File 948/1909 'Persia: Situation in the South; Condition of the Roads. Attack on Mr Bill. Road Guard Scheme.' [‎362v] (729/744)

7. There is one other direction in which the changed conditions of
government in Tehran have affected our interests adversely, namely, in
their bearing upon the administration of the customs.
When the Tariff of 1903 and the Belgian Administration were first
inaugurated the Government of India will remember that for a long time
afterwards a good deal of difficulty was experienced by political officers
owing to the aggressive attitude of some of the inexperienced Belgians
with whom they had to deal. As time progressed, however, a working
modus vivendi was gradually arrived at, by concessions made on both
sides, and, within the sphere of my post at all events, relations with the
Belgian regime had much improved at the epoch at which the intro
duction of Parliamentary government took place. From the first,
however, the attitude of the popular party was most hostile to M. Naus
and his Belgian staff, and the position of the latter has since been a
difficult and precarious one in consequence.
On the one hand, while under M. Naus’ regime the local Directors
were allowed to engage Bagdadis, Chaldeans, and Armenians as clerks
or subordinates, and found that they were better served by these than
by Persians, they are now under orders to entertain Persians wherever
possible. Persians are being employed also in the higher grades, such
as the Directorship of Lingah. The type of Persian which the Depart
ment gets, especially those sent from the north, is of the partially or
somethnes highly educated newspaper-reading class, which has been
most influenced by the nationalist propaganda preached therein and
most intrinsically hostile to the presence of foreigners in any Department
of the Persian Government. These men naturally work against their
Belgian superiors, and the position of the latter has become so unpalatable
that resignations and departures on leave pending retirement have been
rife during the past year, and include the men who have been most
conciliatory in their relations with us. The truth is that under the old
regime if they wanted a reasonably quiet time they had to curry favour
with the Russians or ourselves ; now they have to conciliate the Medjliss
and vernacular papers, which lose no opportunity of making thino-s
uncomfortable for them. °
On the other hand, owing to the great financial straits to which the
Central Government is reduced, the Customs Directors are constantly
being pressed to submit more copious funds to the capital, and in order
to increase their receipts and meet such demands, they have had recourse
to the strict application of many items of the Reglement which they have
before allowed to become a dead letter or had interpreted liberally after
earning by experience that they were unsuited to the peculiar conditions
of commerce m the harbourless Gulf ports. We now seem to be
gradually drifting back to the unpleasant relations of three years ao- 0
and at present the British trader has not only to contend with every
conceivable difficulty and risk which the insecurity of the trade routes
and the uncontrolled licence of tufangchis can provide, but is being daily
harassed at the ports by some harsh decision or the new or revived
interpretation of some catchpenny clause in the Reglement.
8. Having in the foregoing paragraphs placed before Government in
. lg + l 1 t wlll fh it presents itself to me the general situation existing
within the sphere of my post, I now have the honour with much respect
to suggest means which, short of armed intervention for the protection
of our interests, seem likely in my judgment to strengthen our hands.
1 will record them m the same order as the subjects above indicated
with which they are connected.
9. The possible withdrawal of the Russian Consulate, Bunder Abbas.—
remember right His Majesty’s Legation, before the conclusion of the
Tpo 8 p7n 1 n US f a \r A ^ eemei i lt ’’ dl 5 1 draw tlie attention of the Russian
-Legaaon to M. Ovseenko s demeanour towards our Consulate and
mteiests, and Sir Cecil Spring-Rice expressed to me incidentally the