"بلاد فارس والشأن الفارسي من إعداد السيد المحترم جورج ناثانييل كورزون، عضو البرلمان." [‎٧‎٨] (٧١٤/١٠٩)

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78 PERSIA
corresponding period of 1889. Afghan merchants were further
declared, for the first time since the completion of the railway, to
have established direct relations with it by the despatch of several
hundred bales of cotton to Charjui. 1
The great mercantile use made of the railway, and the stream
of goods traffic pouring towards it from all points of the compass,.
have necessitated a thorough Custom-house organisation
tio^of Sa " in Transcaspia. This has been constituted on the basis,
Customs familiar in Russian practice, of exclusion, so far as
possible, of foreign competition, preferential treatment of subject
populations, and protection ot home products and manufactures.
The chief Custom-house is at LTzun Ada, but posts are also
established at Kizil Arvat, Ashkabad, Artik, ivaahka. Dushak,
Tejend, Sarakhs, Merv, Yuletan, and Takhta Bazaar. An ad valorem
duty of 2i per cent, is levied at Uzun Ada on all foreign goods
imported by sea. A similar duty, calculated at local market
prices, is also levied on all goods of European, Persian, or Indian
origin, brought by land into Transcaspia, whether for local con
sumption or in transit to Bokhara, Khiva, or Turkestan. All such
goods, if exported from Uzun Ada to European Russia or the
Caucasus, are further liable to an ad valorem duty of 5 per cent,
(the duty previously levied being returned). On the other hand,
goods from Bokhara, Khiva, and Turkojnania, for European Russia or
the Caucasus, are allowed to pass through Uzun Ada free of duty.
Similarly, all Persian goods in transit to Europe are passed duty
free if forwarded by Ashkabad or other stations of the Transcaspian
Railway.
These facts, as well as everything that I saw or heard on my
second visit, tend to bear out my previous conclusions as to the
immense commercial future that lies before the Trans-
Great com- • t > -i cn • 4-- • i • ?
mercial Caspian Railway. Skirting or traversing countries ot
future great though inadequately developed resources, com
manding the export and import traffic of Transcaspia, Khorasan,
Bokhara, North Afghanistan, and Russian Turkestan, conveying to
those countries the exclusive productions of Russia, and taking
away from them in return the cotton and silk and wool and tissues
1 In order still further to encourage and develop the growth of cotton by
Russian merchants in Central Asia, the Minister of Finance in 1890 ratified
a project for leasing 170,000 acres in Turkestan to the 'Central Asian
Commercial and Industrial Society,' the lease to run for ninety years, and no
rent to be paid for the first fifteen.
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