Coll 28/116 ‘Persia (Iran). Isfahan – Consular situation reports’ [‎266r] (531/876)

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'bands undoubtedly do exist and partly Toecause of their activities «md
because the activities of individual hooligans who make use ot ^he
gener^inck of security to knife and rob the townspeople have laiien
into e nervous state in which a minor incident might easily provoke
flare-up of which the consexiuences cannot be foreseen. In addition,
the Soviet Consul has on several occasions spoken to the Governor-
General of the necessity of not allowing the forces of reaction to
take the upper hand. Fidaker, as leader of the workers here, is
truculent, as if he had strong backing# The Governor-General is there
fore somewhat nervous of taking any steps against the Tudeh, lest he . f -
incur Russian displeasure and disavowal from Tehran in any repressive
action he may take. My advice to him has been that both sides must
now be called to order, but that boils down to the attitude the
Russians will take if the Tudeh are taken to task and to the attitude
the government in Tehran would telco to the Governor General in the
event of a Russian protest.
3# Elections . The Ghahreza election is to start on April 2nd. Two
inspectors have been sent down from Tehran to supervise it and both
are said to be impartial.
All the Isfahan deputies have now had their credentials
passed by the Majlis.
Just before Noruz a distribution of the cloth ration
to all the inhabitants of Isiahen town was carried out
4. Economic.
under the supervision of Mr. TLens, American Director of Finance. The
distribution was so arranged that no choice was allowed the coupon-
holders who did not know what sort of cloth he was receiving, but he
did get the cloth and could always sell or exchange anything he did not
want#
Some rain fell a few days before Noruz, but on the
whole water prospects are poor for the coming summer. The Zayandeh
river now has only about half the amount of water it had in it last
year et this time*
The film ’Mrs. Miniver’ was shown here for one week
before Noruz. Unfortunately at the first showing the
5 • Publicity .
town light supply was very weak and the film was consequently very dark
while the sound was almost inaudible. It is doubtful whether any of the
Persian audience understood it at all for the Persian sub-titles were
very scrappy and no summary of the film in Persian, which could have
been distributed to the audience, was supplied with it. The takings of
the first night, with additional individual donations to the R. A.F.
Benevolent Fund, amounted to 25,875 rials.
6.Miscellaneous. On March 26th an A.I#0.C. tanker driven by a British
employee of the company named Miller, knocked a Persian
tea shop keeper down. The man has since died. The Chief of Police does
not consider that the driver was greatly to blame for the dead man was .
hit by the rear wheel of the tanker in the course of n struggle he was
having with a soldier for the possession of an empty petrol tin. Iz
remains to be seen what view the court will take of the tfase.
The price of tea in Isfahan has risen by 3 tomans 10,000 Persian dinars, or a gold coin of that value. (4/ftd;
a packet as a result of the recent slight Japanese advance into Manipur
The British firm of Stephen Lynch and Go. of Baghdad
/intends to