File 948/1909 'Persia: Situation in the South; Condition of the Roads. Attack on Mr Bill. Road Guard Scheme.' [‎362r] (728/744)

Mr. Brown, except for his own assistants, being the only European now
in Lmgah, is identifying himself closely with local politics, and
endeavouring to constitute himself a power in the place in a way which
is likely to prove of considerable inconvenience to us.
Q- I'l 16 'effect of the recent national and constitutional movement upon
the administrative and economic conditions in Fars and on the Persian
Gulf Littoral. Much might be written regarding the general results
of the past eighteen months’ working of the movement; but Government
must be generally familiar with its life history from the diaries and
repoits of their officers in Southern Persia, and I will therefore curtail
my remarks as far as practicable.
I he national development is obviously one which any British Govern
ment would be, primd facie, disposed, on principle, to watch with
sympathetic interest, and I think it may be presumed that it has been
watched by their local representatives in that spirit, in its earlier stages
at all events. But even in the north, where the standard of civilisation
is much more advanced and the people are more ripe for regeneration,
His Majesty’s Legation must, I think, be beginning to despair at the
continued prevalence of administrative chaos and the absence of all
effective government. In the south I confess I have seen no result from
the^ national movement and the attempt at constitutional government
which has been otherwise than subversive of law and order, and generally
paralyzing both to the administration and to commerce.
Ihus the authority of local Governors has been altogether undermined
by it. Provided as they now are with altogether inadequate pav, they
are obliged to resort to all sorts of devices to obtain funds, and there
has consequently been no cessation of corrupt methods of government,
the only apparent difference being that the local official now lacks the
practical personal authority to govern which he possessed before.
Under the old regime, so long as he paid the revenue assessment
regularly and complaints from his province were not too overwhelming,
no questions were asked, and he was left to drive his own coach. Under
the new conditions, including the existence of a free press and the right
of public meeting, whenever a local Governor attempts to assert his
authority in an effective and deterrent manner, some individual with a
private grudge or an axe to grind, or one of the numerous Societies
which have sprung up forthwith, dispatches a telegram to the Parliament
or inspires a scurrilous article in the vernacular press, and a day or two
later the Governor receives a telegram from Tehran asking for informa
tion and report. Our present Persian Representative at Bushire, the
Derya Begi, who on the whole has proved the most effective and
conciliatory Governor we have had, has repeatedly of late expressed his
exasperation at the humiliating position to which he has been reduced,
and at the impossibility of exercising effective authority under existing
conditions.
The result is that the province of Fars and Persian Baluchistan (and
Kermanshah for that matter) are in a state of lawlessness and adminis
trative chaos which has not been equalled for generations, and under
present conditions it is difficult to conceive how things can be righted
or prevented from going from bad to worse except by foreign intervention
in some form. Our commercial interests are most immediately affected
in the matter of communications. Brigandage has been rife on the
chief trade routes, i.e., Bushire-Shiraz and Bunder Abbas-Kerman for
two years past. The forwarding of goods has been repeatedly stopped
altogether and trade with the interior brought to a standstill. Trade
has, in fact, been paralyzed, and cases of bankruptcy among the native
merchants in trading relations with British firms have been of almost
daily occurrence.
As regards the Shiraz route some little hope has, indeed, been
inspired by the appointment of the Zil-es-Suftan, but conditions on the
Iverman route are still as bad as they can be.