We who live in the Ciinese Empire do not as a rule feel that we have any special interest in the dominions of Muzalttic-id-Din, the Shah of Pi To us that cewntry seems what the late Thomas Taylor Meadows used to call "'ten-thousand-miles-only." Router seldom mentions it. Home papers do not refer to it at much Yet there-is a good deal about ersin that suggests China, as was remarked by some of the Bovrish Legation when Peking was first opened to diplomacy.
me of us remember to have read in the inscinating volumes of the late Sir Thomas Wade, that the Chinese word po-li for glass is a Persi est singing a would furnish many others. This shows that when overland travel was the rule, much must base come into China by the back door. We are fond of remarking that the political state of China is far from satisfactory. But in Persia things are in definitely worse. Whoever has taken the trouble to look through the interesting travels of Mrs. Isubelln Bird Bishop in Ewstern Persia, knows what a ferment that part of the empire is kept in all the time. In the more recent and thoroughly trustworthy volume of Mr. Wilson on Persian Life and Customs reviewed in these columns within a year or so, the same fact is clearly to be discerned. The truth is that Po is on the edge of a is the victim of an and is almost certain not He has not yet been upon the throne two years, and the mere rumour of his visiting Europe has been sufficient to cause riots, and the gravest anwety to the Government, only quieted by his appearance in public. His' father was one of those curious products which result from the violent impact.of the West on the East. He-was a highly educated and widely travelled Burbarian.. Like some other lands of more importance in the world at-large, Persia is the victim of an ecclesiastical tyranny of the most deplorable sort. The Mahomedan religion is there bigoted and intolerant to degree scarcely to be found out of Arabia, The Shiah sect swear by Ah, and by his son Hassan who was Mahommed's uncle, and who married his daughter Fatima. The two sons of Ah, Hassan and Hosein, were killed, xnd are regarded as martyrs, their death being celebrated in the turbulent Moharrem festival over many Mahomedan lands. To an outsider it almost seems as if this incident of the seventh century was not at present a live issue, but the Shiah sect considers it a vital matter still and will do till the end of tims. The Shiah fanatics will suffer no improvements in Persia which interfere with their interests, as Mr. Wilson showed in a most convincing manner from the history of the great Tobacco Monopoly, and related incidents in which the government was almost wrecked, and 9 vast amount of British capital permanently disappeared. Corruption, lying, and thieving prevail to an extent unheard-of even in China, where all things are done in accordance with Li, or Reason. What can we think of a postal system where the officials themselves deliberately steal stamps off the letterx and then throw the letters into the waste basket? Yet this is Persia, Let us in China rejoice that our troubles with stamps are confined to getting those with too little gum-arabic on their backs—doubtless owing to the poverty of the government, and the pressure of the Japanese indemnity. Persian misgovernment is so bad that the Persians themselves are thirsting for the coming of the Russians. Russia has already annexed a large pitt of what was once Persia, and shels waiting for the rest. We now. hear that large bodies of the ancient Nestorians have abandoned their immemorial faith, and have been received with open arms into the Orthodox Greek—or rather Russian—Church, whence they will by no means find it ensy to secede. There are perpetual troubles on the frontiers of Persia and in many of its provinces Always there is the omnipresent Russian Consul. He threatens that if order is not restored within a certain number of days, or hours, he will call in the Cossacks. The Cossacks" are always on the Russian border waiting to be called in. Once in, they have to remain to preserve that order which without them is hopeless. The end of that real we all know. At the other end of the Asiatic continent is China, She is not yet reduced to the straits of Persia, which seems liable atony time to extinction. All that even now prevents it is Great Britain. The. Jinterests of the mother-of-us-all in man fare great, but they will not avail apparently to save Persia, The same Power which threatens Persia also threatens China. We have seen the velvet claw.
advances quite gently. It only desires Orderand the hihest interests of the Nest Of Mice. These it cheerfully "guarantees. It desires merely a Sphere of Influence in the Nest. Itis not after Mice—merely a port or two, and plice in which to warm its claw during the cold weather, "Only this, and nothing more." Where is Great Britain?
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Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.