Coll 28/111 ‘Persia. Kermanshah – Political diaries.’ [‎107r] (214/751)

doirit, nothing hatever except ta>ve bribes aks upset supply
arrangements as much as possible* Oiie senior official was
found to have over 600 sugar coupons in his house; he was
suspended from duty, but could not be dismissed without in
structions from Tehran, which ox course will not arrive for
many months, if ever. JJhile a bumper harvest is being cut
and winnowed in this area, the supply ox government bread in
the town gets worse and worse, and daily stocxs in the Supply
departments stores smaller* and analler. There are 130 officiaii
but the senior ones admit that Eh. a half ol them do no work at
all, and nobody (exjept their relations) knowe why they were
appointed at all. The answer to the recent half-hearted
questions in the Majlis as to what has been done with the
enormous sums voted to the Ministry of Supply is obvious to
allin the provinces at any rate.
FOOD SUPPLY.
8. From the above paragraph it will be judged that the
pros.acts of collecting enough wheat to feed the towns during
the coming winter and spring are again doubtful. The land
lords are determined not to let the Government have its official
quota ol wheat, whatever new regulations may be devised or
published. They have decided on certain small amounts to be
surrendered by them, but only after they have iinished selling xfe
what they can on the black mar et, and hiding away what they
think advisable for future use. The seecxal assessors and
"experts” have finished their task of ”estimating" the crops,
but in exactly the manner foreseen. The C.L.O. attached to
this Consulate found that in general about one-quarter of the
proper yield had been written down, and in the villages of
powerful and dangerous landlords li.e the Amir-i-Kull the
investigators had deemed it better not to go at all. Such
landlords have been heard to say that while the talk of income-
tax is allowed to ^o on in Tehran, they cannot be expected to
help the Government over wheat, but that if the hateful subject
is dropped, they will see what they feel li^e aoing about their
grain. bast (Per.) A Persian custom allowing an individual to seek asylum at a designated location. season in the Supply centres the entries regarding
deliveries ox peasants 1 wheat were fraudulently altered to
show the grain as having come from important landlords as part
of their undertakings; this year the reverse is li ely to
happen, and landlords* wheat sold to Government fraudulently
entered under small cultivators* names, so that details
compromising to income-tax appraisals may be covered up as far
os possible.
9. Although estimates of a kind have been made as above,
iew or no landlords* signed undertakings have been obtained yet,
and it is fairly certain that last year*s obstructionism and
delay will be repeated, while the fe rain goes underground.
There are stories current in the town th t Dr. Millspaugh is
-8suing more drastic proposals whereby all wheat is Government
property, cannot be m.;ved without a permit and can be seized
wherever found after a certain date. The result of this has
been a further fillip to the black max* et locally and an in
centive to the growers to hold up and hiae ^rain, temporarily
or permanently. All the townspeople with any money at all
are falling over themselves to lay in what private stocics they
can afford, while ^.rowers become more determined to hid© grain
quickly as it is ^threshed and collected, in order to avoid
any danger of seizure. The priof ox ail this is that black-
raar/vet prices have risen in July from 4500 rials per ton to
7000 rials per ton (the official buying price being 3500 rials).
While Government bread gets scarcer and worse in quality,
uncontrolled bread which is extremely plentiful in the town has
risen during