Leading Articles in the Reviews. 



47 



THE PROBLEM IN PERSIA. 



liv L)K. E. J. Dillon. 



Writing in the Contemporary Rnifxv for January, 

 Dr. E. J. Dillon, who has had opportunities of dis- 

 < iissing the Persian question with the Russian 

 Forcitin Minister at Paris, states the case in favour of 

 Sir Edward Grey's poli<:y with much force and lucidity. 

 He says : — 



Persia, whetlier through the machinations of cunning enemies 

 or lier own (iiulis, is sinking deeper in the .Serbonian liog of 

 chaos. Parliamentarism would seem to be the horse on which 

 (he proverbial beggar is galloping to destruction. Govern- 

 ment by Parliament may be the best conceivable regime iax 

 f^uropean and other highly cultured races ; but I cannot 

 endorse the view which declares it to be equally well suited 

 to Orientals. However this may be, the country was politically 

 mortgaged^bcfore the ex-Shah, Mohammed .Vli, or indeed his 

 late father,' ascended the throne ; and in the pages of this review 

 I ventured several years ago to put forward the opinion that 

 Persia ha<l lost her inilependence nnder Shah Nasreddin, and 

 stood but little chance of regaining it ever 



RUSSI.\N POLICY IS PERSIA. 



Russia is accused of misilsing the Conventions for the purpose 

 of carrying out a thoroughly subversive scheme under the colour 

 of necessity, and with the approval or connivance of the British 

 people. From these conclusions I leel obliged to dissent. 

 With the Russian point of view on Persia I am conversant. I 

 have had the advantage of seeing its evolution from the days of 

 Prince Dolgorouky and Sir Orumniond Wolft down to the 

 present moment, and I can answer for it that the actual Russian 

 Foreign Secretary, with whom I conversed on the sul)ject a 

 couple of days ago, liarbours none of the mtentions gratuitously 

 ascribed to him by zealous champions of Persian liberty. M. 

 Ncratoff, who acted for M. Sazonoff during the protracted 

 Illness of the latter, neither undertook nor planned aught which 



■uld be construed as a ilesign on Persia's limited independence 

 ■ r integrity. It is well to remember that Sir Edward Grey and 

 >ir .^rthur Nicolson are aw.are not only of Russia's matured 

 projects, but also of her ulterior .aims. 



TIIK AUTHORS OK THE .MISIIIIKP. 



Anti-Russian agitation has been sedulously and indiscreetly 

 : menled by the native authorities until it has reached a pilch 

 i! which it may cause disaster. The most prominent of the 

 JramiUis persona in Iran, both during the uprising against 

 absolutism and after, is a certain energetic subject of the Tsar 

 who is alleged to be "wanted'' by the Russian police. The 

 ..nly serious native champions of Persian independence and 

 micgritv, the Bakhtiaris — descendants of tlie stock to which 

 I larius, Hyslaspes and Xerxes belonged— and the Turks ol 

 Azorbeidjan, are intense haters of Russia and of everything 

 K-issian. And they show it. Irritating pin-pricks have been 

 . ntinually admini^tcre"! to .St. F'etersburg Foreign Office by 

 tiic instructions of men who are dependent upon Russia's 

 • )od-wiU. 



PERSIA.N INDEPENDENCE, LIMITtlD. 



Persia i« not an independent realm in the sense in which 

 ■^pain or Holland is. .\ kingdom which is divided into two 

 phcres of foreign influence, whose right to build railways was 

 ' T years ^u'-pendctl, and whose finances and foreign policy arc in 

 ilie hands oltwo guardian empires, can only be .said to be inde- 

 pendent by r courteous extension of the meaning of the term. 



THK KX SIIAII. 



Another matter which I am able to clear up salislactorily 

 turns upon the designs alliibutcd to Russia in connection with 

 lie ex Shah's efforls to regain his crown. This interpretation 

 if intentions runs counter to such decisive facts as the .avowed 

 iims of the Tsar's advisers, which are well-known to the 

 I'.ritish Foreign Office. .No such schiines arc harlioureil or will 



■ conip.)S5cd by Russia. Non-intervention in the purely 

 I'lmestic business of the Iranian people forms an essential part 



f the Anglo-kuvsian programme, and no deliberate departure 

 r.im that 13 contemplated by cither Power. 



Peril to Persia from America. 



In the Or'uiital Revieio (New York) for December 

 Mr. E. C. Geisinger writes on American breakers 

 ahead of Persia. He pronounces American Trust 

 money as a Persian loan to be the breaker ahead of 

 Persia to-day Let that kind of money, he says, once 

 get foothold in Persia, and Persia will be governed 

 from New York. He adds : — 



These financiers will pay well for any public official who will 

 sell out his country's welfare for private gain and lend his 

 inlluence to their immoral schemes. These financial buccaneers 

 are only too ready to deal in any corrupt form and make unholy 

 bargains. 



Speaking from fifteen years of close association 

 with Persians, he declares that Persia is not in need 

 of American money. Persians are not poor , they 

 are rich, but because of despotic government in the 

 past they have hidden their wealth. As soon as a 

 stable government is established with trustworthy 

 courts of justice, Persia's hidden wealth will come to 

 light and be placed in circulation. She will be then 

 able to finance her own needs. 



THE FUTURE OF THE AEROPLANE. 

 Bv Mr. Graham White 



Mr. Graham White contributes to the National 

 Rnnew an enthusiastic article concerning the safety 

 of the aeroplane He says : — 



The air is not the dangerous, treacherous element that many 

 people suppose. Men began to navigate it fearfully, with 

 machines in which they had no confidence. And soon they 

 marvelled at the ease with which they could fly Under 

 proper conditions, with an experienced pilot and with a good 

 machine, flying is already extraordinarily safe, and it will 

 become safer still as aeroplants improve. 



Air-travel will be the means of transport of the future. The 

 aeroplane, as perfected along the lines we now see before us, 

 will be safe, cheaply operated, and enormously speedy. Nothing 

 else, on land or sea, will compare with it. It will be indepen- 

 dent of gales It will pass across seas from country to country. 

 It will provide, for its p.assengers, a delightful means of 

 voyaging from place to place. Not for nothing has man con- 

 quered the air. 



Larger, heavier aeroplanes are the machines of the future — 

 aircraft with powerful sets of engines, strongly built and swift, 

 and capable of weathering any wind short of the fiercest gale. 

 Will such machines come ? The question can be answered , 



without a moment's hesitation. They will. With the advent 

 of the large, fast- flying aircraft, capable of going anywhere and 

 combating any winds, the world's methods of locomotion will 

 be revolutionised. 



Already, with a high-powered monoplane, an actual speed ol 

 nearly loo miles an hour has been recorded. lUit these, as I 

 have said, are merely beginnings. I expect myself to see an 

 eventual rate of travel through the air of from 150 to 200 miles 

 an hour. It is a question mainly of constructional strength and 

 motive power. 



The decorations by .Mfred Stevens at Deysbrnok, 

 near Liverpool, are beautifully reproduced in the 

 Architectural Rn'tno. There is something even more 

 beautiful in the fact that these decorations adorn a 

 convalescent hospital for workhouse children. Deys 

 brook, which was built in tlie forties for the Blundell 

 family, has now passed into the hands of the West 

 I )erby Guardians. 



