'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎485] (544/714)

INSTITUTIONS AND REFORMS
485
features of probable advantage, did not at once secure the anti
cipated support. 1 I am myself aware of many other inchoate or
abortive schemes for the exploitation of various of the natural
resources of Persia, in each of which cases the concession has beeu
granted and paid for, but the further progress of which has beer
arrested by the sense of insecurity developed by past proceedings,
I cannot, as a friend of Persia, too strongly reiterate my conviction
that this headlong signing away of the country's assets, in return
for a cash payment, to all the knights-errant of speculation whose
quest may lead them to Teheran, is a policy fraught neither with
principle, patriotism, nor ulterior profit.
Among the evidences of civilisation that have been, or are
capable of being, introduced into Persia, a prominent place must
Roads in
be assigned to roads. Truth, unfortunately, compels the
the East discussion of this question to be couched as yet in the
future and potential, rather than in the past or present tenses ;
but this phenomenon holds good of so many Persian institutions,
as to require neither explanation nor apology. I have more than
once pointed, as one of the most conspicuous characteristics of the
East, to the total absence of anything corresponding to what we
call roads; and yet, such is either the poverty or the tyranny of
the English vocabulary, I find myself frequently using, and I
observe that others frequently use, that term to describe what is
no more than a foot-track beaten by the hoofs of horses, donkeys,
and mules. Occasionally a great Eastern sovereign of the past has
immortalised his name by constructing a paved causeway between
important cities of his dominions (such was Shah Abbas' Causeway
through Gilan and Mazanderan, and the Atabegs' road, probably
the survival of an earlier Sassanian construction, from Arabistan
to Pars) ; but, as a rule, roads may be classified as an institution
unknown from early times to the East, until introduced by a
European conqueror. The Romans were the road-makers of the
ancient world. The British are their heirs in the modern. The
French have constructed some admirable roads in their foreign and
colonial possessions. The Russians, though painfully in arrears,
are slowly, and at an immense distance, following suit. But in no
1 Later on, the capital having been raised, business commenced, but was
greatly impeded by native hostility, directed and aggravated by the mullahs, who
even placed an interdict on the use of the pipe. The agitation at length became
so serious that the Shah was forced to give way, and in January 1892, cancelled the
entire concession, promising pecuniary compensation for the rupture of contract.