مجموعة ٢٨ /٦٧ "بلاد فارس: تقارير سنوية، ١٩٣٢-" [ظ‎‎٣‎١] (٦٤٤/٦٢)

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338. It will be seen from the foregoing list, which only contains the
principal measures, that the Majlis has been exceedingly busy during the year,
fortunately, an official Majlis Review is now published in Persian giving the
texts of all enactments. Wide powers are also given to the Minister of Justice
to promulgate regulations approved by the judicial commission of the Majlis.
It is becoming increasingly difficult for Persian lawyers to keep pace with this
constantly changing stream of legislation. ^
The Taraqqi Party.
339. \\ ith the temporary eclipse of its founder Teymourtache in August,
followed by his fall on the 22nd December, the Taraqqi party has to all intents
and purposes disappeared. His Majesty, in a speech to certain Deputies, who
had come to one of his receptions on the 17th October, alluded to the desirability
of forming a national party for the furtherance of national aims in Persia,
somewhat on the lines of the Fascist party. The idea may be to replace the defunct
laraqqi party by something more universal; or it may foreshadow a genuine
attempt to instil into the population at large some of the ideas of duty and
responsibility which are being painfully instilled into the official and military
classes. Nothing more was heard of the new party by the end of the year. In a
Majlis the members of which are all chosen beforehand by the Government it
does not appear likely that any party will arise in opposition to the Shah’s
expressed desires.
Public Feeling.
340. There can be no doubt that during the year dissatisfaction with the
present regime, if it did not actually become more intense, became much more
apparent, and that a general feeling of malaise persisted throughout. Amonc 1,
the people at large this was mainly caused by economic conditions, reflected in the
increasingly high cost of living; among the merchants by the senseless restric
tions on trade; among the landowning class (and a few peasants too) by the Shah’s
increasing land-hunger, manifested in the main bv the expropriation of estates
with scarcely a pretext of legality; and among the officers of the army by the
suspicion which drove the Shah to supersede any man of ability by inexperienced
nonentities. r
o41 Reports of plots first became current at the time of the arrest of
various Government employees in March. Though the “convictions” which
tollowed were for aiding a foreign Power, rather than promoting internal
disturbances, further arrests gave rise to further rumours. Among others some
leading mullahs were exiled from Tehran for having preached against the
marriage laws and other modernising tendencies in the Administration, while
retainers of both the Qawam-ul-Mulk and Soulet-ed-Dowleh were imprisoned.
Later in the summer Soulet-ed-Dowleh and his son were imprisoned on charges
of having incited their Qashgai follows to revolt. Shaukat-ul-Mulk was brought
to Tehran during the summer as a guest of the Shah, but was allowed to return
to Eirjand later.
342. There were also signs, slight it is true, of an increasing mistrust of
minorities to whom the Pahlavi regime has hitherto shown itself well disposed
An order forbidding Bahai meetings was issued in June, though it does not
seem to have been enforced, while suspicion of the Assyrians was exemplified by
the arrest of several of their number who had conversed with a British officer
or the Iraq Levies who had visited the Rezaiyeh district.
343. Other signs of the Shah’s uneasiness were the tightening up of the
control of persons moving about the country. These were designed principally
against Soviet agents (see paragraph 22), but they incidentally caused great
inconvenience on occasion to members of the Diplomatic Corps.
344. More than one leading Persian outside the Government expressed the
t0 HlS M , ajest ^ s Minister that conditions were such that, though nothin^
might happen so long as the Shah kept his nerve, any noticeable set-back in foreign
or domestic policy might cause the downfall of a regime which everyone had
come to hate.