تقارير ومراسلات تتعلق ببلاد فارس، بما يشمل التجارة ومساراتها في بلاد فارس [ظ‎‎٧] (٢٥٢/١٤)

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REPORT ON TRADE OF PERSIA.
Yet this question of providing more rapid and cheaper transport to
inland markets seems to afford the best chance of increasing our trade in the
central and northern provinces. The freight on a ton of piece-goods from
Manchester to Bushire is about 2/. 55. and from Bushire to Ispahan 10/. to
\il. The cost of transport from any seaboard to the Persian plateau is
about gd. per ton per mile, whilst between markets in the interior, caravans
work for 4^. to 6a. per ton per mile. On the southern and south-western
frontiers grain and forage are as cheap as in the central provinces.
It appears to me that an organised transport would serve better to reduce
the time and cost of carriage of merchandise than a heavy expenditure on
roads which, unless they inordinately increase the distance travelled, must
include heavy gradients. The mule or camel can negotiate such steep
gradients much more easily than the wagon, and if there is space for the
caravan to carry its loads free of contact with rocks, trees and other caravans,
the animals are indifferent to a pefect surface so long as it is not deep in
mud, sand, or rolling stones. The load carried by a camel or mule does not
impose excessive inconvenience in the packing of the merchandises in which
we are most interested.
The routes based on the Persian Gulf are those which most concern our
trade. Outside of it our only important trade is by the Trebizond route, and
our imports by it for the year March 1902-3 amounted to 227,000/., of which
66,700/. was tea (likely in future to follow the Batoum-Julfa route in transit),
and the remainder chiefly textiles. The imports of other European nations
(except Russia) were about 350,000/.
Our shipping interests profit not only from our own but from all trade to
the Persian Gulf. We do not carry even our own merchandise to Trebizond,
whereas our shipowners earn freight on all goods (except Russian) passing
to or from Gulf ports.
An improvement in the conditions under which merchandise is landed
and forwarded to inland destinations through Gulf ports appears to me one
of the greatest benefits which could be conferred on our trade.