Arthur Arnold
Published: 2013-09
Total Pages: 76
Get eBook
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1877 edition. Excerpt: ...crime. The sins of the Executive of Shiraz are visited upon the people, and upon all who travel among them. The Government of Shiraz, in degree worse probably than that of any other province of Persia, is a system of oppression, made with all the power and authority and force of the State, for private advantage. The taxes are farmed, and, as a rule, the amount demanded is limited only by ability of payment; soldiers are taught robbery by being officially engaged in making demands for money, which they know to be unjust, from the all-enduring peasants; the Customs are farmed, and collected by the armed servants of the contractor, who is subject to no surveillance, and who renders no accounts. Those are exempt from direct taxation, who, possessing the means to render them independent of exertion, are the most able to pay. Direct taxation in Persia is levied solely upon those engaged in production, and the merchant or tradesman pays only in respect of his store in the bazaar. In the summer of 1875, the dismayed population of Shiraz heard that their Sovereign, the Shah, intended to make a royal progress to the south of his dominions. An order THE SHAH AND SHIRAZ. was published, that no corn was to leave the province, because all might be required for the use of the Shah and his retinue. The great people of Shiraz, who, of course, could evade this or any other edict, took advantage of the circumstances, and made money. The poor suffered most cruelly. Some say the Shah was bought off; that in consideration of receiving so many thousand tomans, his Majesty agreed not to quit Tehran; and this which sounds so scandalous, is never spoken of by Persians as a very extraordinary or even uncommon way of dealing with the intentions of the Sovereign, his...