with [his] consent ...

[pars]

Dear All:
What is the exact meaning of the words in bold in the following passage? It is from the book Persian Petroleum by Davoudi, p. 78.

Once again their ‘reliance [was] to be placed in the Atabeg Azam both for clearing the atmosphere in the Bakhtiari country and stopping intrigues in Tehran’ and ‘intrigues in Tehran [would] have no effect in drawing a penny from the pockets of those [in Britain], they have definitely made up their minds not to spend anything in greasing the palms of those people there who would but create further difficulties to get more’. D’Arcy had concluded in the current situation that ‘Baksheesh [was] at the root of it all and that with [his] consent they [would] never get, as putting every other consideration on one side, if [they] ever dreamt of giving it, which [he did] not, they [were] not stable enough to make it worth [their] while to give away’. 108 In light of all the baksheesh over the years, the reluctance to hand out more money seems to have been based on quantities rather than on principle.

Many thanks in advance.

 

[5jj]

What is the significance of the words in square brackets?

 

[pars]

What is the significance of the words in square brackets?

Hi! they are seemingly added by the writer while narrating. For example [would] instead of [will]

 

[jutfrank]

The bracketed parts are words added to complete the quotes. It makes for an awful sentence, if you ask me, as it's apparently an unsuccessful effort to translate and stitch together fragments from a longer passage. You might want to seek out the original source.

 

[Tdol]

Wouldn't it be without his consent as we're talking about bribery?

 

[pars]

Wouldn't it be without his consent as we're talking about bribery?

Seemingly, yes!

 

[Skrej]

Wouldn't it be without his consent as we're talking about bribery?

It's awkwardly phrased, but I think it means that they would never get his consent. Even with his consent (which they would never get), should they have decided to administer the bribe, it still wasn't worth the amount considering that they/him - (it seems to mix the pronouns) might not be in power or control long enough to make the bribe financially viable long term anyway. Regardless, it seemed unlikely that he would have given consent even with the bribe.

It's really hard to follow, and the bracketed bits only make it more confusing, not less. The first two extremely long run-on sentences in that excerpt need to be broken down into something more like four or five more sentences to be easily comprehensible.