"تقارير إدارية ١٩٠٥-١٩١٠" [ظ‎‎٢‎١‎٣] (٦١٦/٤٣١)

10
ADMINISTRATION REPORT OF THE PERSIAN GULP
Consulate-General, Major Trevor taking over charge from Monsieur Chaloin
on his departure. A successor had not been appointed when the year closed.
Monsieur Chaloin had so far been a satisfactory colleague in that he took no
interest or part in Bushire or Gulf politics; depended mainly on the friendly
offices of the Residency for his information, and his co-operation could be
relied upon when needed. He did not, however, give satisfaction to his own
Government.
The honorary duties of this Consulate remained in the hands of the
Messrs. Wonckhaus's Agent throughout the year. The grounds for the Nor
wegian Consulate at Bushire are not apparent, and the post is a complete
sinecure.
Turkish interests at Bushire have, for many years, been in the hands of
a local Persian gentleman by name Mulla Husein. Towards the end of the
year, however, the Porte decided to send a Consul de carriere to Bushire in
the person of Nebil Zia Bey, who is apparently expected to remain some time,
and has brought his family from Turkey. He has not been in the East
before and seems discontented with his lot.
Doctor Abel Combier arrived at the beginning of 1909 to replace Dr.
Bussiere. He is an officer in the Military Colonial Medical Service, and has
maintained cordial relations with the Residency since his arrival.
The year 1909 will be long remembered for the Nationalist upheaval
which supervened throughout Persia,
Local Politics. an( j finally terminated in the deposition
or abdication of His Majesty Muhammad AIL Shah, ^ in July 1909, and the
re-inception of an administration on Constitutional lines, with a boy of ten
summers as a figure-head Shah, under the guidance of a Regent chosen by the
representatives of the people.
Before narrating the part played by Pars and Bushire in these events,
it is necessary to explain briefly the general situation which prevailed in
Persia at the beginning of the year.
The conflict between the forces of liberalism and re-action had been
seething for months in Northern Persia; the Nationalists had now got the
upper hand in Tabriz, there had been an abortive rising at Meshed; and
Muhammad Ali Shah must surely have come to realise that all serious hope of
being able to stem the tide of popular feeling, and to effect reversion to despo
tic government was past. He still, however, maintained an attitude of
dogged obstinacy, and, apparently hoping that the position might ultimately
be saved by Russian intervention, contiinued to burk, by every sort of subter
fuge, the promised electoral order necessary for the formation of a new
Medjliss. Yet, except at Tabriz, the exasperation of the people had not been
expressed by any overt act of revolutionary hostility. Early dn January,
however, disturbances broke out in Ispahan; Yezd and Resht followed suit
early in Pebruary, and then Pars and the Gulf ports took up the cue.
The peasant population of Pars, as a whole, is essentially bucolic and
uncivilized. There is no "nationalist spirit" properly so-caJlled, abroad
among the peasantry at large, but the Nationalist propaganda, preached as
it was with a strong admixture of religious exhortation, naturally appeals to
the more truculent element of the country-side, so long at any rate, as tne
main feature of the creed continues to be the non-payment of the taxes and
the chance of enrichment by brigandage in some form or spoliation of govern
ment Customs. So it was in this case.
The movement in the south was started by a fanatical Mulla of Lar,
named Seyyid Abdul Husein. In 1907, when affairs in Shiraz were giving
trouble to the Government, this firebrand proceeded to the head-quarters
the province and endeavoured to upset authority there. On the arnva
the Zil-es-Sultan however he made himself scarce but continued to roa
about the Darab and Pasa districts with a force of tufangchis, preying up *
the properties of his enemies in Shiraz, such as the sons of the Kawam,
keeping the country in a general state of unrest and lawlessness.