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Machine transcription
oppression. Economy and industry he con-
siders as the true sources of wealth. The
expenses of the royal household were
immediately reduced to a minimum, that
is, to less than one-fourth of the budgets
of the previous kings. All the estates, that
had been considered the property of the
crown and whose revenue went directly to
the king's purse, were declared to be public
property. The royal firman to the effect
reads thus:-
To,
The Minister of Finance.
WHEREAS according to information
received, the royal private property of
Afghanistan is not personal in the real sense
of the word, in other words, the private
property has been so altered that from the
beginning uptil now a great deal has every
now and then been taken from the public
treasury and added to it; and as it stands
to-day, the area of lands, the number of
shops and factories, etc., requires for its
correct upkeep an office as big as the Ministry
of Finance, and the whole affair has assumed
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Roughly two thirds of characters agree with a modern printed edition of the same text. Much of the disagreement is editorial, not misreading. Treat the transcription as a finding aid and read the page image before quoting. How this was measured.