Page 76 - PERSIAN 8 1912_1920

66 PERSIAN GULP ADMINISTRATION REPORT
As reported last year, the state of the Customs had been far from uatisf.,
fcory. On Monsieur Fourman’s arrival he saw that it y»°uld he impossibly 7*
do anything towards improving matters as long as he had to work with th
staff which Monsieur Delcroix had collected and he informed His Majesty
Consul that he proposed to go slowly, but to weed them out one by one. n
The most important person to be got rid of was Shoukat-cs-Sultan, R.
Inspector, who had had Monsieur Dclcroix completely under his thumb.
sieur Fourman was able to get him removed to auother post.
The next important change was the transfer to Bushire of an Armenia.
Baghdadiian by name, Chief Verificator of Customs and the head of the cliq^
who had so successfully defrauded his department. As he did not proceed oj
transfer on the date ordered Monsieur Fourman took the opportunity to dismj^
him In the meantime most of the others who had served with Monsieur Byj,
croix were either dismissed or.transferred, one or two being successfully caugfo
out in defrauding the Customs.
Monsieur Abi, a Jew, formerly a teacher in the Alliance Israelite at Ker.
manshah, continued as assistant to Monsieur Fourman and appears to be hjj
right hand man. "With his newly constituted staff Monsieur Fourman his
done much to improve matters and is respected by the people of the town, ever
by the merchants who are losing by not being able to defraud the Customs a
succecsfully as in the past. Naturally the Augean stable has not been absolute-
ly cleaned', nor could one hope for go desirable an end in Persia, but what ha
been done is highly to be commended. Monsieur Fourman is a conscientious
worker and I feel convinced that he is not anti-English.
In June Monsieur Bouckaert took over the appointment of Director ai
Ahwaz. Choukat-es-Sultan had been acting since the transfer of Monsieur
Fourman. Monsieur Bouckaert appears to be strongly pro-German but to he
otherwise harmless.
With the appointment of Monsieur Mornard as Treasurer-General there
came a tendency to place every administra­
Officials.
tion in the charge of the Belgian Customs
officials and nowhere was this more marked than in Zjrabistan, where the Direc­
tors of Customs had previously complained that one man was unable to cope
with the work. In succession Passports, Posts, Telegraphs and finally Revenue
have come into the hands of this overworked official with the result that, next
to the Shaikh, the Belgian Customs Director has become, for the Persian, the
most important person in Arabistan. The Governor of the Province himself
receives his salary and has’his accounts checked by the Customs Department,
and it can easily be realised the importance this gives, in an Oriental country,
to the officials of the administration which is entrusted with that work.
It is doubtful whether the Customs Department will even be able to con­
trol the revenues successfully, as at present organised. The Mustaufi of Persia
have always conducted their accounts on 3 system which is understood only by
themselves and which even a Persian would find difficulty in following The
retiring revenue officer, the Mustaufi-ul-Mamaiik remarked to His Majesty^
Consul that the mere translating of documents, etc., so as to make them intern'
gible to the Customs Director, was a difficulty which seemed insurmountable
An entirely new system would seem necessary as the only solution of thp
difficulty.
With the growth of Mohammerah, and perhaps more especially of Abadan*
the work of the British Post Office b#
British Post Office.
steadily increased during the past yc^35
will be seen from the following figures of the receipts and output:—
1910. 1911. 1912.
Ordinary letters received for delivery . . . 43,920 47,964 63,892
Registered „ . 2,989 3,513 3,683
n
Books, etc., etc. . 8,760 9,972 12,768
Newspaper* . 6,960 8,328 8,172
Parcels . . 1,718 8,034 3,202
Money Order* issued .183,485 222,414 3,82,651
224 f D