Coll 28/112A ‘Persia. Tabriz – Monthly despatches of internal situation in Azerbaijan & misc. reports.’ [‎233r] (468/1237)

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Department is trying to sell a surplus quantity of barley wbioh it
purchased last year and is finding no takers at the price of 600
rials a ton,
A joint Russian and Iranian arfI\t-locust expedition is
working in the Moghan steppe, where agg-laying has been wide.spread.
The area affected is some 400,000 hectares.
_;303. Supply Depart? .ent. The long drawn out struggle between Mr,
Heft, the American head of the Department and his Iranian col
leagues of the Ministry of Finance still goes on, Mr. Allen
succeeded in securing the dismissal of Mohammed All Agevli, the
acting Director of Finance, but the latter managed to get hold of the
letter from Tehran containing his dismissal first, and suppressed
it for several weeks. When Mr. Allen at last dragged it into the
light of day ^gevli, defeated but not discouraged, wrote off to
the Ministry asking for a reconsideration of the case. The Iran
ian officials of the Finance Department complain that Mr. Allen’s
regular overriding of them is not in line with the methods agreed
upon between Dr. Millspaugh and the Minister of Finance.
Meanwhile, in spite of Mr. Allen’s vigilance, there are
sign* from time to time that minor officials do manage to run the
department on traditional lines: Jehangiri, the official in charge
of the distribution of piece goods and sugar, recently collaborated
with another employee of the department, a Kurd from Mah&bad named
Ja’afari, to divert to their own use 300 tons of sugar which they
seem to have obtained by the simple ruse of representing that it
was the allocation for the tribes of Sardasht.
The distribution of ration cards goes on very slowly. Mr.
Allen has issued notices asking the people to be patient and as
suring them that there is enough sugar and cloth to go round. The
issue of cards was stopped altOvgether for two days about November
10th. because of the discovery of e fraud by which certain persons
were pbtaining identity cards from ftiends and relatives in out
lying villages and presenting them to the registration centres in
the town as evidence of the size of their own families.
In the past, foreign consulates in Tabriz were able to buy
an unlimited quantity of sugar from the Supply Department at the
controlled price of 20 rials per kilogramme.(The open market price
is 70 -80 rials). Mr. Allen thinks this privilege has been abused
and has now reorganized the system on a man-kilogramme basis:-
each member of a consulate staff is to receive three kilogrammes
per month. The chief sufferer by this reform will be the Iraqi
Consul who, with an establishment of four persons, has regularly
bought 50 kilogrammes a month in the past.
Soviet Commercial Affair s. The Soviet Trade Agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. is showing
a little more activity. During the week ending on November 11th.
they sold to local merchants twenty tons of soft sugar at Bis.70
per kilo. They have also sold 20 bales of cotton piece goods at
Bis. 40 per metre. (The controlled price of Government rationed
piece goods is Hls.35). Two or three months ago the Russians sold
piece goods to local merchants at His.70. Through these sales and
a loan of 5 million rials which the Russian Bank has obtained from
the Tabriz branch of the Imperial Bank of Iran, the Russians are
somewhat more flush of local currency than they were a month or so
ago. They have taken up and paid for 30 wagon loads of raisins
from Maragha which they con racted for lest year. They are also
buying live-stock for their meat canning factory An East India Company trading post. which resumed
operations about November 12th.
305. Other Commercial News . The beginning of November saw a sudden
rush by loca1 merchi nts to remit money to Tehran. Some were sending
by drafts and telegraphic transfers as much as a million rials at
a time. This is some indication of the view taken by the merchant
class of the state of security here at that time. The flow has
slackened a good deal since the collapse of the Fudeh agitation.
The Banque Mellie continues to suffer from e shortage of
cash. Only five million of the ten million rials borrowed from
the Imperial Bank were repaid in cash here, the balance ?fas transfer
red in Tehran. The Supply Department is one of those affected by
/the