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arrived in his own steamer, the Lawrence, from Masqat in the early morning of the 20th March, and spent several hours ashore. I thus had the opportunity of reporting in some detail all that had occurred of late, and of discussing various pressing questions with him before he continued to Sirik.

The Hardinge had recently proceeded there again, and Colonel Delamain reported that Mir Haji was greatly concerned, as he had perused a letter from Barkat to his former followers, ordering them to bring as many armed men as possible to Bandar Abbas. Mir Haji stated that a party of forty men had already responded to Barkat's call, and others were following. He was extremely anxious also owing to the non-arrival of his promised "sanad" from the Daria Begi. Colonel Delamain was informed that the Resident would reach Sirik next morning, and go into all these matters on the spot.

After interviewing Mir Haji at Sirik, Colonel Cox proceeded to Bandar Abbas, and later sent me a radio message that the Daria Begi had given him the "sanads" for Mir Haji and Mustapha, which he was posting to me for delivery to them. Further, the Daria Begi had undertaken to ship Barkat to Bashire by the next day's mail; but the Resident was remaining at Bandar Abbas in the Lawrence, to make sure that he went. I informed Colonel Delamain accordingly, so that he could place Mir Haji's mind at rest. The British Minister

at Teheran was also addressed by Colonel Cox regarding the desirability of having Barkat permanently removed from his former sphere of activity on the Biaban coast. The villain was eventually taken to Bushire by the Daria Begi, but some months later was apparently allowed to escape from eustody. In the time of my successor he appeared again on the troubled scene, but that is another story.

On the 22nd March, Captain S. G. Craufurd, D.S.O., of the Gordon Highlanders, arrived at Jashk from India, to take over the duties of Naval Intelligence Officer, Persian Gulf, from me. I remained at Jashk for another five or six days, in order to place him au fait with everything concerning the work, and introduced him to the various characters referred to in these pages, and others besides, before finally handing over to him on the 27th, when I sailed in the oruiser Proserpine for Masqat. There I spent several days with Mr Holland at the British Consulate, waiting for the next mail. His assistance to me throughout the period under review, and to the Navy generally, had been immense; and a large share of the success which had attended our efforts was due to his unobtrusive and rapid conveyance of intelligence, and his skilful handling of the Sultan of Masqat under most difficult circumstances. able to utilise this opportunity also of getting into personal touch with A. again, who had provided Holland with much of the information that had

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been cabled across to me at Jashk by the Consul. B. I had left with my successer at Jashk. Both had performed yeoman service, and their good work was brought to the notice of, and fully appreciated by A.H.Q. India on my return to Simla. I sailed from Masqat for Karachi by slow mail on the 30th March, calling at Chahbar, where I spent several hours with Major Raven, who also had been of great assistance in the system of intelligence which had been gradually built up along the whole of the Makran coast. A small portable wireless was to be installed at Chahbar shortly, which would enable him, too, to communicate news of an urgent nature direct to patrolling ships.

Although operations for the year had by no means yet terminated, still there remained but few weeks more in which the Afghans would be likely to continue their activities in the Gulf-during the present season. Already telegraphic messages from Kirman, Sistan, and other centres in the interior, had reported large caravans passing through, homeward bound. Such movements from the coast area had for some weeks past been reported to to me by my own intelligence agents, and from various sources of information it was confirmed that a comparatively small proportion of the camels carried back arms. By far the greater number were loaded up only with merchandise in their place.

That the losses suffered by

Afghans and Afridis during this season were great is emphasised by the subsequent attitude of the Adam Khel Afridis, in the vicinity of the Kohat Pass and Cherat. These border people of ours claimed that they alone had lost some three lakhs of rupees (£30,000) as a result of our actions in the Gulf, and brazenly demanded that this sum of money should be paid over to them as compensation! Another small frontier war was with seme difficulty averted; but they did not receive their compensation. If so small a section of those who embarked on the enterprise lost so heavily, it may readily be inferred that, in the aggregate, tens of lakhs were lost to the adventurous Afghan spirits who had proceeded so far afield in quest of the rich treasure formerly so easily acquired. At the close of this season the actual captures made at sea and on land by our forces amounted roughly to about 12,000 rifles and about 1,500,000 rounds of ammunition; but it may be safely conjectured that probably another 30,000 or 40,000 rifles had been prevented from reaching Afghanistan and our border tribes-as intended-by the measures which had at last been adopted in order to check this serious evil.

The problem by which we were confronted was a delicate and difficult one, having regard to the international, as well as the British, outlook on this vexed question of Arms Traffic. As shown, we had to aot virtually alone, and in face

secret agents in India, Afghanistan, Arabia, and Persia, in order to unravel its intricacies, and to lay bare the machinations of those who utilised every form of device to hoodwink the opposition to the traffic, initiated by our Government. And these agents, be it remembered, ever carried their lives in their hands; for one false move, which might give them away, would probably result in their having their throats out.

of scarcely veiled opposition; buted, and covered a huge but our interests were more tract of country. This deintimately and vitally affected manded the employment of than those of other nations. The start made had, however, proved a considerable deterrent to the trade from Masqat; but until some satisfactory agreements were arrived at with France, Persia, the Sultan of Masqat, and the Amir of Afghanistan, operations conducted during one isolated season would certainly not suffice to destroy the danger once and for all. As events demonstrated, such agreements were not easily obtained; and it fell to Britain's lot, therefore, to continue these very expensive, and particularly onerous and trying, operations for some years yet, before the naval forces in the Gulf could be reduced to normal dimensions, and the threat to our stability on the Indian frontier regarded as more or less dissipated.

In the preceding pages an attempt has been made to been made to give some idea of the complexity of the situation, to disclose the network of intrigue, and to prove the complicity of practically every chieftain and tribesman on the Arabian and Persian coastline in this trade. Its ramifications were widely distri

References-though all too superficial, I fear-have been made to the highly important part played by our vigilant naval forces in these longdrawn-out conflicts of wit. Most deservedly were their exertions rewarded in due course by a naval medal, with olasp, "Persian Gulf, 19091914"; whilst, at the close of the first season's operations here described, Admiral Slade was raised to the dignity of a K.C.I.E., and his capable and energetic subordinate, Capt. Hunt, R.N., of the Fox, awarded the C.S.I. for their tireless labours to defeat the gun-runners' activities.

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H. H. AUSTIN.

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VOL. CCVIII.-NO. MCCLIX.

THE RECENT EVENTS IN ULSTER.

BY J. A. STRAHAN.

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My mother, who, like Charley's aunt, was no dinary woman, had a theory by which she explained to her own satisfaction the difference in the fortunes of the

two races, known 88 the Saxons and the Celts, in the United Kingdom, and more especially in Ireland. How far the so-called Saxons are really Saxons, and the 80called Celts are really Celts, did not concern her, and need not concern us: whatever their origins, the two races are sufficiently distinct and distinguishable. Her theory she summed up in this way: the cause of all the difference in the fortunes of the Saxons and the Celts is that the Saxon populace are never dangerously discontented till they have not got enough to eat, and the Celt populace are never dangerously discontented till they have.

My mother Was always ready to support her theory both with wise saws and modern instances. She was, what so few of our pastors and masters are now, very well read in his tory, and could cite from it scores of examples from the story of the Irish Celts where a satisfied stomach was accompanied by a dissatisfied heart, and, as the logicians say, vice versa; her most notable example of the vice versa being, of course, the century follow

ing the Revolution, when for whole hundred years the Irish Celt was hungry and contented. But none of her evidences for the theory seems to me so complete as that she did not live to see, the present condition of Ireland.

The outbreak of the great war meant to most of the

But to

oivilised races a period of penury, sickness, sorrow, and death. Their men who had tilled the fields were dragged away to die on them; their women were left behind to raise what crops they could from the empty land, and to ponder in agony over the fate of their absent husbands, sons, and lovers; the children were half-starved, and dying in thousands through hunger, neglect, and disease. the Celts of Ireland the outbreak of the war was a blessing. Their men were not conscripted to fight: any of them who went to the war went merely because they liked fighting, which it must be admitted a considerable proportion of them do. Those who preferred peaceful pursuits continued to oultivate their fields as secure from danger as if no war existed. Not only so, but for everything which their fields produced they received double or treble the pre-war price. Never in the whole story of their race were they so well protected, so well paid, or in

such a condition of general thousands-in such numbers prosperity. While all the indeed that many of them other peoples of Europe were were afterwards sent back stinted, the smallest Celtic again to the shipyards and farmer in Ireland could keep engineering shops, where their his family in luxury and at services were more needed by the same time put money in the State than at the front. the savings bank. But as his Those who remained at home breakfast table and his bank worked hard and were well balance went up his content- satisfied with the prices their ment went down.. Fairly labour and produce brought. satisfied with things before There was no discontent among the war, when his farm them even when, as sometimes brought him only a bare happened, their hours were living, he became fiercely dis- longer and their wages lower satisfied when it brought him than they thought was just. a bountiful subsistence. At So long as the war was on last he could not stand this they were satisfied to let these satisfactory state of things things stand over and to sacriany longer, and he rebelled fice their own rights to advance against it; and he has con- the rights of their country. tinued his rebellion against it-and will, if my mother's theory is correct, continue rebelling against it until the disorganisation of industry and markets in Ireland has once more reduced him to meagre rations. I must say, for my own part, I look to this for the restoration of order in Ireland more confidently than to the Restoration of Order in Ireland Aet 1920, which happens to be enacted just about four years after it might have been useful.

While the Celts of Ireland were thus showing their intolerance of prosperity, their Saxon fellow-countrymen were acting very differently. The Ulstermen were also in a most favoured position. Their men were not liable to consoription; but though, unlike the Celts, they have no love of fighting for its own sake, they joined up by the tens of

During the war a very considerable number of the advanced socialistic perhaps Bolshevic would be more correct-ironworkers of Glasgow found their way to Belfast. Why they crossed the North Channel is not very clear, since wages were no higher and hours no shorter in Belfast than in Glasgow. Possibly the Conseription Aot had something to do with it. At any rate, a considerable number of them came to the shipyards and engineering shops of Belfast, and there they, after their nature, set about trying to stir up trouble between the workmen and employers who had been for years past on the most friendly terms. During the war they made little progress. Their propaganda meetings were held on Sundays on the steps of the Custom House, Queen's Square and so little were these to the

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