IOR/L/PS/10/607/1

This part contains correspondence relating to the salaries of HM consular and diplomatic officers, mainly those employed in Persia.

The correspondence mostly consists of: letters from the Foreign Office to the India Office, including enclosed Foreign Office correspondence; draft letters from the India Office to the Foreign Office; correspondence by telegram between the India Office and the Foreign Department of the Government of India; and internal India Office correspondence. The enclosed correspondence in letters from the Foreign Office largely consists of correspondence between the Foreign Office and the Treasury, and between the Foreign Office and HM Minister, Tehran.

The correspondence mostly relates to the payment of exchange compensation allowance or temporary salary increases, to HM Legation Tehran, and to diplomatic and consular staff in Persia generally (due to the high prices and the low rate of exchange caused by the First World War), and the Secretary of State for India in Council accepting a moiety of the cost as a charge on the Indian Exchequer. The file also includes some correspondence relating to the extension of exchange concessions to Maskat [Muscat], Bahrein [Bahrain] and Shargah [Sharjah].

Most of the correspondence dates from 1916 to 1918, but the file also includes copies of correspondence from December 1908 to June 1909, regarding the payment in Persian currency at a fixed rate of exchange of the rupee salaries of non-gazetted consular establishments and of the telegraph staff in Persia (folios 236 to 250).