The Persians are getting a little restive. They are calling Premier Mossadegh home from his visit to the United Nations. Economic and political troubles are beginning to multiply in the wake of the British withdrawal.

The Persian government misses the $4,000,000 a month in oil royalties which Anglo-Iranian Oil Company poured into the treasury. The Shah of Persia is worried about the government’s inability to pay its civil servants all their wages. [Mohammad Reza Pahlavi] News reports from Teheran indicate that more strikes are in the offing as the government spending eats up reserves. There is even talk of the possible sale of the crown jewels, the security which backs Persia's currency.

But in the midst of this self-induced crisis who should come to the rescue? The International Monetary Fund, no less. This technical arm for American financial diplomacy has decided to grant the hard-pressed Persians an $3,750,000 credit. This is the full amount which Persia can get in any one year under fund rules. This sum then, equal to about two months’ worth of oil royalties, will not tide Persia through the year to come, but it will help that country through its present severe crisis.

All this may be very international-minded of IMF officials, but just where does it leave Britain? The British, thrown out of Persia on scant legal grounds, refrained from using armed force and received little moral or political support from their friends the Americans at the time. Then having exerted the latest in economic pressures upon the Persians in the hopes of bringing them to their senses, the British now find the American-dominated International Monetary Fund undermining all their efforts once again.

We have said before in these columns that the International Monetary Fund has reached the point of uselessness and should be abandoned. This latest action only proves what free gold and the Canadian dollar proved before, that the fund is an unnecessary impediment in world affairs.

What we would like to know is just how Canada voted in this fund meeting? Did Canada support this action and if so how does it square this with its support of Britain in the political field? Regardless of how Canada voted, it is time this nation dropped out of the fund. It can’t continue to cut the throats of its friends like this.

If the Americans who have the money and run the fund show think that they can solve everything with more money, they’ve got a long, heartbreaking think coming. [yes, think] Tossing an $3,750,000 credit to the Persians isn’t going to make them any less intractable to deal with. It will just steel them for further foolhardy excursions in nationalistic statesmanship. The Persians have not only defied the United Nations and the International Court of Justice, but now, in effect, have received international approval (in funds) for their flippant action.