to all matters and measures in which they
have not been consulted and conciliated. So the Russian road from Resht
was pronounced to be a subject for public agitation by the Tabriz
Mujtahid, Mirza Javad Agha, who, since his successful contest over the
Tobacco Regie, has claimed to be one of the most important personages in
Persia. This priest is very rich, and is said to be personally
interested in trade and 'wheat corners' at Tabriz, and as he saw that
the new road was likely to draw away some of the Tabriz traffic, he set
himself the task of stirring up the Moullas of Resht to resent, on
religious grounds, the extended intrusion of Europeans into their town.
The pretence of zeal in the cause was poor, because the Resht Moullas
are themselves interested in local prosperity, and the agitation failed.

A change is coming over the country in regard to popular feeling towards
priestly interference in personal and secular affairs. The claim to have
control of the concerns of all men may now be said to be but the first
flush of the fiery zeal of divinity students, fresh from the red-hot
teachings of bigoted Moulla masters, who regret the loss of their old
supremacy, and view with alarm the spread of Liberalism, which seems now
to be establishing itself in Persia.

The unfortunate episode of the Tobacco Regie in 1891 gave the Moullas a
chance to assert themselves, and they promptly seized the opportunity to
champion a popular cause of discontent, and the pity of it was that the
enterprise which raised the disturbance was English. This tobacco
monopoly had been pictured as a business certain to produce great gains,
and the people were thus prepared for the reports which were spread of
high prices to be charged on what they regard as almost a necessary of
life. The conditions of the country were not fully studied before the
monopoly powers were put in force. A suggestion was made that the
company's operations should be confined at first to the foreign export,
which would have returned a good profit, and that afterwards a beginning
should be made at Tehran, to prove to the people that the monopoly would
really give them better tobacco, and not raise prices, which the company
claimed would be the result of their system. But everything was planned
on an extensive scale, and so were prospective profits. The picture of a
rapid road to fortune had been exhibited, and it was therefore decided
that the full right of monopoly should be