§ MR. EASTWICKsaid, he would beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether the British Officers on the Telegraphic Staff in Persia have been deprived of the facilities of postal communication they have hitherto enjoyed, owing to a question between the Foreign Office and the India Office as to the incidence of expense; and, if so, whether any steps will be taken to restore those facilities?
Mr. OTWAY, in reply, said, attention having been called to the heavy charges in the Tehran Mission accounts for the cost of the monthly messengers between Constantinople and Tehran, and as it appeared that they carried all the correspondence of the telegraph department serving in Persia, under the Government of India, which amounted to more than than that for the mission, the India Office was invited to contribute half of the cost of these messengers. They, however, declined to do so, and stated that only a small part of such correspondence could be of an official character, and as such entitled to be carried at the public expense. Instructions were then given to abstain from forwarding to Persia for the telegraph department any packet not of a strictly official character, exception being made as regarded mere letters and newspapers, which were still allowed to be forwarded.