WEST COMES EAST'
"The Great Game"
"THE
GREAT237should they get it from? They had such a choice of Europeans! Russian en-
voys were pressing in eagerly here, British envoys and businessmen were
pressing there. The French, the Germans, the Swedes, and others were in
there too. The Qajars had little power versus the Europeans, by whom they
were wholly owned. They might have carved out some independence by
playing one set of Europeans off against another but the kings of Iran saw
different opportunities here, opportunities to enrich themselves by selling
monopoly contracts to the Europeans and pocketing kickbacks. Essen-
tially, they auctioned off their economy to foreigners.
One particularly audacious concession gave German-born British citi-
zen Baron Julius de Reuters the exclusive right to build streetcar lines and
railroads in all of Iran, the exclusive right to mine its minerals and log its
forests, and the right to build and operate the country's national bank. He
got all this in exchange for a cash payment to the shah and the promise of
some small future royalties paid to the national treasury. A storm of oppo-
sition erupted, which might have made no difference in itself except that
Russia lined up with this opposition for reasons of its own. Under this
pressure the shah buckled and canceled the deal. By the terms of the