'Administration Reports of the Persian Gulf, 1945 [-1946]' [‎46r] (104/414)

19./-
ia.
In the sa me month armed robbers looted the occupants of a
©a r nea r Abdulmalik - about 12 miles from Yezd on the
main Kerma n road a nd seriously injured one of them. In
a cla sh between the Gendarmerie and bandits near Mehri^.
one robber was shot dead and 2 others who were wounded
escaped. In November bandits attacked a caravan on the
Ba fq road and got a wa y with most of their loot. Three
lorries loaded with sugar and tea were robbefil by bandits
on the Yezd-Shiraz road 53 miles from Yezd in December
and the loot was carried away into the interior. Only a
few bags were recovered by the genda rmerie and the road
wa s considered unsa fe in December.
m. ecq:nomig>
Conditions were much the same as in Kerman, In August,
the local Kharbar D epa ^ment announced that there was no
further need for government bakeries and recommended that 90
tons of wheat a nd 480 tons of barley held in their 'ambars 1
should be sold by public auction. By November no purchasers
had come forward for the barley. When the Azerbaijan trouble
wa s at its height a n artificia 1 scarcity of wheat was ere-
-a ted by leading mercha nts who hoarded the bulk of their
stocks. Under the pretence of solicitude for the poor, who
were in serious difficulties owing to this development, the
hoa rders themselves conferred with the Farmandar and after
prolonged discussions decided to a ppeal to Tehran to in-
-struct Isfahan to end Yezd 1000 tons of wheat immediately,
Mea nwhile the public were receiving bread from the barley
which the Kharbar Department were unable to sell.
Tea was distributed at very irregular-intervals and
suga r supplies for Yezd d.nd district were 9 months overdue at
the end of the year. No cloth had been distributed throughout
the year.
When government control of cotton was lifted the price
of cotton yearn rose from Rials 450/- to Rials 520/- per bun-
-dle of 10 lbs.
Prices of most consumer goods and foodstuffs had risen
at the end of the year by about 20<£ over prices prevailing
ea rlier.
vii. local politics ,
As the result of alleged discrimination in Yezd, by the
late Farmandar Sadri, in selecting an Electoral Committee for
the Provincia 1 Council, he was recalled to Tehran and replaced
by Aqai Ismail Baha dur who is reported to be distinctly pro-
H ussian.
In January, the Tudeh Party in Yezd under the leadership
of A bbas Ustadan, a local lawyer, increased its activities
and, under pressure from him, the owners of the Durakshan and
Herati Mills were compelled to sanction a temporary increase
of 55^ in the wa ges of their workers and to reduce the hours
of working from 12 to 10 daily. The management of the Iqbal
Mills did not, however, a ccede t to these damands. On the 6th
Ja nuary Ustadan ordered the workers of all three mills to
cea se work and they closed down. The following day an anti-
-Tudeh party associa ted with Dr.Tahiri, the deputy, broke into
the premises of the Tudeh and set it ablaze. Ustadan who es-
-ca ped was atta eked later on and badly manhandled and he left