THE CONFUSION IN PERSIA. T HE Entente between Great Britain and
Russia has been arranged just in time. But for this Agreement between the two Powers there would have been serious risk of a great war. The long decay of the vast kingdom of Persia has culminated in a close approach to anarchy. The population, once forty millions, remarkable for their superiority amongst Western Asiatics in point of intel- lectual distinction, has declined, as a consequence of atrocious misgovernment, to about six millions—the officials only claim nine millions—of whom not half are peasants, upon whom the heaviest part of the national burden falls. This wretched remnant, which, remember, is scattered over a country more than three times the size of France—six hundred. and eighty millions of square miles —a country no doubt in part a desert owing to the decline of irrigation, but in part consisting also of the most fertile valleys of the world, is governed by absolute satraps, dreaded by the Shah, and therefore selected. mainly from among the Princes of the Blood, whom nobody attempts to restrain, and who use their exceptional independence to pile up enormous fortunes. Of late years the dynasty has lost both its ability and its popularity, and is now so hated that it finds no defenders except for pay, and the second city in the Empire, Tabriz, has, it is reported, this week pronounced its dechean,ce. Peasantry, priesthood, and citizens concur in a general burst of hatred; and having heard from across the frontier of the formation of a Duma in Russia, they also have demanded, and in a sense obtained, a represen- tative Parliament. Though the Shah, however, in fear of revolt, to be followed. by assassination, yielded. to this demand, he is a greedy man, or perhaps we should rather say he is unable to understand that after this concession he is no longer at liberty to take the fortunes of his subjects for his own expensive pleasures. According to a well-informed correspondent of the Times, he imagined. that his Civil List, though fixed at the extravagant sum of £100,000 a year, was intended to be spent as pocket-money, and he stopped all the allowances hitherto paid from the Palace income, including even the payments to ancient members of the harem. The consequent complaints exasperated him to madness, and possibly raised fears of household treason, and from the moment that he was aware of the facts he became the King of the reactionaries. His few troops available, and the mob of the usual capital, Teheran, were instigated by his courtiers to threaten the Parliament. The Premier was arrested, and might, but for the intervention of the British and Russian Ambassadors, have been put to death, and, as it was, was expelled over the frontier, his property meanwhile being sequestrated. The citizens, highly irritated, rose to defend " their liberties," by. which they understand their exemption from direct oppressions; and the Shah, afraid of a general movement of revolt, once more took an oath to the Constitution, and began collecting all available force. It is possible, nay likely, that had Russia remained in the position' she occupied before the Japanese War, the military party would have forced the Czar to march an army to the aid of his ally and the defence of the "Monarchical principle," and as that army would not have been withdrawn, the independence of Northern Persia, at all events, would have come to an end. This movement would have been regarded, possibly with reason, as most menacing to India. In India itself the w hole community would have clamoured for war, and we are by no means certain that in England, where a bitter jealousy of Russia has lingered down from 1855, the cry to occupy Southern Persia as " a measure of precaution " would not have been irresistible. At any rate, all who objected would have been denounced as " Little Englanders." As the " precaution " would at all events have brought the two Empires into immediate contact over fifteen hundred miles, the resulting situation would, even if immediate war had been avoided, have been most dangerous.
Fortunately the principal condition of the Entente is that Persia shall be left independent; and if we rightly under- stand Sir Edward Grey's speech of Thursday week, the meaning of this Agreement is that unless Europeans are massacred, the two Powers shall abstain from interference,— shall, in fact, " keep a ring " and allow the people and Court of Persia to fight out their domestic quarrel. The people may use the Parliament as their instrument ; but as the King can arrest all the Deputies, it is much more probable that they will fall back upon older, and if we read history correctly much wiser, devices. They will either break up Persia into a number of principalities, which may or may not be federated, or if their pride in their most ancient and once most famous kingdom prevents that ruinous measure, they may call up a new dynasty to supersede the Kajars. If they selected the right man, which is possible, for the Persians may be described as an exceptionally brilliant Asiatic people, all might go well again for a couple of generations. The satraps would be properly paid, and therefore reasonable, and the fertile villages would. be refilled from Central Asia, Armenia, and Turkey. This is, we conceive, the best hope for the unhappy kingdom. Englishmen very naturally think that everything can be secured by a representative body ; but they forget that a Mussulman population, believing the Koran divine, feels no necessity for seriously altering its legislation, and that the Parliament may probably prove as hungry for money as the Court. This one has already tried to arrogate to itself all executive power, an arrangement which would be certain to end in anarchy. The masses, particularly in the cities, long for a King—a just King—who alone, as they think, can protect them against the oppression of the satraps and their followers. The resemblance between Persia and France before the Revolution is in appearance very close; but the French had got a solid idea for which they were ready to fight, and the history of England, to which alone they looked for precedents even when con- demning their King to death, at all events showed enormous strength of devotion to the representative principle. We shall see in a few weeks how the immediate struggle ends, but we have more hope in a fresh ruler than in any Parlia- ment. In any case, we sincerely trust that both Govern- ments will adhere to their policy of keeping a ring. Neither of them needs a fresh and enormous expansion of territory. The Russians cannot bear the further outlays which they would think necessary to defend themselves against Great Britain, and we have no boundless reservoir of men. Sikhs are good soldiers, even against Russians ; but the Sikhs are already avoiding enlistment, pleading that their wages are now insufficient to keep up their dignity as freeholding soldiers. While we fight strenuously fel. all we have, it is better to avoid new and vast annexations which for years to come cannot pay even for sufficient garrisons.
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