Page 510 - PERSIAN 5 1905_1911

36 administration report of the tersian gulf
the Darya Bcgi and give them friendly warning on his behalf that experience
of the past showed that the presence of large numbers of tribesmen on the
island, of various denominations, invariably led to lawlessness, and eventual
danger to Europeans, and that on the first symptoms of this, troops would bo
landed as in 1909. Roth parties replied with friendly assurances that they
would take all possible steps to keep the tribesmen in hand and to give no cause
for apprehension.
National A clivities.—No very great display of nationalist activities took
place during the year.
At the instance of Mullas and others of Tehran and Resht, and as a pro­
test against the presence of Russian troops on Persian soil, no festivities took
place on the Naoroz and this in spite of the fact that it fell, for the first time
in many years, after the end of the mourning months of Moharrum and Safar.
A telegram was received from Tehran during the first week of April to
the effect that the negotiations in connection with the Anglo-Russian loan had
fallen through, owing to the imposition of conditions impossible of acceptance,
and that an international loan was contemplated. A meeting of some of the
principal merchants was thereupon held, and some 60,000 tomans promised
towards a national fund. Beyond, however, telegraphing news of their pro­
mised donations for information to Tabriz, no action appears to have been
taken.
Spasmodic efforts seem to have been made about this period by the Central
Government to discover new sources of revenue, a Government monopoly in
the sale of salt and intestines being apparently at one time contemplated.
The monopoly for the latter, it may be mentioned, had hitherto been held by a
Russian subject.
News of the British note to Persia, of October 14th, was received with al­
most complete indifference in Bushire, the only form of protest evoked being
the despatch of a telegram, prepared by the disreputable Mirza Ali Kazeruni,
already referred to above, and signed by certain of the Ulema, merchants aDd
others, to Shiraz, asking their compatriots to request the Sowlet-ud-Dowleh
not to give any cause for Foreign interference in Persia and to preserve the
peace.
The close of the year was marked by the committal of a series of lawless
acts against various members of the Residency Staff. Thus, a robbery took
place at the house of Dr. Turner, Assistant Surgeon, on the night of Novem­
ber 9th. The private premises of Mr. Gandhy, Superintendent of the Resi­
dency Office, were entered, on 25th November, by two armed men, one of whom,
on being challenged by Mr. Gandby, fired a shot- through his bed-room door
and decamped. Next a robbery was committed on the 19th December in the
house of one of the Residency Clerks, and another on the 27th in that of the
Residency Surgeon, property to the value of £75 being carried off in the
latter case. It was difficult to know how to deal with these cases.
It was noticeable that ail the victims of these acts of lawlessness were
members of the British Residency. No one else was complaining, and there
were strong grounds for believing that they were engineered by enemies of the
Darya Begi with the express object of discrediting his government and bring­
ing about his removal.
Similar inconvenient use of the Residency has frequently Been made in
the past and, to have made much of the incidents in Tehran, would have been
to play into the hands of the instigators of them. It was considered best
therefore to disappoint the intriguers concerned, and, if the Darya Begi ren­
dered it possible, to settle matters locally with him. His Excellency took
stops to have guards placed, or the vicinity of the dwellings of members of the
Residency patrolled at night for a time, aDd gradually paid up the compensa­
tion demanded. A subsequent attack on him by the “ Habl-el-Matin ” for
servilely paying this compensation lends additional colour to the theory that
the incidents, which now ceased altogether, had been “ put up."