THE FIRST RUSSIAN LOAN 99
A‘zam, or Grand Wazir. The hopes of reform aroused by this appointment were further strengthened when the able and upright Wdsirwl-Mulk (a graduate of Balliol College, Oxford, and, so far as I know, the only Persian statesman educated at an English University) was appointed Minister of Finance, and began to apply himself seriously to schemes of fiscal reform. Unhappily Muzaffaru’d-Din Shah, whose health gave rise to serious anxiety, was advised by his physicians to visit Europe and try the effects of a course of mineral waters. Money was needed for the Royal journey, and attempts were made to float a loan of 41,000,000 in London. This proved impracticable, and the Amztnuu’d-Dawla was obliged to retire from the Premier- ship. Muhsin Khan, the /ushtru'd-Dawla, formerly Ambassador at Constantinople, was appointed President of the Council of Ministers, but he also failed to negotiate the loan, and the Shah was consequently compelled to abandon his projected trip to Europe.
To obtain ready money was now the chief preoccupation of the Shah, and in July, 1898, the Amd¢nu’s-Sultdn was recalled from his exile at Qum, and reinstated as Sadr-i- A‘zam on August 10. In the following month three Belgian custom- house officials were invited to draw up a scheme for raising money on the Persian customs, and in March, 1899, the custom-houses of Azarbayjan and Kirmanshah were handed over to them as a corpus vile on which to experiment.
We now reach the year 1900, memorable in the history of Persia’s misfortunes on account of the negotiation of the first Russian loan of 224 millions of roubles (42,400,000). This sum, lent at the rate of 5°/,, and guaranteed by all the customs’ receipts with the exception of those of Fars and the Persian Gulf, was repayable in 75 years, and it was further stipulated that the loan of £500,000 at 6°/, made to the Persian Govern- ment in 1892 by the Imperial Bank of Persia, in order to pay off the indemnity exacted by the Imperial Tobacco Corporation, should be paid off immediately, so that Russia should become Persia’s sole creditor, and England should no longer have any claim on the Persian revenues. This loan, concluded on January 20, 1900, was the first great blow to British material
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