'File 10/13 A.P.O.C. - Miscellaneous' [‎1bv] (4/182)

DURRAMT'S PRESS GUTTING^
St. Andrew's House, 32 to 34 Holborn Viaduct,
and 3 St. Andrew Street, Holborn Circus, E.C.I.
Telephone: CENTRAL 3149 (Two Lines).
Sunday Referee
17 iudor Street, E.C ,4.
Cutting from issue dated U-.
/^M
s
11
I
6 THE SUNDAY REFEKEE.
Temple Flame Led Him
A
oil—the fevered quest for more oil continues.
Last week Mr. Leo Chertok, United States
financier, relinquished his Abyssinian con
cession—15,000 square miles.
Read here of the greatest of all battles for
oil fought by a missionary and snatched by
a British spy. ^
T
QQ f g ^HE lamp# of the
Persian Temple
burned with a pure
white flame . . ."
That sentence read
in a history of Persia would have
Ho special significance to you or
me. When William Knox D'Arcy,
thin, clean-shaven Australian
mining engineer, read it, he put
the book down.
How did they get a pure white
flame ? he wondered ; and came to
the conclusion that they must
have had some sort of petroleum
oil.
That casual reflection changed the
life of D'Arcy—and developed into a
drama that rocked the earth.
For the Australian packed up his
baggage and went to Persia. In his
bitter struggles in the history of com
merce, wa# achieved with no more
formality than the handing out of e
religious tract.
Onoe the story of D'Arcy'g oil be
came known, however, spies p^d agents
of oil companies were swiftly on the
track. D'Arcy sublet his gushers to an
English company, shook off the trail
of spies and agents, and embarked
for New York on his way back to
Australia.
Offers to buy his concession cani^
by cable from London and New York
With each day's voyage, the offers
were increased. Three, five, six million
pounds sterling were his—for the
exchange of a casual slip of paper.
D'Arcy refused the offers im
patiently. He was more interested in
one of the fellow passengers who wore
the cassock of a priest. Together they
paced the deck and talked of spreading
the Cross in heathen lands.
Persia is full of heathens, mourned
D'Arcy, and the young priest won-
By LEO
baggage were instruments for finding
oil—and a crucifix.
D'Arcy was deeply religious; and as
his efforts to find oil proved fruitless,
so his religion became more and more,
precious to him.
Fortune Poured
Into the Sand
At the end of each discouraging day
he prayed; and woke on the morrow
with fresh strength to pursue his
quest. With the years he grew old
and haggard. He poured his own for
tune and the wealth of several backers
irito the sands of the Persian desert.
« ■■■■>■«« W" W'.h.'ai'vtf V«l
9NIN3Hi9N3»IS ONV
dered if nothing could be don© to con
vert them. They talked for hours ««ch
day. When cables were handed to him
offering higher and higher prices for
his concession, the engineer tossed
them aside.
More urgent to him was the problem
of converting Persians to Christianity.
It was the young priest who solved
the problem for him. Why not. he
suggested, in an apparent flash of
inspiration, use this concession to
enable priests to enter Persia P They
could go as engineers, contractors,
anything.
Priest Wn*
dU SnOIMVJ 3H1 HUM
9Nia33J 03033N A3H1 '
To Persia's Oil
ur
OCTGBEE 11, 1936.
Millions
■ AX
sdAja^ JOJO^
oisinivd ox ana svm
NMOomsua sm
and military power— you will find patently, to cut off Britain's vital
Concewions. route to the East.
In 1911 Germany obtained from The concession was never carried
Turkey a concession for building a out, for war intervened,
ailway from Berlin to Bagdad. The Historians are unanimous in ascrib-
urpo«« of that concession was, ing to that concession the most
potent single cause of the Great War.
The present chain of tragedy in the
Mediterranean—Italy's conquest of
Abyssinia, the Arab revolt in Pales
tine, Fascist Intervention In Spain—
concessions for oil, minerals, land
are inextricably woven Into the
tapestry of death.
Abyssinia is a rich country, especi
ally in oil and minerals. For genera
tions international groups have sought
from successive Kings of Kings con
cessions to develop the country. They
have been steadily refused.
Last year, Mussolini, impatient for
oil, sought to secure by conquest what
he could not achieve by bargaining.
He did not, at first, intend the con
quest of all the country. He would
have been satisfied to secure the un
disputed right of exploitation and
leave the Emperor on his Throne.
But on Aug. 10 there slipped from
England a shadowy figure who had
spent the fqrty years of his life seeic-
ing concessions. His name was F, W.
Rickett, and after a few days in Egypt
he appeared in Addis Ababa.
His only purpose, he declared, was
to arrange for six Red Cross aero
planes, given by kind Egyptian fella-
een, to be brought to Abyssinia.
He spoke to no legations, and, apart
from casual inquiries by journalists
as to how the arrangements were pro
ceeding. hi? presence was ignored.
Secret Trips
To the Palace
Nobody noticed the secret journey-
ings of this stocky Englishman to the
Palace of the black Emperor. Nobody,
wjatching the light burning through
the night in the private offices of the
Negus, guessed its import.
On the night of Aug 29 Rickett made
the last of his secret journeys to the
Palace. Hour after hour he and
Palace officials read the clauses of a
long document, altered them here, re
drafted them there.
At eight 0 clock next morning an
exhausted Minister put his signature
to the document on behalf of the
Emperor.
The document contained the terms
of a vast concession for the develop
ment of Abyssinia, involving an ex
penditure of £10.000.000. The work
was to be done not by Italy but by
an Anglo-American company.
Mussolini read the news in a tele
gram from London, handed to him at
breakfast. His own intelligence ser
vice had not even smelt the deal.
From that day the stream of men
and money and munitions pouring
from Italy to Abyssinia doubled. "On
to Addis " became the soldiers' cry,
and in a few swift weeks the capital
of the King of Kings rose in flames
to the sky.
That was Mussolini's answar to the
concession-hunters.
Deat h to the
Land Sellers
In Palestine armed bands rove the
country shooting, burning, knifing—
in desperate resistance to concessions
secured by the .lews.
Jews who wish to buy and develop
land in Palestine must pay dearlv for
it—but not so dearly as the Arab land
holder who sells it to them.
Such Arabs are regarded as traitors.
Those who are lucky live long enough
to dissipate their pieces of silver in
the brothels of Cairo. Others hre
found murdered, with the money in
tact in the folds of their robes.
Yet there is also romance in con
cessions. You've heard of the Great
White Rajah P
In 1842 James Brooke, Army officer,
traveller, and merchant, came into a
fortune of £30.000. With it he bought
a yacht and set out on a journey to the
East.
He was tired of civilisation and took
the road to Mandalay, seeking to build
an Eden of peace.
Crushed Revolt,
Made a Fortune
At Singapore he was asked if he
would convey to the Rajah of Sarawak
one or two presents, in thanks for
kindness the Rajah had shown to ship
wrecked sailors.
Brookei thought it would put his
course out a few miles. Actually it
turned the course of his whole iife.
He found that antimony was being
mined in Sarawak; and antimony wa*
becoming increasingly important in
the growing industry of Britain.
The merchant in him ousted lor a
while the Adam in search of Eden, and
he made one or two delicate inquiries
about a concession.
The Rajah Muda Hasim agreed;
but first he asked if Brooke would
mind devoting his guns to the sup
pression df a rebellion that had been
worrying him for three years.
Brooke obliged, the immediate re
bellion was crushed, and the two
settled down to talk business.
But other rebellion? broke out, and
each harassing day brought news of
more. Revolt.® sprang up like measles.
Rajah Muda became demoralised.
He was an easy-going, middle-aged
man. anxious above all things for a
quiet life. In desperation he turned
to Brooke. '* I'll give you the con
cession," he promised, " if you will
rule the country for me and suppress
the rebels,"
Whole Country
Was His Reward
That was the luckiest chance a corn
cession-hunter ever had— to ask for
the right to sink a mine and be given
the whole country.
Of course, it was not quite so simple
as that. Rajah Muda Hasim later
forgot his promise, and had to be
forcibly reminded of it. Brooke had
to put his entire fortune into the task
of restoring order.
But in the end he won through and
became the world's first White Rajah.
His descendants rule Sarawak to this
day. And, going from the sublime to
the restaurant, his great-grand*
daughter Princess Pearl is married to
—yes, Harry Roy.
Sand, oil. murder, religion, war,
rebellion, and the private life of a
band leader—all drawn inextricably,
into the pattern shaped by the con
cession hunters of the world.