'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎441] (500/714)

THE GOV ERNMENT
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according to the immediate context in wliich it is employed.
Kouglily speaking, it signifies that balance of personal advantage,
usually expressed in money form, which can be squeezed out of
any and every transaction. A negotiation, in which two parties are
involved as donor and recipient, as superior and subordinate, or
even as equal contracting agents, cannot take place in Persia with
out the party who can be represented as the author of the favour
or service claiming and receiving a definite cash return for what
he has done or given. It may of course be said that human
nature is much the same all the world over; that a similar system
exists under a different name, in our own or other countries, and
that the philosophic critic will welcome in the Persian a man
and a brother. To some extent this is true. But in no country
that I have ever seen or heard of in the world, is the system so
open, so shameless, or so universal as in Persia. So far from
being limited to the sphere of domestic economy or to commercial
transactions, it permeates every walk and inspires most of the
actions of life. By its operation, generosity or gratuitous service
may be said to have been erased in Persia from the category of
social virtues, and cupidity has been elevated into the guiding
principle of human conduct. Examples, however, explain more
clearly than can any verbal generalisation; and I will, therefore,
proceed to show how the institution of mudakhil works in every
chaunel and department of Persian life.
I have already shown that no office of distinction is conferred
by the Crown except for a pecuniary consideration or price, which.
Practical ^ ie case of a P os t bestowed by the Shah, goes into
iiiustra- his private exchequer. This is the mudiikhil of the
tions 1 ^
sovereign. Some of the processes adopted for raising
this branch of the revenue will hereafter come under discussion.
Here I propose to follow the further ramifications of the system,
as it spreads through the entire official hierarchy of which the
Shah is the head and exemplar. In the next descending grade
the governor who has paid a smart price for his appointment is not
one whit behindhand either in the desire or in the capacity to
indemnify himself. He farms out the taxes or customs to a third
individual for a sum, perhaps, half as much again as that which lie
himself has given. The balance is his mndakhil. So too the
kalantar or kedhhoda in his turn insists upon his squeeze ; the ' farm
ing process, which is universal in Persia, affording an easy basis for