Coll 28/39 ‘Persia: Printed Correspondence 1929-1936’ [‎152r] (314/1174)

w ^ is
iribes wWch p'cod^ice ^lie finest^vool 0 ''" j' 3e * n ® made to settle the 'se^i-n^adi;
feelini- tlie ohieh f ," a A mto P e ™Meat villages. Landowners are
some'distriet^attemjnsArAbeing^^ade <T aeeordinglv. Jn
Opium has been greatlv restricted by taxation t0 f™ wnew ero P s -
as cotton, do not bring in what opium did hn tb^m ? alt ? rnatlv6 ««>P«, *>«ch
as Yezd and KermarCwh^e a rTceTro^d^o°be forloTafe tibs
crop has been toi bidden, nominally to prevent the spread of malaria but rcallv
M..SS.S 1 S" y - s “ — •» A..... P 4 r;X ,S;
i ^ f,l ' rri< ' iu se ? ms to lj " progressing, and there has been no b, >■<.■<.
scale tribal rising since I came here, although the Baluchistan frontier tribes
have never been pacified, and are at present giving much trouble Tbe
Bakhtran seem to be crushed, and it looks as if the deify in bringing the rh .
leaders to trial was due to uncertainty on the Shah’s party regarding how far
there was a risk of trouble m Bskhtiari if the khans wore punished. Wheii ihf
Shah felt strong enough he struck, and the result was the recent condemnations.
The KaJigai tube also seem broken. A big tribal rising seems less likely now
than lit any time in Koza s reign ; he has probably destroyed the feudal system
though his early death might lead to a final Hare-up. There will, no doubt be
occasional acts of brigandage and ambushes of troops.
Religious fanaticism still exists in the villages, and I do not believe that
the anti-religious forces have made much advance lately ; Ramazan is still
observed fairly strictly, in outward form at least, in Tehran, and completely
in the country districts. Even the Shah’s presence in Meshed did not suffice to
throw open the gates of the shrine of Imam Reza to the learned men of the
Eerdousi congress, although it had been put about beforehand that they would
'^it the shrine and its famous library. On the other hand, the secularisation
ot education seems to he making progress ; all non-Moslem schools, Christian,
Jewish and Bahai, have to conform to the rules of the Ministry of Education,
and failure to do so has caused the closure of the Bahai schools. All foreign
schools have had to adopt Persian names.
This brings me naturally to the subject of education, and here, I think,
progress must be recorded, and the number of hoys and girls attending school is
rapidly increasing. I was interested to see children from the black tent dwellers
in the Ear Valley plodding several miles to school in another tent “ village ”
last summer. The standard is probably low enough, but the number of at least
partial literates in the next generation will he several hundredfold that of the
present adult literate population. Among the upper and middle classes the
large number of boys educated abroad are returning and making themselves
felt.
The administration of justice under Davar undoubtedly made great strides :
the impetus has since somewhat slowed down. There are still failures to keep
the practice up to the standard set by theory, and in the Parsons case we put
our finger upon a serious lapse. Other trials in which foreigners have been
involved include the Lindenblatt trial, which was fairly conducted, and the
Mesopotamia-Persia Corporation’s case against Kazernni, in which, after a
good deal of anxiety, the company had justice done them. Political trials of
Persians could, no doubt, he criticised if the evidence were published, hut, as
they are conducted by court-martial and in camera, we do not know whether there
is any attempt at justice. Teymourtache, Diba, the Bakhtiari Khans, and
others, have been condemned by such courts in the last few months. It is not
a system of which English people can approve,, but it is quite civilised compared
with recent German methods of dealing with political opponents.
Finance is a subject on which I hesitate to he dogmatic. There seems to he
plenty of money available for every kind of extravagance, but all of the reserves
represented by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company £4 million windfall and the
foreign exchange accumulations have been spent. There is a fantastic, gold
cover for the note issue, but the tempting course of printing new notes is now
being favoured and, if continued long enough, will lead to inflation and a fail of
the rial ; perhaps if such a fall could be kept within manageable limits fRO
would be all to the good for the country’s trade. The lial, which has nppiccmT
ed in value by almost 25 per cent, in the last twenty-one months, now stands so
LS208FD