خارجي ٤١/٥٠٠١ "بلاد فارس - الشؤون الداخلية (إرساليات متنوعة)". [و‎‎١‎٠‎٤] (٢٤٨/٢٠٧)

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^ THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY’S GOVERNMENT
PERSIA.
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January 12, 1943.
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7
No.
/^. Bullard to Mr.
Rdeir
{Received January 12, 1943.)^-^.
1943 y Tr’My
(No. 434 .) [y
Sir, Tehran, December 21, 1942.
v *\s'>Js' w IN paragraph 27 of my despatch No. 314 of the 22nd September I ventured,
when reviewing the events of the preceding weeks, to express a cautious
optimism as to the outlook of the Allies in Persia. This forecast has been falsified
by subequent events : these have included a financial crisis, a food crisis and a
political and constitutional crisis—all of which have been fraught with difficulties
for the Allies and particularly for His Majesty’s Government.
The Financial Crisis.
2. The Anglo-Persian Financial Agreement of the 26th May, 1942, purports
to ensure the automatic provision of rials for the needs of the British military
authorities. Unfortunately, these needs could not be met without a considerable
expansion of the note issue, and the power to control the note issue rested with
the Majlis—a collection of persons entirely unfitted by character and training
for so delicate a task. The dissolution of the Majlis, which was at first contem
plated by the Qawam, would have solved this difficulty, but the Prime Minister
was driven back in a course less satisfactory both to him and to the Allies, viz.,
to attempt to secure legal authority for an increase in the note issue large enough
to cover for many months to come both the needs of the Allies and the
requirements of the Persian Government. The introduction of a Bill providing
for an increase of 2,000 million rials led, however, to such an outcry in the press
and the Majlis about the inevitable rise in prices which must result (obliging
merchants and retailers raised the prices at once to illustrate the economic law
invoked) that the Government decided not to proceed with the Bill: all they
could do was to push through a Bill for 500 million rials without mention of the
needs of the Allies. At this moment British needs were at least as great as they
had ever been; American requirements in rials were increasing rapidly and the
Russians also were making demands.
3. The Prime Minister having failed in an attempt to secure from the
Majlis special powers which would have enabled him to issue currency notes as
required, it was evident that a major effort would have to be made to settle this
question once for all. Hitherto His Majesty’s Government had had to
struggle with the issue unaided : the Russians had secured their rials by various
doubtful devices, which had hitherto sufficed for their small needs; the Americans
had been able to exchange dollars so long as there were rials, obtained by British
efforts, to be bought. Had the United States and Soviet Governments had financial
agreements similar to ours, there would have been no trouble : faced by a united
demand for rials from all three of the Allies, the Majlis would have given in.
The Prime Minister pointed this out to the American Minister on the only
occasion when the latter gave serious help to His Majesty’s Minister. His
Majesty’s Minister warned the Soviet Ambassador frequently about the risk to
which aid to Russia was exposed by the attitude of the Majlis on the currency
question and by the obvious lack of a united Allied front, and Mr. Eden made
very strong representations to M. Maisky as to the need for Soviet co-operation
with His Majesty’s Legation in Tehran. At the last moment, when the military
till was empty and arrangements had been made that in the last resort the
Banque Mellie should be occupied by British troops and new note forms in stock
seized, the Soviet Ambassador decided to help. At his suggestion he and His
Majesty’s Minister visited the President of the Majlis and recited a long
catalogue of the occasions on which the Majlis had blocked or delayed measures
essential to the Allied war effort and asked him to let the Deputies know that the
Allies had drawn their own conclusions from these acts. Hearing of this message,
knowing perhaps that some military preparations were afoot, and realising from
the Allied victories on all fronts that the hope, or the fear, that the Germans
would come to Persia was baseless, the Deputies rushed to declare their affection
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