خارجي ٤١/٥٠٠١ "بلاد فارس - الشؤون الداخلية (إرساليات متنوعة)". [ظ‎‎٧‎٣] (٢٤٨/١٤٦)

been announced, and it has frequently happened that the views of the Govern
ment about the suitability of a candidate have not been effective in securing on
preventing his election; in fact, provincial Governors have usually shown
themselves unable, or unwilling, to secure the election of the Deputies recom
mended by the Prime Minister and the Minister of the Interior.
5. The Majlis showed its usual lethargy and obstructiveness, except when
presented with an ultimatum to resign from Dr. Millspaugh in connexion with
the Income Tax Bill. (For details of incident see paragraph 23.) They, however,
passed Bills authorising the selection of 60 American advisers, the engagement
of two Americans for service as director-general in the Ministry of Health and
managing director of the Pharmaceutical Institute, and the minting of coins of
silver alloy.
. Tribal Situation.
Ga) South Persia.
6 . In Pars the Persian Government have drifted into a policy of appease
ment of the Qashgai tribes. It will be remembered that in their panic after the
disaster to the Persian troops at Semirum in July they appointed Qavam ul Mulk
to be Governor-General of Pars, with the intention that he should rally to the side
of the Government certain tribes over whom he had influence with a view to
reducing the power of Nasir Qashgai to an extent which would justify his being
attacked by these tribes with the doubtful support of the Persian forces. How
ever,’ as reported in my despatch under reference, the policy of appeasement had
been begun by the military commander in Pars before Qavam ul Mulk reached
Shiraz. Nasir’s brother, Khosrow, came to Tehran, made promises of good
behaviour, and undertook to return the arms of the Persian troops taken by the
Qashgai and to arrest and surrender any Germans in Qashgai territory. In
return the Government agreed to appoint him to be Governor of Firuzabad, to
deal with the Qashgai tribes through him and not to oppose the election of Nasir
Qashgai as a Deputy for Firuzabad. It must be said that there was an imme
diate improvement in the behaviour of the Qashgai tribes, which has been
maintained to the present date. Beyond some looting of the villages of neutrals
and their enemies there has been little lawlessness that can be definitely attributed
to the Qashgai. But only a few arms, and those such as were of little use to the
tribes, have been returned, nor have any Germans been arrested, although three or
four are known to have been at times in Qashgai territory.
7. The Qavam ul Mulk reached Shiraz to find the military commander
already in friendly relations with Nasir and Khosrow, and increasingly reluctant
to support the Qavam’s policy of arming and encouraging certain tribes to
stand out against the Qashgai. Divergence of views soon led to strained
relations. The Minister for War visited Shiraz with the intention of con
tinuing the energetic support which he had consistently given to ■Qavam ul
Mulk, but, influenced by certain defects of character which Qavam undoubtedly
showed in the face of difficulties, and perhaps by other considerations, he came
to the conclusion that Qavam could not be relied upon to carry through the policy
which had been originally advocated by the Minister himself. Qavam returned to
Tehran to seek a decision whether his policy or the military commander’s, which
was one of ill-disguised appeasement, should prevail.
8 . The onus of making a decision did in fact devolve upon His Majesty’s
Minister. The Minister for War assured me that he was ready to give the
Qavam full support if I had sufficient faith in him to insist that he should be
allowed to attempt to carry out his policy, but as he made no secret of his own
conviction that the Qavam had not the qualities necessary for success, I could not
feel confident that this support would be really whole-hearted. His Majesty’s
Consul at Shiraz had also expressed grave doubts regarding the Qavam’s
ability to deal with the many real difficulties facing him. It was generally
expected that if he were to begin to put into effect the measures required to build
up a combination of tribes hostile to Nasir, the latter would immediately provoke
disorder which the Qavam would be unable to control in view of the unreliability
of the Persian forces. Inthecircumstanceslcametotheconclusion that the attitude
for me to adopt was that it was for the Persian Government to decide what mea
sures should be taken to establish their authority in Pars and that I was concerned
mainly with the elimination of German and other hostile influences that might be
directed towards damaging British interests. I made it plain that I expected the
Persian Government to protect Qavam’s prestige and that I would not be satis
fied as long as Germans and the Deputy Nowbakht were being given asylum
by the tribes of Pars. The plain truth, however, is that, the Qavam having