GUN-RUNNING.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 84, 10 April 1911, Page 7

GUN-RUNNING.

BRITISH' REINFORCEMENTS FOR PERSIAN GULP. By Telegraph.- Press Association.— Copjrigb^ _ CALCUTTA, Blh April. mo British reinforcements which ifc wae recently decided to despatch to tha Persian Gulf, to put an end to tho gunrunning into Afghanistan through Persian ports, have sailed under Rear-Ad-nikal Slade, Commander-in-Chief on the East Indies Station. Tho force, which comprises a detachment of the lO^th Elites, a, mountain battery, and a party of sapnere, .totals a thousand men. Its destination is being kept secret. [The art of piracy, beloved by "every schoolboy, is by no means lost (recently; remarked an English journal). Indeed,' it occupies the sharp attention of our fleet in tho Persian Gulf. , Our solicitude in the matter :s by no mea-ns sentimental, for it is of the utmost importance that we should check the traffic which arms the tribes on our northern Indian frontier. The arms are landed at the* town cf Muecnt.eituatad in Arabia, near the entrance to the Persian Gulf. They are then shipped across to Persia in tho native sailing veesels, or dhows, the cargoes being deposited in lonely caves on the Mekran coast of Persia, where they axe met by caravans and i carried across the Persian Bese-rt into Afghanistan to bo cold to the ea,vage tribesmen, for, a<3 everybody knows, the Afghan is au astute trader as well as a mat-rate fighter. No law exists against the exportation of arms from Melcran, except "for such as are proved to be consigned to Persia and certain other countries where the Persian Government permits no importation. Fortunately, it hae authorised G-teat Britain to help in enforcing this prohibition, and in helping Persia we help ourselves^.]