The strangling of Persia; a story of the European diplomacy and oriental intrigue that resulted in the denationalization of twelve million Mohammedans, a personal narrative . The greater part of this strange burden had been inheritedby the Constitutional Government from the regime of theformer Shahs. Some pensions had, however, been decreed bythe Medjlis, to priests and others who had served the National-ist movement, and to the relatives of men who had beenkilled while fighting for the Constitution. In former days, if a Shah was feeling in good spirits, orliked the wit, verse, or compliment o
The strangling of Persia; a story of the European diplomacy and oriental intrigue that resulted in the denationalization of twelve million Mohammedans, a personal narrative . The greater part of this strange burden had been inheritedby the Constitutional Government from the regime of theformer Shahs. Some pensions had, however, been decreed bythe Medjlis, to priests and others who had served the National-ist movement, and to the relatives of men who had beenkilled while fighting for the Constitution. In former days, if a Shah was feeling in good spirits, orliked the wit, verse, or compliment of some court official, he gavehim the revenue of a village, or of a dozen villages, as a tokenof the royal esteem; or he directed that the name of thefavored one be placed on the civil list for a pension of so manyhundreds or thousands of tumans per year, or for so manykhavars 1 of wheat or barley or straw. In a few cases thesepensions were granted for public services really rendered. Allthe Shahs menials received pensions, which passed from fatherto son. Fully nine tenths of the pensions allotted were pure i A Jchavar is about a third of a ton. 2 c ^ la >>_tra. REORGANIZATION OF THE FINANCES 311 graft. All the grandees enjoyed large pensions. No provincefailed to have its pension roll. The largest was, of course,at Teheran. The Constitutional Government had never been able to paythese pensions, nor any great part of them. The system of-fered a splendid chance for favoritism, and for private specu-lation by Ministers of Finance and other prominent public of-ficials. As the pension warrants which were issued with con-siderable regularity during the year could hardly ever be con-verted into cash at the Treasury, the pensioners discountedthem wherever they could, often accepting as little as fifteenper cent of the face value, to get cash. Numbers of small shop-keepers, and, at times, wealthy merchants bought up these war-rants for a song and put them into the hands of profes
Size: 1205px × 2074px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookpublishernewyo, bookyear1912
