'General information on Persia for any future edition, 1895' [‎28r] (53/211)

OUR TRADE WITH THE PERSIAN GULF The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. .
II
but nothing will be done till a road—a cart road and not a
11 mule track ”—is opened to Ispahan.
At Mohommerah the imports are nearly double the exports,
the entire trade of ,£200,000 being British and Indian, excepting
about .£15,000, about a twelfth. Among the ports on the
Persian (as distinguished from the Arab and Turkish) side of
the Gulf, there are one or two others, as Jaskh, and Fcio, of
which no returns are furnished, probably because there are no
“ consular agents ” at these places. The totals of the whole
import and export trade are, for Bushire ;£ 1,660,685 ; for
Linggah ;£i, 440,I95 ; for Bunder Abbas £498,546; for
Mohommerah £199,761 the grand total being £3,799,287.
If we add to these the omitted ports and a considerable
allowance for smuggling, we may reckon the total trade of
the Gulf on the Persian side at over four millions sterling. The
British portion of this trade, including that with India and the
Colonies, is almost exactly half, or about two millions sterling,
the other large sharers being China, the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. islands
and States lying near about, and Turkey with Egypt. The
greater part of the British trade consists of piece-goods ; and,
as before stated, there is a small trade in metals and hardware.
It is necessary to say something about communications before
we leave the Persian side. Without a stable government there
can be but little trade in the true sense of the word. So, too,
without roads and the means of communication and transporting
produce safely, cheaply, and rapidly. There are other elements,
as irrigation, which also, for many parts of Persia, may be
regarded as essential, but these may be disregarded for the
present. The Shah may consider his government stable,
and it may be so in one sense. Authority is centralised, and
his word is regarded as law. But it depends only on himself
and on his tenure of life. His son, the Prince Imperial, may
succeed him when that tenure ends ; but there is no guarantee
that there will be no troubles, or that this successor, who has
been left entirely without training in the art of government, will
not develop qualities the reverse of those which have marked
Nasr-ed-deen. The hands of the clock of progress may be put
back ; authority may again be decentralised ; governors may be
come all powerful and independent of the central authority ;
and the ecclesiastical despotism, which even now is barely con
cealed, and which occasionally dares to try conclusions with
him, may again become rampant. When a Government
depends for its continuance upon the tenure of life of an
individual, there can be no true stability predicated of it.
Even now under the rule ot Nasr-ed-deen, though in advance of
his predecessors, the strong and rich prey on the weak and
helpless, while those l< take who have the power no man can