Page:The Persian Revolution of 1905-1909 (1910).djvu/142

 100 THE PERSIAN REVOLUTION


 * prestige, as the unfortunate Tobacco Concession was to her
 * moral prestige. From this period, and from the handing over

of all the customs-houses of Persia to Belgian control (the Belgians being in this matter the jackals of Russia), England’s declining influence and Persia’s increasing misery and disorder may be said to date. Shortly after the conclusion of this loan Sir Mortimer Durand, who had succeeded Sir Frank Lascelles as British Minister in 1894, left Persia, and was succeeded in turn by Sir Arthur Hardinge, who reached Tihran in August,1900.

Although only a portion of the first Russian loan actually passed into the Persian Treasury, the Shah was able, in the summer of 1900, to set out on his European tour. He visited Contrexéville, St Petersburg, Paris (where his life was attempted by an anarchist on August 2) and Constantinople (Sept. 30— Oct. 8), but his projected visits to-England, Italy and Germany were abandoned, these courts being in mourning on account of the death of the Duke of Saxe Coburg Gotha at the time when the proposed visits were to have been paid. The Aménu’s- Sultén accompanied the Shah, and, displaying considerable self-possession on the occasion of the abortive attempt on his master’s life in Paris, rose still higher in favour and received

ythe high-sounding title of Atdébak-2-A‘zam.

In the latter part of 1900, after the Shah’s return to Persia, some rumours of projected reforms reached the Press of this country. Thus the 7zmes of December 14, 1900, contained a


 * brief account of the Shah’s farewell address to twenty young

Persians whom he was sending to Europe to study in London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Moscow and Constantinople, while the issue of the same journal for December 25 contained, after the text of an address of thanks presented to him at Ostend by Armenians domiciled in London, a statement that since His Majesty’s return to Persia many additional privileges in the way of schools and commercial societies had been granted.

These roseate visions, unfortunately, no longer hover round the Persian news published from time to time in the English Press during the year 1901. To take the Zzmes again, which is the most accessible by reason of the Index with which it is provided, we find the following items of news.