:

• 'Part XIX. Further Correspondence respecting the Affairs of Persia and Arabia. June to August 1904.' (ff 4-116)
• 'Part XX. Further Correspondence respecting the Affairs of Persia and Arabia. September and October 1904.' (ff 117-266)
• 'Part XXI. Further Correspondence respecting the Affairs of Persia and Arabia. November and December 1904.' (ff 267-366).

• Political and diplomatic affairs, including British efforts to keep the Governor of Seistan [Sistan] in power
• Finance and banking, including British loans to the Government of Persia, with a copy of a loan agreement between the Persian government and the British Imperial Bank of Persia (ff 177-178)
• Trade, tax, and customs, including the signature of the 'Règlement Douanier', a customs agreement between Persia and Great Britain, a copy of which is included in the volume (ff 191-230)
• Public health and quarantine, particularly efforts to contain the spreading cholera epidemic in Persia and Irak [Iraq] and provide relief to victims, including the establishment of the Tehran Sanitary Board, with a list of members of the Council (ff 144-145) and a report on the proceedings of a meeting of the Council (ff 183-185)
• Communications, transport, and public works, including motor cars, post, roads, telegraphy, telephony, shipping, irrigation, and dam-building
• Military affairs, including: monthly reports on Russian military movements in the Trans-Caspian region; the distribution of arms in Arabia; and the dispatch of Turkish [Ottoman] reinforcements to the Hejaz and Yemen
• Naval affairs, including: 'piracy' on the Shatt-el-Arab [Shatt al Arab] and in the Gulf, and Persian territorial claims to the islands of Tamb [Greater and Lesser Tunbs] and Abu Musa
• Religious affairs, including: the persecution and repression of Armenians in Russia and Persia; the murder of an American Christian missionary in Urumia [Urmia]; and education provision for the Zoroastrian Parsee [Parsi] people
• Territorial and border disputes, including: the ongoing joint Anglo-Turkish boundary commission to delineate the frontier between Yemen and the Aden Protectorate, with a report on the demarcation of the frontier by the Resident at Aden (ff 328-343); and British arbitration in the 'Seistan Water Question': the dispute between Persia and Afghanistan over the waters of the Helmand River, with a memorandum on the dispute and a copy of the British arbitration award (ff 287-298).

The following is also included:

• Monthly summaries of events in Persia for each month from June 1904 to December 1904
• French activity in Oman, including the long-running dispute over the French flag being flown by Suri dhows
• The fighting in Nejd [Najd] between Ibn Saoud [Amīr of Najd, ‘Abd al-‘Azīz bin ‘Abd al-Raḥmān bin Fayṣal Āl Sa‘ūd, i.e. Ibn Sa‘ūd] and Ibn Rashid [Amīr of Jabal Shammar, ‘Abd al-‘Azīz bin Mit‘ib al-Rashīd, i.e. Ibn Rashīd]
• Affairs in El Katr, including the aspiration of the Ruler of El Katr to come under British protection, and the eventual suppression of the Turkish Mudirate established at Wakra [Al Wakrah]
• French pearl prospecting off Bahrein and the question of the protection of the pearl fisheries on the Arabian side of the Gulf by the British
• The trade in enslaved people in the Gulf.

Material written in French is present throughout the volume, consisting primarily of diplomatic correspondence and agreements.