نسخة مذيلة من "بلاد فارس والشأن الفارسي" بقلم جورج كرزون، مع أوراق مدرجة [ظ‎‎٨‎٦‎٠] (١٨١٤/١٧٣٧)

582 PERSIA
venience. A further difficulty is that of remittances, arising 1 , in the
main, from the constantly fluctuating rate of exchange a point in
which the institution of banks in Persia may be expected to
afford some relief. Another is the utter contempt for the most
elementary principles of contract that is freely displayed by the
Persian merchant. The Persian’s conception of a contract is an
agreement which is only to be adhered to if attended with ceitain
profit to himself, but which may be hilariously repudiated if a fall
in prices or some other oscillation in the market renders his own
share in the bargain one of dubious issue. He will call upon the
other party to the contract, and coolly inform him over several cups
of coffee and amid repeated kalians, that he declines to take the
articles agreed upon, which have very likely been ordered all the way
from. England, and are perhaps on the verge of arriving at their
destination. 1 No scruples of morality, no stings of remorse, not
even any fear of the consequences, affect the complacent egoism of the
Persian trader; and in the absence either of any code of commercial
honour or of any tribunals for enforcing legal obligations, the
deluded merchant must grin and bear it. Sometimes no excuse
whatever is forthcoming. I bought some articles myself of a dealer
for the sum of 200 krans. Upon my sending the next day to
inquire why they had not been delivered, the reply was returned
that the owner had repented of the bargain and refused to part
with them for less than 400 hrans. Fraudulent bankruptcies,
effected under the sanction of a mujtailed who has been bribed, are
another favourite device of the Persian who is reluctant to pay.
In fact, a commercial law, however rudimentary, is greatly needed
to protect foreigners in their dealings with this amiable but hyper-
ingenious people.
Such, so far as I have been able to appraise them, are the
present aspect and partition of Persian commerce. If we turn to
The future ^ ie ^ ure > ^ ie ol Alook, from an English point of view r
may be regarded as eminently encouraging. The im
provement of ports, if ever undertaken, the construction of roads
That the Persians change not in this respect may be illustrated by a passage
from the letter of Lawrence Chapman, one of the factors of the Russia Company
in their fourth venture upon the revived British Caspian trade in 1568. He wrote :
‘ Such is the constancie of all men in this countrey, with whomsoever you shall
bargen. If. the ware be bought, and they doe mislike it afterwardes, they will
bring it againe, and compell you to deliver the money for it againe, regarding the
Shawgh’s (Shah’s) letter, which manifesteth the contrary, as a straw in the winde/