'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎615] (684/714)

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and the reversion of the entire establishment at the end of seventy
years. Baron de Renter at once commenced operations. The pre
liminary route from the Caspian was surveyed, engineers were sent
out and a few miles of earthwork were constructed in the neigh-
hood of Resht in order to escape forfeiture of the caution money,
gut the intense and angry hostility of Russia, the indifference of
England, steeped at that time in abysmal ignorance of all things
Persian, and the stubborn antagonism of the Persian reactionaries,
easily defeated a scheme whose colossal proportions rendered it
impossible from the start, and, on the Shah's return from his
European tour, a fictitious excuse was easily discovered and the
concession was revoked.
Less ambitious schemes for some time afterwards occupied the
field. In 1874 General or Baron von Falckenhagen, a retired
Faicken- Russian engineer officer, who had constructed several
hagcn lines in Georgia, came out to Teheran; and, ostensibly
is?" 0 " on his own account, but in reality strongly backed by
the Russian Government, pressed for a line from Julfa, on the
north-west Perso-Russian frontier, to Tabriz, in connection with
a Russian line from Tiflis to J ulfa. According to this scheme the
Persian Government was to guarantee six and a half per cent, for
forty-four years on the capital of the company to be raised, five
per cent, interest, and one and a half per cent, as a sinking fund;
no concession was to be granted to any other line within a radius
of 100 miles; and the company also proposed to arrogate to
itself the customs of Tabriz. This proposal was sufficiently
cool and barefaced to arouse the opposition of the Shah, in
spite of the imperious pressure exercised by the Russian
Minister. 1 A modified concession was subsequently in 1875 pro
posed by the Shah, in which the Persian Government guaranteed
three per cent, on the nominal capital ot the company, reserving
to itself the control of the expenditure of the line, and demand
ing forty per cent, of the revenue received after six per cent,
had been paid on the nominal capital. General Falckenhagen
could not procure the funds for working the concession thus framed,
and the project fell through. It is needless to say that it was
1 Sir H. Rawlinson said of the Falckenhagen Concession, which, however, he
did not name, ' There can be no question that the interference of the Russian
Government in this matter has far transcended the limits of advice or even so icit
ation tendered by a friendly power, and has given a rude shock to the fehah s
independent authority.'— England and Russia in the East, p. 340.