'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎450] (509/714)

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PEESIA
them are unpaid; they attach themselves to their master because
of the opportunities for extortion with which that connection
presents them, and they thrive and batten on plunder. It mav
readily be conceived how great a drain is this swarm of blood
suckers upon the resources of the country. They are true types
of unproductive labourers, absorbing but never creating wealth •
and their existence is little short of a national calamity.
The same feature that prevails in the private household of an
important functionary is carried into the official departments and
Bureau- into the service of the State. Every minister, every
f 1 < u y governor, every petty official, is surrounded by an immense
staff of munshis A term used in the Middle East, Persia and South Asia to refer to a secretary, assistant or amanuensis. Munshis were employed in the British administration in the Gulf. , mirzas, and mustojis, i.e. clerks, secretaries, and
accountants. There is no proper division of labour; confusion
and lack of system prevail everywhere. This enormous staff of
civ il servants justifies itself by no reports, and produces no statistics;
official returns, tables, schedules, or calculations either do not
exist at all or, if they do, exist in a deceptive shape. There
is no means of arriving even at an approximate estimate of so
elementary a fact as the population of the country. The figures
which I elsewhere print of revenue and taxation have been derived
fiom official sources; but though probably correct in themselves, I
cannot tell what omissions they may contain, or how far it is legiti
mate to make them a basis of induction. Baron Teufenstein, the
Austrian Governor of Saveh, whom I have before quoted, thus
described the routine of official life :—
A Ministry in Persia consists of the minister and some scribes,
without any determinate place of office, or any of the apparatus that
appears indispensable to Europeans. The bureau is set up at what
ever spot the minister happens to be, whether in his house, or in an
ante-room, or a court of the Royal Palace, or perchance in the street
or in a coffee-house. A swarm of scribes buzzes after the chief on all
his marches, each bearing with him in his pocket the necessary writing
apparatus and documents. Accordingly, an office can be rigged up
any or everywhere in a trice. In the pockets of such a rnirza are often
to be found the documents of a series of years past, consisting of little
scraps of paper which he has come to regard as private, and in no sense
official, property. 1
My readers will not be surprised to learn that the reforms which
Baron Peufenstein laboriously introduced into the administration of
1 Petermanris Mittheilungen (Andreas and Stolze), 1885.