'File 8/15 Arab Series - 1933-1939' [‎137v] (274/434)

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^Letter from the Admiralty to the Foreign Office, No. M.-03230/36,
dated the 2nd July, 1936.
.With reference to your printed letter No. E.-3797/1283/25 of the 25th
June, and subsequent telegraphic correspondence from H. M. Representa
tive at Jedda, concerning the Saudi Arabian Red Sea Oil Concession, I
am commanded by My Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to acquaint
you, for the information of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, that
they attach importance to preventing Italian interests from entering into
competition for this concession.
Copies of this letter have been sent to the India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. , Petroleum
Department and Department of Overseas Trade.
Letter from the Colonial Office, to the Foreign Office, No. 78026/,
36, dated the 22nd August 1936.
I understand that you received a copy of Starling’s letter to me of the
18th July on the subject of the application of Petroleum Concessions
Limited for an oil concession in the Yemen.
There are obvious difficulties in affording any active support to the
company; and before I discuss the matter with Reilly I should be glad to
know what line you wouldTlike us to take.
Letter from the Foreign Office to the Colonial Office, No. {E.-4590/,
260/91), dated the 28th August 1936.
Will you please refer to Starling’s letter No. 236/16 of 18th July, to
you and connected correspondence about the attitude to be adopted to the
proposal of Petroleum Concessions Limited to apply for an oil concession
in the Yemen.
2. We have been recently reconsidering the attitude to be adopted
towards Petroleum Concessions Limited in their quest for oil concessions
in the Red Sea area in the light of growing evidence of Italian designs and
aims in that region. As a result we are wondering whether as regards the
Yemen our attitude towards Petroleum Concessions Limited may not
perhaps have been hitherto a little too rigid, particularly as when they
were seeking a concession in Saudi Arabia we went so far as to assure the
Saudi Arabian Government that His Majesty’s Government fully
supported them. We cannot of course identify ourselves with any parti
cular company to the prejudice of other British or quasi-British concerns
or press the Imam to grant a concession to any particular company. Nor
can we well take part in the actual negotiations for the concession.
Further more, the absence of direct diplomatic representation in the Yemen
makes it difficult to extend to the Company the ordinary facilities which
we should extend, in a normal country, to a British Company which had
our confidence. At the same time there may well be ways and means by
which the Resident at Aden could indirectly facilitate the company’s task;
and it is clearly in the interests of His Majesty’s Government that
Petroleum Concessions Limited which, although an international concern,
ss nominally a British Company with an important British element, should
obtain any concession which the Government of the Yemen may be willing
to grant, rather than that such a concession should go to the Italians.
Moreover we are inclined to doubt whether the appointment of Major
Holmes as the Company’s mouthpiece in the Yemen should be allowed to
affect the attitude of His Majesty’s Government towards the Company’s
activities for it must be remembered that he is being given every facility
by the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. Authorities in his search for concessions in Bahrain
and on the Trucial Coast A name used by Britain from the nineteenth century to 1971 to refer to the present-day United Arab Emirates. .