'Administration Report of the Persian Gulf Political Residency for the Years 1915-1919' [‎129v] (265/396)

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ANNUAL REPORT OF THE PERSIAN GTTLE POLITICAL RESIDENCY An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, established in the provinces and regions considered part of, or under the influence of, British India.
half measures of the slightest avail to remedy this scandalous state of affairs.
Beino- too weak— or perhaps too much interested—to take a strong line with the
ffrain-OAvners, he coulcl do nothing to break prices without a large reserve the
stock with which to feed the town in. the meantime.
Such a reserve existed in the shape of the Government grain collected
throughout the province by the .Financial Agent in part payment of revenue,
amounting to about 2,500 Kharwars of wheat and a similar quantity of barley.
If the Ministrv of Finance had released the grain at any time in the autumn
scarcity and high prices would have been at an end : but the combined efforts
of the Govunoi -General ai d His Majesty's Consulate were unable to induce
the Ministry to pi ace it at the disposal either of the former or of the South
Persia Rifles. While the Finance Minister bargained and intrigued, trying
(unsuccessfully) to play off the Governor-General and South Persia Rifles against
each other, the Government grain rotted where it lay and Kerman went hungry;
until in November the South Persia Rifles contractor (Mr. A. E. Wetli) had
collected a sufficient reserve by independent buying and went out of the market.
This, together with good winter rains and the news of the Armistice, alarmed
the owners and speculators ; gram became plentiful in the market and prices
at once fell. At the moment of writing (February 11th) wheat is selling at
tomans 10,000 Persian dinars, or a gold coin of that value. 25, a drop of tomans 10,000 Persian dinars, or a gold coin of that value. 13 since November. The year ended with pros
pects distinctly brighter, except for the Finance Minister who found himself
unable to get rid of his grain on a falling market.
The abnormally high rates for hired transport {vide below) caused a corres
ponding rise in the prices not only of imported commodities such as sugar,
oil, rice and piece goods, but of fodder, firewood, ghi and other local produce
and greatly added to the general distress.
Epidemics. —To the undermining of the popular health by the long-
continued scarcity of practically all the necessaries of life must be ascribed the
appallingly high mortality which marked the epidemics of cholera and
influenza which ravaged the province
Cll0lera ' in June-July and Nov ember-December res
pectively. Cholera broke out most unexpectedly at Rafsinjan on 8th May.
The South Persia Rifles medical authorities in co-operation with the Local
Government did their best to keep up a quarantine, but the outbreak had
occurred too close to the city and on 2nd June a case occurred in the lines of
the 6th South Persia Rifles Infantry which had that very day arrived on
transfer from Saidabad. During the next 8 weeks the police reported l,7t3
deaths in the town, but these figures only represented the number of funerals
counted by them at the town cemetery, and the total number including Parsis
and Jews almost certainly exceeded 2,£00. The South Persia Rifles were
moved out into a quarantine camp 8 miles from the city immediately on the
outbreak ; thanks to the efficient arrangements made by Captain Roy, i .M.S.,
Acting Senior Medical Officer in the absence of Major J. B. Hance, i .M.S.,
both incidence and mortality were remarkably low in the Brigade, 108 cases
occurring with 86 deaths. Inoculation was practised as far as the quantity
of serum available permitted, and was highly successful. Among the Euro
pean community the only deaths at Kerman were those of Mr. J. C. Smith,
Superintendent, Indo-European Telegraph Department (23rd June), and
Corporal Smith (Mechanical Transport) on September 8th. Captain Koy
and Corporal Byles of the South Persia Rifles Instructional staff were also
seized, but recovered. There were no cases among the Consulate staff. Very
ew of the Kerman officials or notables died, most of them having at the outset
tied to summer resorts m the hillt*.
In the districts the epidemic was at least as severe as in the city, parti*
cmarly m Zerind, Sirjan, Bam and Narmasbir. The disease which appeared
rst m the west of the province advanced steadily across it reaching 13am
at the ena of June and the borders of Sistan at the beginning of August.
Influenza appeared at Saidabad at the end of October and at Kerman on
inflnetiza. ^th November. In both towns the
_ 0 j . t • *■ incidence must have been above 90 per
cent. certainly among Persians in Kerman His Majesty's Consul did not hear