‘Persia – especially Seistan’ [‎37v] (73/949)

REPORT ON TRADE OF PERSIA.
article was offered there from Hamadan. As the imports by both
routes are British goods, the manufacturer may look on this com
petition with greater equanimity.
Northern Markets .—The competition of Russia in northern
markets is more serious. Our sales in Teheran have distinctly
decreased, and are now less than ten years ago by a third or more.
A gentleman with exceptional experience of this business in
Teheran states that seven or eight years ago Russia furnished the
Teheran market with perhaps 1,000 bales of red-ground prints (say
30 pieces of 30 yards each to a bale) as against 4,000 (io pieces
to a bale) from Manchester. To-day that position has not only
been reversed, but, as the consumption has increased, Russia now
sends over 5,000 bales per annum. The average cost of these
prints may be 9s. 6^. per piece of 50 yards, 23 inches wide, c. i. f.
Enzeli, or 10s. 9^. delivered in Teheran. The trade with
Khorassan has been still more seriously reduced, and that with
Yezd has equally suffered, as a great part of the piece goods
taken to Yezd from Bunder Abbas or Ispahan was destiped for
Khorassan.
This is a somewhat formidable list of markets formerly held
by British prints and now encroached upon by foreign manufac
tures. Yet our imports of these articles have certainly increased
by the Bagdad route, and in Ispahan complaint seems rather of
closer competition than of actual decrease of trade.
Even in Khorassan our prints have not been altogether driven
out of the field, and a few established makes are still imported ;
that known as Seyd Abdul Khassemi, a six-coloured print, was
quoted as a type. In Nishapur and Sabzw^ar, which are calculated
to take nearly Rbls. 300,000 in value of Russian prints annually,
the same information was still furnished that British prints of the
better class are still in demand.
In Shahrud a leading merchant ventured the opinion that perhaps
one-fifth of the trade is still British. This town is on the line of
communications with the Caspian at Bundar Gez, and sends
Russian prints (red-ground) to Yezd.
Other Coloured Goods.
In dyed tissues, black and coloured linings and Italians, cotton
suitings and trouserings, serges, flannelettes, &c., the trade via the
Gulf is in British hands, but statistics are not available to distin
guish the values imported. Indigo dyed shirtings are largely
used on the Gulf littoral, but are not appreciated inland, where
home dyed goods are considered to be of faster colour. French,
German, and Austrian goods, for the most part imported through
Constantinople and Trebizond, have been already noticed amongst
Tabriz imports.
The Customs Tariff of 1903 is, on the whole, favourable to
printed goods. Some of the more delicate prints, rolled with a
paper wrap on wooden boards, have to pay on the weight of these
materials, as no allowance is made, and the goods would be
damaged if unwound. In Kermanshah attention was drawn to a
few lines of heavier goods, on which duty works out to more than
the old 5 per cent, rate—such as a heavy-striped print (Tampush),
about per cent.; a heavily-filled Turkey red twill, 8 per cent.;
and a dyed cotton lining, 7 per cent. On the majority of printed
and dyed goods, however, duty is somewhat less than the old 5 per
cent, ad valorem, the average for the whole class working out to
about 4I per cent, on value.
In every place visited a general comparison was invited as to
the qualities of the Russian and British prints competing on the
market, and the reply invariably furnished w r as that the Russian
article at equal prices was stouter and more durable, with faster