Page 604 - PERSIAN 8 1912_1920_Neat

24 ANNUAL REPORT OP THE PERSIAN GULP POLITICAL RESIDENCY

half measures of the slightest avail to remedy this scandalous state of affairs.
Being too weak—or perhaps too much interested—to tako a strong line with the
grain-owners, he could do nothing to break prices without a large reserve the
stock with which to feed the town in the meantime.
Such a reserve existed in the shape of the Government grain collected
throughout the province by the Financial Agent in part payment of revenue
amounting to about 2,500 Khar wars of wheat and a similar quantity of barley.’
If the ‘Ministry of Finance had released the grain at nuy time in the autumn
scarcity and high pi ices would have been at an end : but the combined efforts
of the Governor'-General and His Majesty’s Consulate were unable to induce
the Ministry to place it at the disposal cilher of the former or of the South
Persia Rifles. While the Finance Minister bargained and intrigued, trying
(unsuccessfully) to play off the Governor-General and South Persia Rifles against
each other, the Government grain rotted where it lay and Kerman went hungry;
until in November tbe South Persia Rifles contractor (Mr. A. E. Wetli) had
collected a sufficient reserve by independent buying aDd went out of the market.
This, together with goed winter rains and the news of the Armistice, alarmed
the owners and speculators : grain became plentiful in the market and prices
at once fell. At the moment of writing (February 11th) wheat is selling at
tomans 25, a drop of tomans 13 since November. The year ended with pros­
pects distinctly brighter, except for the Finance Minister who found himself
unable to get rid of his grain on a falling market.
The abnormally high rates for hired transport (vide below) caused a corres­
ponding rise in £he pi ices not only of imported commodities 6uch as sugar,
oil, rfex £3$ piece gcods, but of fodder, firewood, ghi and other local produce
and greatly added to the general distress.
Bpider.ics.—To the undermining of the popular health by the long-
continued scarcity of practically all the necessaries of life must be ascribed the
appallingly high mortality which marked the epidemics of cholera and
influenza which ravaged the province
in June-July and November-Becember res­
pectively. Cholera broke out most unexpectedly at Rafsinjan on 8th May.
Tbe Sooth Persia RiSe3 medical authorities in co-operation with the Local
Government did their best to keep up a quarantine, but the outbreak had
occurred too close to the city and on 2nd June a case occurred in the lines of
the 6th South Persia Rifles Infantry which had ’ that very day arrived on
transfer from Saidabad. DoriDg the next 8 weeks the police reported 1,7(3
deaths iB the town, hut these figures only represented the number of funerals
counted by them at the town cemetery, and the total number including Pareis
and Jews almost certainly exceeded 2,500. Tbe South Persia Rifles were
moved out into a quarantine camp 3 miles from the city immediately on the
outbreak ; thanks to the efficient arrangements made by Captain Roy, I.M.8.,
Acting Senior Medical Officer in the absence of Major J. B. Hance, 1JVLS.,
both incidence ted mortality were remarkably low in the Brigade, 108 cases
occurring- with 3fi deaths. Inoculation, was practised, as far as ihe quantity
of serum, available-permitted, and was highly successful. Among the Euro^
pean community the only deaths at Kerman were those: of Mr. J. 0.1 Smith*.
Superintendent, Indo-European Telegraph Department (23rd June), R*^
Corporal Smith (Mechanical Transport) on September 8th. Captain
and Corporal Byles of the South Persia Rifles Instructional staff were also
seized, hut recovered. There were no cases among the Consulate staff. Very
few of the Kerman officials or notables died, most of them having at the outset
fled to summer resorts in the bill*.
_ In the districts the epidemic was at least as severe as in the city,
cularly in Zerind, Shjao, Bam and Narmashir. The disease which appeR^
first in the west of the province advanced steadily across it reaching
at the end of June and the borders of Sistan at the beginning of August.
Influenza anpeared at Saidabad at the end of October and at Kerman on
17th November. In both towns tae
IoGoibu.
incidence must havo been above 90 P
cent: certainly among Persians in Kerman His Majesly’s ColsuI did not hoar

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