Persia Revisited | Page 8

enterprise which raised the disturbance was English.
This tobacco monopoly had been pictured as a business certain to
produce great gains, and the people were thus prepared for the reports
which were spread of high prices to be charged on what they regard as
almost a necessary of life. The conditions of the country were not fully
studied before the monopoly powers were put in force. A suggestion
was made that the company's operations should be confined at first to
the foreign export, which would have returned a good profit, and that
afterwards a beginning should be made at Tehran, to prove to the
people that the monopoly would really give them better tobacco, and
not raise prices, which the company claimed would be the result of
their system. But everything was planned on an extensive scale, and so
were prospective profits. The picture of a rapid road to fortune had
been exhibited, and it was therefore decided that the full right of
monopoly should be established at once. An imprudent beginning was
made in exercising the right of search in a manner which alarmed some
people for the privacy of their homes, a dangerous suggestion in a
Mohammedan community.
The suspicions and fears of all--buyers, sellers, and smokers--were
easily worked upon by the priests, ever ready to assert the supremacy of
the Church over the State. And then the biggest 'strike' I know of took
place. Mirza Hassan, the High-Priest of Kerbela, the most sacred shrine
of the Shiah Mohammedans, declared tobacco in Persia to be 'unlawful'
to the true believer, and everyone--man, woman, and child--was
forbidden to sell or smoke it. The 'strike' took place on a gigantic scale,
a million or two certainly being engaged in it, and steps were taken to
see the order from Kerbela carried out rigorously. 'Vigilance men,'
under the Moullas' directions, made raids on suspected tea-shops, to
find and smash the 'kalian' pipes which form part of the stock-in-trade
of these places of refreshment. The Shah was faced with the sight of
silent and forsaken tea-shops as he passed through the streets of Tehran,
and he saw the signs of the censuring strike in the rows of empty
benches, on which his subjects used to sit at their simple enjoyment of
pipes and tea. The interdiction reached the inner homes of all, and even

in the anderuns and boudoirs of the highest (all of which are
smoking-rooms) it was rigidly obeyed. The priestly prohibition
penetrated to the palaces, and royalty found authority set at defiance in
this matter. A princely personage, a non-smoker, is said to have long
urged and entreated a harem favourite, too deeply devoted to tobacco,
to moderate her indulgence in it, but to no effect. On the strike being
ordered, she at once joined it, and his Highness is reported to have said,
'My entreaties were in vain, my bribes of jewels were refused, yet the
priest prevails.' And this was at a place where not long before Moullas
had been at a discount.
[Illustration: PIPE BEARER IN A PERSIAN ANDERUN]
There are now signs of the people resenting the arrogant assumption or
power by the Moullas, and freeing themselves from their thraldom.
There has always been great liberty of opinion and speech in Persia,
and six hundred years ago the poets Khayyam and Hafiz took full
advantage of this in expressing their contempt for the 'meddling
Moullas.' Not very long ago the donkey-boys in one of the great towns
would on occasion reflect the popular feeling by the shout '_Br-r-r-o
akhoond!_' (Go on, priest!) when they saw a Moulla pattering along on
his riding donkey. Biro is Persian for 'go on,' and, rolled and rattled out
long and loud, is the cry when droves of load-carrying donkeys are
driven. The donkey-boy in Persia is as quick with bold reply as he is in
Egypt and elsewhere. There is a story that a high Persian official called
out to a boy, whose gang of burden-bearing donkeys obstructed his
carriage, 'Out of the way, ass, you driver of asses!' and was promptly
answered, 'You are an ass yourself, though a driver of men!'
As a finish to this reference to the Tobacco Régie in Persia, I may
mention it is believed that, had the company started as ordinary traders,
they, having the command of ready money, would have succeeded well.
The commencement made in the centres of tobacco cultivation
impressed the peasant producers most favourably; they appreciated the
advantages of cash payments, and regretted the cessation of the system,
and the governors benefited by the readiness with which the taxes were
paid. But the explanation of monopoly, a word which was then

unknown in Persia, raised the fears of the people, and those who had
the money to spare laid in