'File 14/115 VII Annex (B 9) Abu Musa oxide: collected background material on the case' [‎5r] (20/1904)

5"
Sd lereCto'kX *°f^ ^ 4^1 at luZZl
ana tnereloxe tooK «ae next best course lie could, iiamely to sterilizp the dinmitp
Butb^aisSkl Sagar Foyally fowM^ Se B^h ^ r ^ T?^ 6 ^T'
i he car ! not l ' eas onably be thetfeby held
which he possessed as lulmg Shaikh and which he Ldd have made g^d hit te
Z). f 0 3 : t - eI< ; " t< ' 1 h' ;0nte ? ded that HWId. Saluh acquired Ab/Ca Sdel
St ^giSLTS^r 1 ^ 10 saymg that he had been made a 1—t
, _ S™^T 6 f Tr tke ^ 0 t? k Ahu
" L?d to aSTOt 0 tf " m '~ WO rather Say " expected to bring in " than
Gomular Agen Agent, not
(4) The rent was paid regularly an by Shaikh was
admittedly received by Shaikh Salim whom Shaikh Sagar allowed to keep whatever
revenue came in from the island.
(5) 1 'ids share was, on the 10th October
Brown, a British subject. —On 10th October 1907- That is eight months after
the cancellation of the concession. [It will be'shown later on (item 69) that Hasan
by his own admission had no right to sell this share.]
(6) 2,000 to 5,000 tons of red oxide we
for four years from the mines on Abu Musa.
another party to deliver 400 tons a year for —This is a misleading
repvesentation of the facts. Except for a quantity of 2,000 tons which Hasan
had already contracted to supply to another party, at the rate of 400 tons per
annum, Wonckhaus acquired an absolute monopoly of the output fox four years
and a preferential right to renew at the end of it.
(7) The ostensible ground for this step csmeplaint Tsa Shaikh
that the contract for delivery of red oxide
his-sanction.—It was both his interests and those of Isa bin Abdul Latif which
formed the " ostensible ground" for Shaikh Sagax's action (see also item 7
of Bxitish Memoxandum). The Shaikh gave his own xeasons for withdxawiiv
the concession; they wexe, .that Hasan had given a monopoly which he had
no authority to do and had thus made it evident to the Shaikh that his
own xights over Abu Musa might be endangexed by the continuance
of the concession in such unsafe hands. He in fact realized that Hasan was acting
in a way calculated to pxejudice his interests, and in his later letter of 26th Maxch
to Hasan (Annex 16 of Fixst Gexman Memorandmu) in reply to Hasan's protests,
he explained himself further. He said he had concurred in the original concession
because all the parties were British subjects and thus every one concerned was
under his own control or that of the Bxitish Govexnment; but he objected to the
admission into the concexn of the subjects of a foxeign power ovex whom
he would have no contxol. He feaxed that the mines might go out of his posses
sion ; and it is clear that the appxehension was not altogether an empty one, for in
their letter to the Shaikh, dated 13th October 1907, Messrs. Wonckhaus wrote:
* VV e have paid to them (Hasan, etc.) vexy considerable advances * * *
and we considex that the oxide lying on the seashoxe is oux propexty and
the mines arid the concession are security Again when
Messrs. Wonckiiaus's employe, Brown, attempted to land at Abu Musa on 22nd
October 1907 with Haji Ali Tashankax and a number of men from Lingah, and
was prevented by the resolute attitude of the Sh; ikls 's guards, he was reported by
Lieutenant Gabriel to have had with him a German flag which he intended to erect