IN STRANGE PLACES.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XXIII, 7 February 1923, Page 6

IN STRANGE PLACES.

ADVENTURING FOR TRADE.

(By

Lieut.-Colonel John Bigelow Dodge,

D. 5.0., D.S.C.)

it was in May of last year, before temperate warmth of' springtime ■ I l>een replaced by tL ■ oppressive it of a Mesopotamian summer, that ■ left Baghdad to investigate the o|>>rtunities for trade and investment in ■’ ■rsia and in the Caucasus. I'aced after the war, like so many . there, with lack of definite occuparon. it occurred to me to set-out upon an investigation of my own into the Toblems of trade congestion result,ig»from a four-years upset of the orbuary channels of commerce. It was accessary to visit various countries npt ■ nly in order to discover the best posible trade openings, but also to learn ..-hat each country needed most. This was perhaps not an original idea on my part, but at least I had enough faith to invest in it my own moder-

te supply of money. After a journey across Canada I went to New Zealand and Australia, covering each country very thoroughly, if ter this I travelled to Japan, China, nd Mongolia, going on horseback 1700 miles beyond the railway into Siberia. It was my purpose at the time to go on to Moscow’, but, although my ends were not political, M. Lenin’s Government did not trust me, and I was refused the necessary passports. Thus rebuffed, my journey turned to the South; and, while I never forgot ray original purpose, I had some ex-, periences not common to the usual globe-trotter. In company with Mr Arthur Verner of New York, I travelled from Bangkok to Mandalay across country, opening up and mapping a new route. From India I went to Afghanistan, then to Mesopotamia, and finally made the start from Baghdad described above. There was little to record on the journey between Baghdad and Kasvin. I travelled comfortably by railway to Ouraitu, and thence along the excellent road constructed by the British North Persian force. I stayed ten days in Teheran, where I first came into revealing contact with the administrative disorganisation into which Persia has fallen.

Beyond Kasvin the condition of the road was too bad for automobiles, and to reach Tabriz I was obliged to hire a four-wheeled carriage drawn by a pair of indifferently tended horses, and to arrange for relays of horses every twenty-five miles. In this archaic, almost springless vehicle I was jolted and pitched about for eight days over a track plentifully sprinkled with ruts, crevasses and mounds of hard mud. Everywhere as I passed through the eastern section of Persian Azerbaijan, I found the shepherds and the tillers of the soil fearful of raids by Chahsevau nomads. This part of the country is altogether dominated by the Chahsevans, who during the summer months pitch their round tents —made of felt and shaped like a sphere cut in two —in the mountains east of Tabriz, and descend to pillage the settled villages whenever they are in need of sheep or cattle or foodstuffs. Sometimes the roads are impossible for days because of their forays. Whenever they plunder the mail coach, as often happens, they not only take the mail bags and the horses, but they strip the drivers of their clothing and leave them stark naked. Although centuries ago the Chaheevans’ Turkoman, ancestors received their names (“Guardians of the Shall”) because several successive Shahs relied on their splendid fighting qualities to repel invasion from the North and West, they now refuse to acknowledge the authority of Teheran, their complaint being that the' officials appointed by the Persian Government are corrupt, and taxes are never expended on local roads and institutions. They want to be independent, but because of their complete illiteracy and the unrestrained savagery of their instincts they are unable to translate this desire for slelfgovemment into even the semblance of ordered administration. Meanwhile they maintain the tradition that all males must be good shots and first-class horsemen, and periodically raid their weaker neighbors. Having had more than enough of the incessant jolting incident to travelling by carriage by the time I reached Tabriz. I left most of my traps in safe keeping, and borrowed a valuable Arab horse for th? purpose of my visit to Ardaibil, the second largest town in Persian Azerbaijan. Here, again, most of the region through which I rode was in rhe hands of the Chahsevans, as was the town itself.* Beautifully situated on a plateau 4000 feet high, and surrounded by rich wheat (the country enjoys a temperate climate). Ardaibil has everything necessary for content and prosperity, apart from its possible development as a centre of oil production, of which latent wealth I found many indications. The lack of administration, however.

whereby the officials are deprived of nearly all their powers, has resulted in poverty, ignorance, and many kinds of haphazard oppression. To give an instance of this backwardness, the chief Mujatahed (Mohammedan of the locality has caused the only Government school : n Ardaibil to be closed down on the ground tliat.it is against the teachings of the Koran to give lessons in geography. wherefrom good Mohammedans would be religiously corrupted by learnng that the earth was round instead of flat, and revolved instead of remaining stationary. The governor of Ardaibil was kind enough to detail two soldiers as my escort when I rode away. So peaceful’, however, did the countryside seem, that on the evening of the sek'ond day I sent them back with thanks and a small present. About an hour later my horse suddenly shied' while walking, and began to tremble. Turning around I found myself looking at a man who had crept up behind me. He was dressed exactly like my former guards—black sheepskin hat and'coat, half hidden by bandoliers full of ammunition, trousers and puttees separated from loose slippers by an interval of sock, as thick as a carpet, and colored in vivid variegations. He pointed his rifle at me, and. adopting an expression that appeared to mingle ferocious warning "with deprecating regret and even apprehension, ordered me by signs to dis- . mount. I had no option but to comply, as the chances were that others of his band were near at hand, whereupon the highwayman led me some distance over ravines and hills, still holding his rifle in threatening readiness for use. My suspicion that there were otter brigands in the neighborhood was justified when, on taking from me a sum amounting to about ten shillings, which was all 1 had in my pockets, he made me understand that I was net’ to inform his colleagues, two others of whom were by that time approaching. So, although these gentry of thfe Persian roads have little respect for private ownership, they evidently apply to each other the same law that is applied to the casual, passer-by. Even the equal’ communistic division of spoils is not observed when opportunity occurs for disregarding it. By then two others had arrived. These emptied my saddlebags, where they found £l5, for which they thanked me as if I had brought tltem a present. They were much mystified' by the safety razor, and passed several minutes in discussing it. The .first highwayman had already taken my watch. The three of them had a consultation, and afterwards kept me in the ravine until dusk. We sat on a log and sang songs—but with the coming of dark I was numb with cold. They then, in the most courteous manner, put me on my way, returning me two shillings and sixpence for a night’s lodging, as they feared I would not reach my destination. Then: “Godspeed,” thley said, and -o disappeared into the dusk. 1 was so cold and tired that I fell asleep and consequently off the horse, which woke me up. I was grateful that they allowed me to keep the horse after I explained to them in bad Persian that it was borrowed and not my own. I could attribute this forbearance from the usual method’s of the Chahsevan robbers only to the high prestige in which Englishmen are still held in this part of Persia.

In Tabriz I met numbers of destitute Nestorian Christians (popularly known as Assyrians), who had migrated to Mesopotamia after being driven by the Turks during the war from the region of Urmiah, and were now hoping to obtain possession of their lands and homes. The authority, however, of Simko, leader of the Kurdish Nationalist movement west of Lake Urmiah, is so well established from Salmon tc Sandji-Bulek that at present there is no likelihood of an immediate restoration of their property. Simko is senselessly destroying the value of every district over which he extends his control. i.'he very rich agricultural land around ■Urmiah is producing next to nothing, for the Kurds decline to farm it, and the Assyrians who formerly did so are dispossessed. I,ike the Chahsevans, Eimko and his Kurds have all the qualifies that go to make first-class guerilla fighters—hardihood, courage, but remorseless cruelty. It is said that Simko himself finds amusement in rolling those who offend him down a steep hillside and raking pot shots at them with his rifle as they whirl from top to bottom. If ? human moving target reaches the bottom without being hit, and if he :••■ net regarded as dangerous, S.mkq benevolently allows him to go free. Before leaving for Armenia and Georgia, I opened up an agency :n Tabriz. That the Teheran Government had the desire, if not the means, tc remedy the disorganisation was 'evidenced by the fact that a special plenipotentiary—His Excellency AToutaz-ed-Dowleh —travelled with me from Tahrir on a commercial commission to the three Transcaucasian Republics affili-

ated to Soviet Russia. Hie intention was to arrange an Economic Convention whereby imports from Europe could pass through the Caucasus to Persia and Persian exports could be sent by the same route to the Black Sea, instead of by the much longer route to the Persian Gulf, which the merchants had. been obliged to use since the political upheavals in the Caucasus during the spring of 1921. Seen from the train that carried me •from Tabriz to Erivan, the splendid scenery of Armenia contrasted notably with the rolling, sparsely tilted countryside to which I had been accustomed in North-West Persia. The mountain grandeur, the gorgeous, fantastic forests, the- rising torrebts —all these reminded me time and again of backgrounds to the Russian ballets. But if the surroundings were impressive, tire condition of those who lived among them was both pitiful and deplorable. More than enough has already been written of the appalling misery and destitubian that has afflicted the' inhabitants of Armenia since 1917, and T will therefore limit myself to the only hitherto unpublished story of Turkish outrage, of which I gathered first-hand information in Alexandropol. After the Turks, during their temporary occupation of this town in the autumn of 1920, had looted it of as much furniture and valuables as they could carry away, they signalised theirevacuation by .herding 1500 men, women, and children into a ravine and shooting them down. The winter snows covered the* corpses, and so thorough had been the massacre that nothing was known of it until! the following spring. Some American friends of mine, put riding one day, discovered the bodies, Which were beginning to be exposed' by the melting of the enow. This, and other systematic massacres had occurred at a time when the Turks were protesting that in future it would be their policy to show every consideration to their Christian neighbors. Meanwhile no praise can be too high for the really magnificent work that is being done in Armenia by workers of the American Near East Relief Oommission, who in Alexandropol bake five tons of bread each day for local distributions. and who are supporting 60,000 orphans, besides keeping alive thousands of the homeless adults who roam about amid the ruins of houses, senselessly destroyed by the Turks, in search of scraps of food and of sheltered lodging.

Compared to Armenia, and to most parts of Russia, the neighboring republic of Georgia is a land of hope and even of plenty. It has been the first province under Soviet domination to resume foreign trade on an appreciable scale. This was made possible by a decree issued in Tiflis last August, permitting private trading and private ownership of property. Houses, factories and oil-running lands are being restored to their former owners. It is, moreover, the first portion of the former Russian Empire in which foreign consuls are welcomed and recognised. In Tiflis there are consular representatives from Holland (who also looks after American interests), from Switzerland (who also represents Great Britain), from Italy, Sweden, Belgium, Persia, and several other countries. Thus, given a certain sense of security,' many important firms in Europe and Armenia are opening branches in Tillis and Batoum, which towns are linked by an excellent service of trains. These towns are again becoming distributing centres for foreign imports destined for Turkestan, North Persia and the Russian Ipnds in the Volga basin. The renewal of commerce is further stimulated! by the Lloyd-Triestine boats that ply weekly across the Black Sea between Constantinople and Batoum/ . There is comparatively little scarcity of food in Tiflis, and with an exchange of more than 300,000 roubles to the pound sterling, an Englishman or American has no difficulty in purchasing the amenities he needs. On the other hand, wages have not risen in anything like proportional harmony with the ever-decreasing value of the rouble, so that the average weekly earnings of a clerk or workman represent the equivalent of about sixpence a day.. Were it not that most of the local trade is done on a basis of barter, many thousands would be scarcely able to keep themeelves alive. The* principal use of paper money in Georgia is in the maintenance of the public services. These are excellent, especially in Tiflis, where the electric light and tramway services compare favorably with those in many parts Western Europe. The railway services between Tiflis and Batoum are regular and dependable, although the trains fantastically overcrowded, the Georgian roads are maintained in firstclass condition.

Life and liberty are now reasonably secure in Georgia, and very rarely, as happened me, is a foreigner imprisoned. As a result of misunderstanding by certain Russian officials in Persia, it had been reported that I was a political agent. Acting on this report, the Tcheka caused me to be arrested

in ; Baijpi I I was, ayyaiting a ship to Constantinople. It was only some time afterwards that I discovered the cause of this misunderstanding. Among my papers were a number of drawings and specifications of agricultural implements with which I was hoping eventually to improve the lot of the Eastern husbandman. But any sort of drawing appears at once to the mind of the average passport official as having to do with military strategy; so simple mechanical drawings became maps and secret codes.

I must be lair, however, for although Russian officials were the cause of my arrest, the passes which permitted me to go from Teheran to Tiflis were given me by M. Rothstein, the Bolshevik Minister in Persia. Of course he warned me of the lawless condition of the route, and prophesied —accurately, as it turned out —that I should be held up many times. But, of course, I did not expect the actual arrest and imprisonment which now supervened. Escorted back to Tiflis by three Soviet guards, I looked from the bitterly cold third-class carriage, without window glass or covering of the naked seat springs, at the broad beautiful vistas of pine forests and snowtopped mountain ranges, and wondered whether my own experience in a Russian prison would be as harrowing as some others of which I had read. During the forty-eight-hour journey (I had been put on the wrong train, the right one taking only seventeen hours) no food had been provided for me, and my three Bolshevik soldier guards offered to- share their ration of brown bread and tea with me and I yielded to the temptation the first morning but not the second as I had not the heart to deprive them of their meagre rations. I shall never regret, however, the weeks of detention that followed, uncomfortable though they were at the time, for they gave me opportunity at close quarters to appreciate the extraordinary quality of Russian endurance.

The food consisted of one cup of tea, and one pound of brown bread a day, but the few who were lucky enough to have friends in Tiflis had some supplies sent, and these were most generous in dividing with me, saying that they were sure in England I would do the same for them. The Tcheka prison was so overcrowded that only by bribing with half a pound of bread a Russian who had staked a claim to a corner of the floor, could I obtain enough floorspace in which to lie down at full length while steeping. We were confined in a cellar with one small ventilator, about thirty-eight of us, noblemen, generals, counterfeiters and brigands. Many of the prisoners had lived under these conditions for months, and in one or two cases for years, yet cheerfulness rather than despondency was the dominant note of their captivity—cheerfulness which was none the less admirable because it was born of fatalism. One poor boy was demented as a result of three months’ solitary confinement. Every evening there were singsongs, exhibitions of dancing and charades. My intercourse with fellowprisoners was limited, because my knowledge of Russian was slight, while one of my companions could speak English. This barrier of language ,however, did not restrain them from friendly advances, and in particular from helping me to pass the long hours of daytime in playing draughts with pieces improvised from scraps of black' bread. Many of them went hungry to use their bread for making prayer beads.

One of the most pleasant among the acquaintances I made in prison was with a lad of fifteen, high-spirited and for ever smiling. For stealing some vegetables worth two shillings, he had already served six months in the gaol. He himself had never learned writing, but at my suggestion he persuaded another /prisoner to write a letter to the President of the Tcheka suggesting that he had undergone enough punishment to expiate the offence. Next day he was liberated and we all said goodbye and good luck. Judge of our astonishment when two days afterwards he turned up in full Bolshevik uniform, about three sizes too large for him, as our prison guard. This was their way of making amends to him for being forgotten.

Three weeks passed before my own representations, supported by those of the Swiss Consul, could convince the' authorities that I was a merchant and nothing else. I was then released, and offered apologies. I had little to complain of as regards my treatment in the prison. After my release I instantly opened a trading station in Tiflis and remained long enough to organise it. Given facilities for the journey home by way of Batoum, I opened another agency there. Here also I found that an appreciable and increasin gamount of European and American business was being done With all parts of the Caucasus, although again much of the import and export trade based on oarter —flour, machinery and clothing,

for example, being exchanged for sheepskins, manganese, and oil. . ,The Georgian output of manganese is now entirely in the hands of private individuals who work the mines on a royalty basis. A similar ayptem applies to the smaller oil wells in Azerbaijan and elsewhere, and it is pro- j bable that before long even the larger wells in the Caspian region will be operated on a private royalty basis. Meanwhile, although the Caspian oil production is 30 per cent, lower than it was before the Great War, the pipe- i line system from Baku to Batoum is I again working admirably, and tlte an- J thorities in Baku declare that they in- j tend to invite foreign co-operation as a I means of increasing output. The republics of Georgia and Azerbaijan, indeed, which are fedearted to Soviet Russia as loosely and as closely as are the* British Dominion to Great Britain, ate the forerunners of Great Russia in her gradual return to political and commercial stability. The economic meaning the word “80l-

shevism” has altered very coiwl . during the past six 'months. *1 ownership of property and fl trading are now not only but usefully encouraged. 1 In my own case, for exami-'j Georgian Minister of Foreign I i and the President of the Foreign Cominission willingly gave all fl rial help in their power when IJ for permission to open 1 branches in Tiflis and BaWfl ganuranteed my goods against fl tion in Georgia—guarantees I since been honored.