カージャール朝期タブリーズの金融と貿易決済

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to clarify the banking and settlement of accounts on foreign trade in Tabriz in the Qajar period and thereby to find out where Iran should be placed in the world economy.In the period when an Anglo-Greek merchant bank, Ralli Brothers, engaged in importing British cotton manufactures and exporting raw silk at Tabriz, there were closely-correlated flows of commodities among Iran (Tabriz), Russia (Odessa, the Caucasus), and Britain, Russian gold and silver coins being used in paymant for these flows of commodities.Around the middle of 1860's, the silk exports dropped sharply owing to the muscadine disease. In addition, the country was hard hit by the great famine of 1870-71. As a result, many commercial houses, amongst others that of Ralli Brothers, were forced to withdraw from Iran. It was in this period that the references to the scarcity of money and the prohibition against the exportation of Iranian coin first attested in the series of British consulars' reports from Tabriz which this article is mainly based on. Therefore it may be inferred that the banking and settlement of accounts on foreign trade in Tabriz was at a turning point then.Another turning point can be found around 1878. A British consul-general reported in August, 1879 that the scarcity of money had forced European merchants to import bar silver from England to Tabriz destined for the Imperial Mint at Tehran. In 1877 B. F. Pechan, an Austrian official, had arranged the Mint establishment at Tehran with modern machinary. The coinage was then reformed. In 1879 an Iranian merchant and banker, Hajj Mohammad Hasan-e Esfahani, was granted custodianship of the Mint. He soon flooded the country with copper coins.After this second turning point, the scarcity of money still continued to be felt at Tabriz. Almost all the cash was in the hands of the sarrafs, or (petty) bankers. They frequently took an undue advantage of their position, inflicting heavy loss upon the commercial community of Tabriz.The above-mentioned British consul-general expressed his expectation in his report for the year 1887-88 that a British overseas bank, New Oriental Bank Corporation, Ltd., scheduled to open a branch at Tabriz, would correct the commercial and financial deficiencies.