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Economic Change and Economic Resiliency in 19th Century Persia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Robert A. McDaniel
Robert A. McDaniel*
Affiliation:
Purdue University
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Extract

The history of Iran, in the years just before World War I is dominated by a general institutional crisis called the Persian Constitutional Revolution. Although the narrative line most often followed through those years is a sequence of political and military encounters, the revolution was in fact a systemic crisis which affected nearly all of the institutions that contained the Persian people. Like all revolutions, however, it had its own idea of what it was up to; in fact, it had several. In common with other modern revolutions, it held the principle to be self-evident that through the revolution a new freedom was being created and a corrupt tyranny destroyed. Such views were, of course,rationales not interpretations of history, but like the latter they extended backward in time to describe the period before the revolution. In short, they explained not only what the revolutionaries themselves were doing, but what much of the history of Qajar Persia amounted to.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , Winter 1971 , pp. 36 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1971

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References

Notes

1. A feeling of frustration and disillusionment came over Iran in the last years of the 19th century. If one compares the tone of works which originated at the height of Naṣir al-Din Shah's reign (e.g. Muhammad Ḥasan Khan Maraghi, I'timad al-Salṭanah, Kitāb al-Ma'āsir va al-Āsār) with works that come from the period around the end of the century (e.g. Amīn al-Dawlah, Khāṭirāt-i Siāsī) the change is striking. The former are self-confident and expansive, the latter convinced that the nation is ill and that the disease will be fatal. For more recent works which carry on the tradition of pessimist which just precedes the revolution see, e.g., Dāryūsh Āshūrī and Rahīm Raisniā, Zamineh-yi Iqtisadī va Ijtima'i-yi Inqilab-i Mashruṭiyat-i Irān (Tabriz, n.d.); Hershlag, Z.Y. Introduction to the Modern Economic History of the Middle East (Brill, 1964), pp. 134-154Google Scholar; Algar, Ḥamid Religion and State in Iran, 1785-1906 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1969) pp. 122-123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Discussions of the “Great Depression” or “long depression” are to be found in any general economic history. The prices mentioned here are taken from Clough, Shepard and Cole, Charles Economic History of Europe (Boston, 1952), p. 565.Google Scholar The figures on the export of wheat from Bushire are from Great Britain, Parliament, Parliamentary Papers, 1871, Cmd: 456 “Copy of a Report Lately Made by Colonel Pelly to the Indian Government on the Trade of the Persian Gulf,” p. 11, and represent in the case of 1869 only the wheat carried in B.I.S.N. Company's bottoms. Pelly's figures show a striking increase in wheat export in the years from 1866-69 to 1892, rising from 6,800 to 428,094 mans Tabriz, that is, from 878 bu. to 55,295 bu. In view of the fact that almost no wheat was exported from Persia in the years between 1870 and 1875 because of the severe drought and famine, it may be assumed that 1869 was a peak year. For the economic conditions in Persia in 1870 and the export of wheat from the Persian Gulf ports, see Ibid., 1871, Cmd. 343, Commercial Reports Received at The Foreign Office from Her Majesty's Consuls, in 1869-70, “Persia-Tabriz,” p. 961, and Ibid., 1876, Cmd. 1616, “Statement of the Trade of British India with British Possessions and Foreign Countries for the Five Years, 1870-71 to 1874-75,” p. 199. The figures for the export of wheat in the 1890s are taken from Ibid., 1893, Cmd. 6855-139, Diplomatic and Consular Reports, “Report on the Trade of Bushire for 1892,” (Annual Series No. 1252.) and Ibid., 1895, Cmd. 7828-44, Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Annual Series No. 1627 “Report on the Trade of Bushire for 1894,” (Annual Series No. 1627). The export for 1892 was 241,498 C.W.T., or 450,786 bu., although there were bread riots in Shiraz. The exchange produced by the wheat exports of that year only slightly exceeded the exchange produced by the export of 1869. The figures for 1894 probably reflect the embargo placed on the export of wheat during that and the preceding year by the Persian government. The effect of the embargo was probably less to diminish the flow of wheat from Persia, than to make it more difficult to collect statistics, although some reduction in outflow may be assumed. When the average of these two latter years is compared to 1869, it still shows an overall decrease in the amount of exchange produced by a considerably enlarged volume of export. Export from Bushire leveled off at around 450,000 mans Tabriz and did not vary much from that figure after 1890 — except in bad years when Persia was usually a net importer of grains. Wheat was never the most important foodstuff exported from Persia, and it lost relative importance across the last half of the century as its value declined. As a staple in the Iranian diet, however, it was a particularly sensitive item of export. Gleadowue-Newcomen, A. H. Report on the British Indian Commercial Mission to Southern Persia during 1904-1905, (Calcutta, 1906), p. 83.Google Scholar

3. Great Britain, Parliament. Parliamentary Papers, 1867, Cmd. 3761, Commercial Reports Received at The Foreign Office from Her Majesty's Consuls in 1886, “Persia-Gilan,” p. 110. The total revenue of Gilan in 1866 is given as 388,610 tumans, or 169,395,12s. lOd. Great Britain, Foreign Office, Diplomatic and Consular Reports on Trade and Finance, Annual Series No. 1325, Persia-Resht, p. 14. Compare Kitāb al-Ma'āsir va al-āsār, pp. 242-244, where similar increases in the revenues of the state are shown, but without the comparison to a foreign standard.

4. These figures are taken from Great Britain, Parliament, Parliamentary Papers, 1867-78, Cmd. 3967-IV, Reports by Her Majesty's Secretaries of Embassy and Legations, “Persia,” p. 250-51, and Ibid., 1893-94, Cmd. 6855-155, Diplomatic and Consular Reports on Trade and Finance, “Persia-Meshed” (Annual Series No. 1268) pp. 8-9.

5. Ibid., 1872, Cmd. 544, Reports Relating to Consular Establishments 1858-71, 1858-1871, part IV, p. 256; Ibid., 1895, Cmd. 7581-109, Diplomatic and Consular Reports on Trade and Finance, “Persia-Tabreez” (Annual Series No. 1569), p. 4.

6. As a British consul described the situation in 1896: “During the last few years exchange has gone up with leaps and bounds consequently the European goods have also advanced. The necessities of life in these parts have also advanced, but not in the same ratio. In the meantime, the daily wages of the peasant and workman, have practically stood still, or I might say, have absolutely for some period of last year retrograded, owing to the flood of copper money, which could only be exchanged into silver or its equivalent in goods at 25 percent, or even at one time, reaching 50 percent discount,” Ibid., 1899, Cmd. 8277-171, Diplomatic and Consular Reports on Trade and Finance, “Persia-Ispahan,” (Annual Series 1953), p. 3.

7. Entner, Marvin L. Russo-Persian Commercial Relations, 1828-1914 (Gainesville, Fla., 1965), pp. 6 ff.Google Scholar, has recently demonstrated that the Treaty of Turkmanchai worked to Persia's advantage throughout most of the century. This continued to be true in some respects until the end of the century. For instance, Persian cotton could enter Central Asia for manufacture in Russia at the relatively low duty set by Turkmanchai, while American and Egyptian long-staples paid a relatively high duty to enter from the West. Since the American and Egyptian cotton steadily cheapened across the last half of the century, the Persian would have been unable to compete if it had not been for the advantage of the low duty it paid. That, and of course the fact that Russian railroads in Central Asia gave it access to a market, as it did all the products of Khorasan. Great Britain, Parliament, Parliamentary Papers, 1895, Cmd. 7828-24, Diplomatic and Consular Reports on Trade and Finance, “Persia-Khorasan” (Annual Series No. 1607), pp. 13-14.

8. Clough and Cole, Economic History of Europe, p. 627; Great Britain, Parliament, Parliamentary Papers, 1890, Cmd. 6205-29, Diplomatic and Consular Reports on Trade and Finance, “Persia-Tabreez,” (Annual Series No. 798) p. 8, and, Ibid., 1895. Cmd. 7581-14, Diplomatic and Consular Reports on Trade and Finance, “Persia-Shiraz” (Annual Series No. 1474), pp. 13-14. Lorini, Eteocle La Persia Economica Contemporanea E La Sua Questione Monetaria (Rome, 1900).Google Scholar Lorini studied the problem in detail but held out little hope of reform. P. 366 ff. The rate of exchange was about 20 gran to the pound sterling in the 1860s. By the 1890s the rate had sunk to well over 50 gran to the pound sterling. For the most part, this corresponded to changes in the intrinsic value of the coinage. Lornini, p. 428 ff.

9. The British consular reports from northern Persia for the years after 1865 record in some detail the diminution of the silk trade and the difficulties that accompanied it, together with the frustrating attempts to overcome the disease. See expecially Cmd. 343 and Great Britain, Parliament, Parliamentary Papers, 1877, Cmd. 1772, Reports from Her Majesty's Consuls on the Manufactures, Commerce, etc. of Their Consular Districts. “Gilan, Mazandaran, and Astarabad,” pp. 748-761.

10. Cmd. 343, pp. 237 ff. and Lorimer, J. C. Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, Oman and Central Arabia (Calcutta, 1915), p. 395.Google Scholar Also, Wilson, Arnold T. Report on Fars (Confidential) (Simal, 1916), p. 51.Google Scholar

11. Great Britain, Parliament, Parliamentary Papers, 1894, Cmd. 7293-46, Diplomatic and Consular Reports on Trade and Finance, “Persia-Ispahan” (Annual Series No. 1376) p. 58.

12. Cmd. 7828-24, pp. 13-14.

13. Great Britain, Parliament, Parliamentary Papers, 1882, Cmd. 3409, Reports From Her Majesty's Secretary of Embassies etc., on Commerce. “Report by Mr. Baring on Trade and Cultivation of Opium in Persia,” p. 49; Ibid., 1886, Cmd. 4781, Reports From Her Majesty's Secretary of Embassies, etc., on Commerce, Part IV, “Persia,” p. 313.

14. Most of the British Consular reports from 1870 to the beginning of the war discuss money and taxation problems — especially as they affected trade. Since it is not the purpose here to trace in detail the financial problems of late nineteenth-century Persia, no tabulations are presented. The information is easily available, however, although it would constitute a study in itself. See especially, Great Britain, Parliament, Parliamentary Papers, 1875, Cmd. 1132, Reports from Her Majesty's Consuls oh Commerce, etc., of Their Consular Districts, Part I, “Persia-Tabreez”, p. 207; Ibid., 1893-94, Cmd. 6855-212, Diplomatic and Consular Reports on Trade and Finance, “Persia-Resht,” (Annual Series No. 1325), p. 14; Cmd. 7581-14, pp. 3-5, 13-15; Amin al-Dawlah set up the mint, which he describes with some pride in his Khāṭirāt, p. 58, for a more neutral view of its operation see, Cmd. 3836, pp. 36-37. The mint brought its farmer at least 10 percent profit. Cmd. 7828-44. Abbās Mīrzā, Mulk Ārā, sharḥ-i ḥāl, Abd al-Ḥusein Novā ‘i, ed. (Tehran, 1325/1946), p. 121.Google Scholar

15. Entner, pp. 59-62 discusses the balance of payments problem in some detail. One might add to the list of hidden off-sets on the credit side of the ledger of Persian imports a factor which he treats in other context--the bankruptcy. Goods imported but not paid for did not enter the balance of payments problem, but they did enter the statistics to the debit of Persia.