خارجي ٤١/٥٠٠١ "بلاد فارس - الشؤون الداخلية (إرساليات متنوعة)". [و‎‎٥‎١] (٢٤٨/١٠١)

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it is impossible in this intriguing country to appoint young Ministers because
such appointments raise storms of jealousy and hostility from all the disappointed
young men. The Cabinet was not greeted with any enthusiasm either in the
Majlis or in the country, and since its inception everyone, even its members,
seem to agree that the Government has no authority or force. Before the end
of April Dr. Ghani had resigned, and his place was not filled by the end of June,
r Tahid, the Under-Secretary, acting for him. Nevertheless the Majlis gave the
new Cabinet a vote of confidence on the 16th April. Saed has let it be known
that if his Cabinet was rejected this time he would resign; but perhaps the
Majlis vote was due not so much to that fact as to the absence of any obvious
alternative to Saed.
36. During the following three months the vigorous personality of Seyyid
Zia has caused some stir. He has kept aloof from the Shah and is evidently on
the worst possible terms with His Majesty, whom he accuses of aiding his
principal critics, the Tudeh party. His newspapers, the chief of which is Fa'd i
Imruz, edited by the unstable firebrand, Mazaffar Firouz, have carried on a
ceaseless polemic against the Tudeh party, who have replied in the same vein.
Supported by wealthy friends, Seyyid Zia has obtained large premises in Tehran
for his party, which is as yet nameless and, indeed, programmeless. He has also
been angling for support from the tribes, on the grounds that they are a virile
element who must be conciliated and brought into willing submission to the
Persian Government after the settlement of their just grievances. He has also
gained the support of some officers in the army, including Razmara, the Chief of
the Staff. He is in favour of a limitation of the Shah’s powers and a revision of
the Constitution on that point, with a view to a more strict assertion of the limits
of the powers of the Monarch. Seyyid Zia’s greatest difficulty lies in the
determined hostility of the Russians, who cannot get out of their heads the theory
that Seyyid Zia is a creature of the British. Seyyid Zia seems obstinate, and to
judge from some of his supporters is a poor judge of men; but he is a power to
be reckoned with and it is unfortunate that the opposition of the Shah and the
Russians has caused the Shah to take in this matter the same side as the Russians,
a course which is bad for the Shah and might be dangerous for the stability of
the country.
37. One of the features of the political life of Persia during the last three
months has been the rise of several labour unions throughout the country. Such
unions have existed for some time in the Russian-occupied zone, where they are
affiliated with the Tudeh party; and similar unions exist in Isfahan, in Tehran,
amongst railway workers, and in Khuzistan. In Isfahan the power of the Tudeh
and the Workers Union combined caused alarm to the Government, who sent
down a new Governor-General, Reza Afshar, to deal with the situation. The
Tudeh party, backed in many ways by the Russians, has remained the one strong
paity m the country. Other parties exist, but hardly more than in name - the
much advertised “ Hamrahan,” the creation of Mustafa Fateh, has already
disintegrated. The various “fractions” in the Majlis continued to exist and
to function, but they were more like associations of friends.than political parties.
S £ ^ e . fraction is composed of eleven members, all from Khorassan.
The “Mihan " fraction consists of the friends of Dr. Taheri of Yezd. to the
number of nineteen; the Democrats were started by the egregious Farrukh and
comprised nineteen members till they absorbed the Azerbaijan non-Tudeh
Deputies when these v ere elected at the end of May and changed their name to
• ^ . Liberty, thus reaching a membership of thirty. The other fraction
is the Ittihad i Milli, with thirteen members. A few Deputies remain
unattached, and the President of the Majlis, Seyyid Muhammad Sadegh
labatabai has been endeavouring, hitherto without much success, to combine
them and found by their support a central party of Liberal views.
38. Early in May the Prime Minister asserted himself sufficiently to deliver
a^ sensible and salutary lecture to journalists concerning their duties towards
the public, it appeared that his admonitions had some slight effect, for a short
time, on their irresponsible virulence and shameless blackmail. Nevertheless the
newspaper Demavand published a personal attack on a member of the Embassy
but was not suspended as a result.
• -iv/r^ also dropped a bomb-shell into the Majlis by introducing early
m May, a Bill proposing that the officials of all Ministries should, for the period
or the war, be considered to have the same liabilities as officers and soldiers called
to the colours; that factories, whether Government-owned or private and their
workmen should similarly be considered to have been mobilised for national
service, and that restrictions should be imposed on the place of residence of