مجموعة ٢٩/ ٧٤ "إعادة تنظيم الخدمة القنصلية في بلاد فارس: إنشاء استراحة في شيراز؛ الترتيبات في أصفهان" [ظ‎‎٤‎٦‎٥] (٩٥٦/٩٣٢)

work - for the Vice-Consul at Mohammerah in respect of the
refineries at Abadan and for the Consul at Ahwaz in respect
of the producing areas at Masjid-i-Suleiman and Haft Khel.
The amount of routine work is not however of primary
importance. It is the general defence of the company’s
interests that matters and as this is a point upon which
misconcention is apt to arise I may be pardoned if I express
my views with some exactitude.
4. It is often said, and is quite true up to a
point, that the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, like the Imperial
Bank of Persia, are able to look after themselves and have
little need of assistance from His Majesty’s Consular
Officers. The Company certainly maintain their own
’’political 11 services and, in addition to the Resident
Director in Tehran, are represented in Ahwaz by an official
directly resnonsible to the General Manager at Abadan.
This official is in close touch with the Governor-General
of the Province and conducts most of the Company’s business
without any assistance from the Consul. This self-dependence
does not as a rule outlive serious trouble or the threat of
serious trouble; recent instances have been the impossible
situation which arose out of the orders given by the
Minister of Finance on the occasion of his visit to Abadan
in 1928 and the communist disorders of 1929. But the
self-dependence of the Company in normal times is not the
real point. I can easily envisage a situation arising
in which the defence of the company’s interests might,
through the weakness of the Persian Government (following,
for instance, upon the death of the Shah), or even the
active hostility of that Government, devolve upon His
Majesty’s Government, not necessarily in the military sense
but in the sense that the company’s political machinery
would have no material uron which to grip, and the steps
necessary