erprise.

CHAPTER XIII

Cash and wealth--Capital as understood by Persians--Hidden
fortunes--Forms of extravagance--Unbusiness-like
qualities--Foreign examples--Shaken confidence of natives in
foreigners--Greed for money--Small merchants--Illicit ways of
increasing wealth--The Persian a dreamer--Unpunctuality--Time no
money and no object--Hindrance to reform--Currency--Gold, silver,
and copper--Absorption of silver--Drainage of silver into
Transcaspia--Banknotes--The fluctuations of the Kran--How the
poorer classes are affected by it--Coins old and new--Nickel
coins--The _Shai_ and its subdivisions.

The Persian does not understand the sound principles on which alone
extensive business can be successful. Partly owing to prevailing
circumstances he is under the misapprehension that hard cash is
synonymous with wealth, and does not differentiate between treasure,
savings, and savings transformed into capital. This is probably the main
cause of the present anaemic state of business in the Shah's Empire.
Thus, when we are told there is in Persia enormous "capital" to be
invested, we are not correctly informed. There are "enormous
accumulations of wealth" lying idle, but there is no "capital" in the
true meaning of the word. These huge sums in hard cash, in jewellery, or
bars of gold and silver, have been hidden for centuries in dark cellars,
and for any good they are to the country and commerce at large might as
well not exist at all.

Partly owing to the covetousness of his neighbours, partly owing to a
racial and not unreasonable diffidence of all around him, and to the fact
that an Asiatic always feels great satisfaction in the knowledge that he
has all his wealth within his own reach and protection, rich men of
Persia take particular care to maintain the strictest secrecy about their
possessions, and to conceal from the view of their neighbours any signs
which might lead them to suspect the accumulation of any such wealth. We
have already seen how even the houses of the wealthiest are purposely
made humble outwardly so as to escape the notice of rapacious officials,
and it is indeed difficult to distinguish from the outside between the
house of a millionaire and that of a common merchant.

The Persian, it must be well understood, does not hide his accumulated
treasure from avaricious reasons; on the contrary, his inclinations are
rather toward extravagance