مجموعة ١١١/٢٨ "بلاد فارس. كرمانشاه - يوميّات سياسية." [و‎‎١‎٢] (٧٥١/٢٤)

3
before next April, as wintry conditions make operations extremely difficult and
these conditions would probably favour the defending forces, i.e., the Kurds.
III.— Persian Army and Gendarmerie.
9. General Shahbakhti received reinforcements during December from
Tehran and these have been sent to strengthen Persian garrisons in Kurdistan.
Morale of officers and men remains fairly low. Many cases have, however, been
reported of Persian officers and men having made anti-British utterances; these
boastings of “ what the Persian soldiers will do to our troops when they get a
chance ” have been by no means isolated cases. Anti-British feeling continues to
be strong among all ranks of the Persian army; there is, however, little likelihood
that the Persians would dare to provoke a fight with our troops, for whom they
have a wholesome respect. After the treaty with Persia confers upon the latter
the status of an ally, it will be interesting to see how Persian officers and men will
hide their feelings and to what extent social intercourse between British and
Persian officers will follow. General Shahbakhti appears, on the surface, to be
friendly, but. if these sentiments were sincere, it is certain that anti-British feeling
among his officers and men would be far less general, for he has enough authority
and prestige to influence the outlooks and opinions of all the troops under his
command. It is obvious that he has made no attempt to create a more friendly
feeling towards Britain, for, had he done so, the fact would soon be known.
10. The Gendarmerie is gradually gaining strength and many posts along
the main road (which were abandoned two or three months ago) are now manned
with large and comparatively keen bodies of Amniehs. It may be that, now
that the weather is unpropitious for the activities of brigands and that the
dangers of encounters with armed robbers are now more remote, service in the
Gendarmerie has again become popular.
IV .—Persian A dministration.
11. General Shahbakhti has continued to manage without a Civil or
Military Governor in Kermanshah for several weeks and has dealt with
administrative problems himself. It is now confirmed that the recently nominated
Military Governor, Brigadier (Sartip) Afkhami, will not take over this post.
Another candidata, i.e., Amir-i-Kull Zanganeh, a former governor and one of
Kermanshah’s members in the Majlis, has been proposed for the post. In the
absence of an Ustandar, Shahbakhti has been administering this province and,
so rumour states, amassing quite a fortune while doing so.
12. The Persian Government departments are ail hopelessly overstaffed and
all officials and employees in them are invariably underpaid. To wield an axe
and to remove unsuitable, unwanted employees is virtually impossible, it seems,
for the Director of Finance here (an apparently able and honest official) has tried
to do so and has bewailed the fact that, of the 800 men on his department’s salary
list, nearly half are utterly useless and ought to be pensioned off. He states that
he recently put forward to the Ministry of Finance an ingenious suggestion for
getting rid of the surplus staff, but that his proposals were rejected; as his ideas
were worthy of a better fate they are briefly described hereunder :—
He suggestad that each employee whose services were not required should
be offered a large plot of ground as compensation for having to leave
Government service; the ground should be provided from the thousands of
square miles of Crown lands which are lying idle and unexploited throughout
Persia. In this way all parties—the State, the Administration and the
community as a whole—would stand to gain.
V.— Economic Situation.
13. General Observations. —The upward trend of all prices has continued
during the past month and there are no signs here that the Persian Government
is making a serious attempt to arrest this movement. Stocks of imported
merchandise are rapidly dwindling here and in consequence prices are rising
sharply from day to day. To quote two examples: (a) A German-made
incandescent lamp, which could be bought here for 280 rials in July last, cost
[26-51] B 2 ’