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16
POE THE YEAB 1017.

CHAPTER IV.
administration report for the KERMAN CONSULATE FOR
THE YEAR 1917.
Major D. L R. Lorimer, C.I.E, held charge of the Consulate until 24th
November. From 3 6th October, wheu
HU Coniralato. Major Lorimer left Kerman, till the end of
vear Mr. C. P. Shrine, I C.S, acted as Consul. The post of His Majesty's
Vice-Consul was held by Mr. C. P. Skrine throughout the year. *
"With effect from 7th August, Khan Sahib Abdul Alim, Head Clerk, was
gazetted to the newly-created temporary post of Extra Assistant to the Political
Resident in the Persian Gulf. As this post took the place of that of the Head
Clerk, no substitute was appointed in his place.
Toliticnl History.—During the first three months of the year Kerman
politics continued in the state of unstable
Local Government.
equilibrium in which they had been since
the return of the British. Responsibility for good government in the province
was divided between the Governor General, Prince Nusrat-us-Sultaneh, and the
Deputy Governor and Chief Local Magnate, Sardar Nusrat. The Prince, a
pleasant but vain and obstinate youth, without experience of affairs and com­
pletely under the influence of his machiavellian Secretary, lhtisham-ud-Dowleh,
was jealous of the Sardar’s local influence and of his power to hinder in his own
interests the Governor General’s peculations and general spoliation of the
Province. The Sardar’s own chief methods of self-enrichment have always
been the avoidance of payment of revenue on his lands, and tho taking of a
liberal share of the Government money entrusted to him iu virtue of the offices,
such as headship of the “ Army,” he usually holds. His policy is not so much
to make money by taking bribes and blackmail from the people, as to staud
between iuem and oppression from other quarters, thereby increasing his own
local influence and authority and strengthening his position against hostile
Governors and Financial Agents. His point of view', therefore, was fundamen­
tally opposed to that of a Tehrani Governor General, especially one who was a
Royal Prince and regarded the Saidar as rightfully his servant. As time
went on, it became increasingly clear that no real reconciliation was possible
between them.
A rapprochement, which resulted io a precarious peace between the Prince
and Sardar Nusrat for twTo or three months, was brought about early in the year
by the appearance of a common enemy in the shape of Mirza Assadullah Kur-
distani, the new Financial Agent. An account of the struggle between this able
and energetic official, assisted by His Majesty’s Consul on the one side and the
Governor General and Sardar Nusrat in unholy alliance on the * other, is given
below. As soon, however, as Kurdistani was finally defeated and forced to
leave Kerman, in July, enmity between the erstwhile allies began to smoulder
once more, and, in September, the Prince recommenced his complaints to His
Majesty’s Consulate against the Sardar. He accused him, probably not without
truth, of mole-like intriguing against the * authority of the Governor General,
showed*signs-of'taking sides against the Sardar in the Democrat campaign
against him which became virulent in September. Knowing that the British
**garded Sardar Nusrat as the head of the Anglophile party in the province,
the Prince Governor did not dare, so long as Major Lorimer was Consul, to
?ttack the Sardar openly. No doubt he remembered the ill-success of his efforts
in that direction in August 1916. As soon however as Major Lorimer had left
Kenna^ October, the PriDce determined to bring matters to a head and rid
bunself of the Sardar for good and all. He was undoubtedly urged on this
^urse by Ihtisham-ud-Dowleh, who, besides being hand in glove with the
* emocrats, wanted the Deputy Governorship for himself, and also knew that so
°ng as the Sardar was in power opportunities of profit for himself and hia
faster would remain limited. The Prince was further influenced by fear of