Identifier: stranglingofpers00shus (find matches)
Title: 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
Year: 1912 (1910s)
Authors: Shuster, W. Morgan (William Morgan), 1877-1960
Subjects: Eastern question (Central Asia)
Publisher: New York, The Century Co.
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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n on a telegraphic transfer. Inthe same manner all payments of every description by the Treas-ury were made by check. No cash transactions whatever wereallowed, and in this manner a full and independent record ofboth receipts and disbursements was established outside thePersian Treasury. Other administrations of the Central Gov-ernment, such as the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs, thePassport Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and theCustoms, while under the general control of the Treasury, wererequired to make their deposits in the bank direct and to sendto the Treasury the credit notes instead of the cash. I soon found that most of the chief tax-collectors, while pro-fessing their entire willingness to submit to the rules and regu-lations laid down by the Treasurer-general, were not depositingtheir revenues with the branch banks as I had directed. Infailing to do this they were simply following the universal rulein Persia, which is to hold on to money through thick and thin
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REORGANIZATION OF THE FINANCES 287 until one is absolutely forced to give it up. The prompt dis-missal, however, of one or two of the more prominent and in-fluential offenders in this respect, and the news of it which wastransmitted to the others with a polite warning as to what theymight expect, had a most salutary effect, and the revenues com-menced to come in despite the disorder into which the wholecountry was thrown by the news of the return of the ex-Shahand the local disturbances which in many parts of Persia,particularly in the great province of Fars in the South, hadbeen going on for a year before our arrival. The province ofAzarbayjan, duing the entire time that I was in control of thePersian treasury, was in such a state of confusion, due largelyto Russian troops which were constantly being sent there, andto the outbreaks of the Shahsevens whose chiefs had found thatthey could count absolutely upon Russian support and protec-tion, that not a dollar of revenue was ever sent

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