'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎428] (487/714)

PERSIA
of continuous intrigue and watchful opposition from the older
official school, by whom he is regarded as a schemer and an up
start, held his own for several years. His administration has on
the whole been marked by ability and success, and if he continues
to receive the support of the king, if he can escape the deteriorat
ing contagion of Persian official life, and if he can hold up his head
amid the hurricane of intrigue that surges round a leading man in
Persia, he may live to be a real benefactor of his country. At
the time of going to press, in the winter of 1891-2, his position
appears to be still unimpaired; nor does the jealousy of his rivals
seem to have shaken the wise confidence of his sovereign.
The remaining ministers are for the nonce somewhat over
shadowed by the ascendency of the Amin, The most honourable and
The Amin- capable among them is the Amin-ed-Dowleh, Mirza Ali
ed-Dowieh j^han, a man of middle age, courtly manners, liberal
sympathies, and great cultivation. Superseded in the first posi
tion by his younger rival, he is regarded as hostile to the latter,
but still unites in his own person the Presidency The name given to each of the three divisions of the territory of the East India Company, and later the British Raj, on the Indian subcontinent. of the Council
with the Ministries of Posts, Pensions, and Church Property, He
accompanied the Shah on his former visit to England, but not in
the year 1889, having withdrawn from the suite in Germany, it
was said, in consequence of strained relations with the Amin-es-
Sultan. Were it not for a certain want of initiative and energy,
possibly the result of too acute an insight into the stubbornness of
the system with which would-be reformers are brought into collision,
he might be regarded as the best man in Persia. I visited him in
a fine house which was decorated in the European fashion. He con
versed very fairly well in the French tongue, and struck me as the
most attractive personality whom I encountered in Persia. His
tone about his own country was that of a true lover of reform,
whose enthusiasms were dead and who had lost all hope of regene
ration in his time.
The portfolio of Foreign Affairs is in the hands of Mirza Abbas
Khan, the Kawam-ed-Dowleh (Support of the State), a man of
T1 e rough manners and appearance, and a typical representa-
Kawam-ed- tive of the old school. He did not accompany the Shah
Dowieh Europe, but was left in charge of his department at
Teheran, He was formerly Minister of the Interior, and has the
reputation of being straightforward and industrious, as well as
enormously wealthy. In spite of his portfolio, he is little more
lata