[PUBLISHED DAILY.] FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 1909.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXIV, Issue 12751, 23 April 1909, Page 9

[PUBLISHED DAILY.] FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 1909.

THE STRUGGLE IN PERSM.

The cables from day to day give but meagre details of the deplorable condition of affairs in Persia, where there has been a long a,nd bitter struggle between the despotic Shah and the Constitutionalists. Persia is in a hopelessly demoralised and degenerated State, rotten from such internal causes as the vices, laziness, and incompetence of rulers and ruled alike. The recent Anglo-Russian Convention alone prevents the country from being dismembered, and falling a prey to its neighbours, for that Convention explicitly sets forth that Britain and Russia will guarantee the status quo in Persia and the existence of the present dynasty. But, inasmuch as the Convention goes no further, it leaves Persia without a cure for the internal convulsions 'which at present afflict it, because although the supremacy of the dynasty is guaranteed, the Convention does not specify which member of the dynasty shall sit on the throne. And the troubles which have been the people ever since the late Shah was compelled to grant the Constitution over two years ago, are due, not so much to a struggle for free institutions, as understood by Anglo-Saxon peoples, as to a conflict between the Feigning 1 Shah and an older mtfmber of the same dynasty, his uncle, Zilli Sultan^ who is desirous of supplanting him, ami ;who has accordingly placed his ■ 'money, his 1 troops, and his administrative capacity at the disposal of the Constitutionalists. To the world at large Persia affords the spectacle of a State once powerful, prosperous, and splendidly administered expiring at last of actual decripitude. Before Moiiamcd AH came to the throne he was a fanatical partisan of absolute government, and boiled with indignation when the late Shah surrended his autocratic power and granted a Constitution and a National Assembly to Persia. However, when Mohamed Ali himself came to the throne the mischief, i.s he regarded it, was done; the National Assembly was an actuality, and thenceforward he set himself to defend his throne, and with it in all probability his life, from the machinations of those who

stood behind the popular party. As Gov-crnor-Ge"cral of Tabrtez, Mohamad Ali had a long experience of administration before he became Shah, and he is described as a strong-willed, capable, and ruthless Oriental despot. Against him is now ranged his- uncle Zilli Sultan, also strongwilled, capable, and even more ruthless, with the additional advantage of being possessed of great wealth, whicli is deposited in a European bank. Zilli Sultan is able to pay for the services of troops out of his own pocket, while the- Shah is in a condition of chronic impecuniosity, besides being heavily in debt to Russia. The real struggle then appears to be, not between patriots and a a tyrant, but between two despots, each of whom is making desperate efforts to oust his rival without quarter. 1 Although When Moliame4Ali was crown ed Shah he was wont to speak of the Constitution as a "holy institution," and pledged himself to uphold it, he was always e-uspecto«! of longing- for- tHe olcl methods of undivided rule, and this ombittered the relations between the Sovereign and hia Ministers and between Parliament and the people. As to the events thafrhave led up to the present sitnation in Persia, which is virtually one of civil war, it i? clear that the Constitutionalists forced the hand of the Shah, who found that he must either arrest, the leaders of the so-called Parliamentary Party, and forcibly break their power, or they "would destroy him by isolating him from his most influential and devoted supporters — men who had regiments of armed troops to back their political opinions. The Shah did' not hesitate a moment. When he was convinced that his throne and his life was at stake, he not only arrested the leaders who waited upon him with a memorial, but he arrested and hanged dozens of others, nd he destroyed Parliamend^Tiouse and also the great Eosque where the political clubs held their meetings, and issued-nr rescript repealing the Constitution as being against the nature of the country. Then he retired with those powerful adherents from whom the Constituiionalists had vainly endeavoured to detach him, and took up his quarters in his summer palace, just outside the walls of Teheran. Sinc> then the Constitutionalists have been actively carrying on their revolt against the Shah, with varying success. At one time we hear of the Shah's property being confiscated in tlie provinces, where his 'roops have failed to restore order; and then word comes of the success of the Shah's forces and unrestrained slaughter and pillage. Tabriz, a town to the north-west of the capital, appears to be the seat of the revolutionary" movement, and here the Shah appears to jiave the upper hand. A cable a few days ago stated that 100,000 people were famishing there and ready to surrender, but feared massacre. This was followed by another message which stated that the Turkomans had massacred 2000 at Astrabad (to the north-east of Teheran), including woiren and children, after a fight with the revolutionaries. The 'atest *nformati">n, cabled yesterday, is to the effect that in consequence of British and Russian representations the Shall has granted a week's armistice at Tabriz to prevent the hunger-stricken elements from attacking the Consulates.