Page 280 - PERSIAN 9 1931_1940

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Muhammad Mirza Arasted (formerly Amir Muhtasham) of Tabriz who
has held the post of Assistant Governor-General, Kerman since November 1933,
is a pleasant and obliging elderly man, and has always been helpful to this
Consulate.
Amir Khan Suhrabian (a Persian Armenian from Hamadan) remained in
Finance and Revenue. charge of the Revenue office, as Provin­
cial Director of Finance, throughout the
year.
The Excise branch of the Finance office having been made an independent
department, a new Excise Officer, accompanied by a number of excisemen from
Tehran and Isfahan, arrived in Kerman in the middle of May. Among other
things, this department had to deal with cases of smuggling goods into the
country vh Zahidnn or Bandar Abbas. Within a few weeks, houses of all
classes of the inhabitants had been searched and the least suspected articles
were confiscated and the owners prosecuted. The parties concerned, who
received the sympathy and support of the interested Finance officials as well as
of certain deputies in the Majliss, made representations to Tehran, protesting
against the high-handed and arbitrary activities of the new excise officials,
with the result that the Excise Officer received instructions from the Finance
Ministry, at the end of September, to hand over the charge of the Excise de­
partment to the chief of the local Monopoly office and proceed to the Capital.
Since then, as the result of fresh orders from Tehran, the Excise department
has again b on amalgamated with the Finance office.
According to instructions received from Tehran in the month of May, a
tax of Rials i-50 per bottle was levied on all the wine prepared in the town,
whether for sale or for private use, but wine made in the villages for private
and local consumption was to be exempted from taxation. Prompt, but, as it
eventually turned out, useless representations were made by members of the
Parsi community, drawing attention to the fact that wine was a national
beverage, so far as the Zoroastrians were concerned, and should remain free
from all taxation.
Instances of corruption in the Finance office, though rarely brought to
light, are still heard of from time to time, especially amongst the less important
officials of the department.
Opium.—The Opium harvest being exceptionally poor, the amount of
crude opium delivered at the Monopoly go-downs during the year was just over
1,500 Tabriz Mans (each Tabriz Man being equivalent to about 1G£ ounces),
as compared with 2,000 Mans in 1933.
As the drug loses about 25 per cent, of its weight in the process of prepara­
tion, and as the amount of prepared opium issued to the shop-keepers, etc., for
local consumption was approximately about 3,500 Mans, a deficit of 2,373 Mans
of prepared opium had to be made up by import from the other provinces.
This is besides the quantity used locally from the smuggled stocks, »>., what
was withheld by the land-owners as contraband and used or sold for local
consumption. It is difficult to arrive at a correct figure, in the absence of
statistics, but the amount of contraband opium may be estimated roughly at
very nearly 100 per cent, of what was actually handed over to the Monopoly
Department.
An extra tax of one Shahi per miskal (about Rials 0.30 per ox.) was intro­
duced in the beginning of July, bringing the total tax up to Rials 0.55 per
miskal (about Rials 3.30 per oz.).
The prices paid by the Monopoly Department for crude opium ranged
between Rials ISO and 200 per Tabriz Man.
There was no smuggling from the other provinces nor any exports during
the year.
The number of opium addicts is said to be on the whole increasing in the
province.
Mr. Joseph Bahoshi remained in charge of the Bank until the end of June;,
when he was relieved by Herr Albert
National bank of Persia.
Ilaeussler. The lutter, who had been
accountant of the Kerman Branch of the Bank for a few months in J93J, re­
mained in charge for the rest of the year.