'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎448] (507/714)

PERSIA
at suitable prices to his courtiers, dividing with the delighted
tradesman the proceeds of the sale. Enough has perhaps been
said to give some idea of the system. Truly the maxim 'Render
unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's' stands in no need of being
pressed in a country where Caesar takes such very good care of
himself.
It is an obvious result of the administrative system which I
have described, and of the proud predominance of j^nshkesh, that
( . 01 . mpt there is no guarantee, beyond the wisdom or the apprehen-
adminis- sions of the sovereign, for the best men filling the right
places. So long as the gift of office is largely determined
by the length of purse, corrupt administration must prevail, and
honest men will go to the wall. Even if a good man gains an
appointment, the intrigues or the bribes of a rival behind his back
may oust him at any moment, and he falls because at Rome he
failed to do what the Romans do. Of the effect upon the governed,
who are the ultimate source from which the successive mudakhils
and the stipulated pishkeshes are drawn, 1 have already spoken.
But the country does not suffer only from the greed of officials in
respeet of what they extort, but also in respect of what they with
hold. Sums of money are assigned from the Royal Treasury for a
definite public object—e.g., the payment of an army, the construc
tion of public works, the building of a bridge, the repair of a road.
These sums either never reach their destination at all, or only reach
it in sadly diminished volume, having been arrested on the way in
the pocket of some official responsible for the distribution. The
Shah, meanwhile, is quite unaware of, or is powerless to detect, the
embezzlement practised by his subordinates, upon whom, in the
absence of responsible supervision from above or free criticism from
below, it is almost impossible to keep a watch. The rapacity of the
entire official world being thus enlisted in the maintenance of the
existing system, it will easily be understood how stubborn a barrier
is opposed to any administrative reform, and how faint is the hope
that Persia will ever, unaided, work out her own salvation.
It is also to the peculation engendered by this system that
must be attributed the neglect, or the total absence, of public works
xt i x t which so constantly arrests the traveller's attention in
Neglect of ^ . .
public I ersia. When I think over my long journeys, and recall
how many caravanserais, or bridges, or post -houses in the
entire country I saw in at all an efficient state of repair. I am bound