Coll 28/67 ‘Persia. Annual Reports, 1932–’ [‎42v] (84/644)

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In Tehran towards the end of March with a nucleus of thirty to forty of the
capital's leading merchants, the main objective of which was given out to be the
standardisation and general improvement of the country’s exports. It was said
at the time that the corporation would not have a monopoly of exports, but would
set up an organisation to control exports, i.e., to pass them as fit for shipment,
and the Russians would have to conform to the new regulations in the same way
as anyone else. A secondary objective would perhaps be the industrialisation''^
of the country according to plan. There can be little doubt, however, that the
Iran Trading Corporation in its founder’s mind was created first and foremost
with the idea of wrestling with the Russian problem.
460. The corporation, although estimates of its real needs varied between
10 and 30 million tomans 10,000 Persian dinars, or a gold coin of that value. , was to have a capital of 2 million tomans 10,000 Persian dinars, or a gold coin of that value. , of which a
little over 1 million was alleged to have been subscribed by the Tehran nucleus
alone. According to information received at the end of September, only 400,000
tomans 10,000 Persian dinars, or a gold coin of that value. had by then been collected in cash, and but one commercial transaction,
unprofitable as it proved, put through. This meagre result was achieved in "spite
of the carefully spread reports of the extraordinary advantages to be conferred
on the corporation—whose high destiny, it transpired, would be to monopolise the
whole trade of the country—and the rumoured participation of 400 merchants
all over Persia, each of whom thought it politic to have a finger in the pie while
limiting his financial commitments to a minimum.
461. Just about the time of the corporation's foundation a Petrograd Jew,
named Dr. Friedlieb (who happened to have been born in Persia, but who had
recently adopted Persian nationality for convenience’ sake), appeared on the scene
with the idea of doing with the United States direct the trade in Persian products
which had hitherto been done through Constantinople, London and other big
ports. With this end in view he had formed, under the auspices of the president
of the Phoenix National Bank, the Persian American Trading Corporation, with
offices in New York, of which corporation he was appointed managing director.
He was accompanied on his first visit to Persia by a Mr. Porter, a member of a
well-known American firm in the fur business, who forthwith toured Persia with
a view to assess the value of its exportable furs and lambskins.
462. Dr. Friedlieb, on hearing that the Iran Trading Corporation was to
be charged with the standardisation of exports, must have immediately conceived
the idea of taking a substantial share in it. He also found that there was a talk
of monopolies in the air—monopolies of the import of sugar and matches had just
been granted to the Russians—and he brightly expounded the principle that to
make it worth while setting up a first-class organisation to deal with certain
exports, both at the Persian and the foreign ends, he and his Persian colleagues
must be granted certain monopolistic rights. The balance of trade being the
order of the day, it seemed only logical that in return for the monopolies of
certain exports, which he hoped to dispose of in the United States chiefly, they
should also be granted monopolies of the principal American imports into Persia :
motor vehicles and tyres. Whether the idea of import monopolies, which has been
strenuously contested by the American Legation in Tehran as a contravention of
the American policy of the open door, was first adumbrated by Dr. Friedlieb,
Teymourtache, or some Persian member of the corporation, is not known. Dr!
Friedlieb himself gives out that it was forced upon him by Teymourtache, who
wished to standardise Persia’s means of motor transport.
463. His final proposals appear to have been the following :—
(a) That the Iran Trading Corporation be capitalised at 3 million tomans 10,000 Persian dinars, or a gold coin of that value. ,
approximately 1 million dollars, half to be subscribed locally and half
by the Persian-American Trading Corporation.
(b) That the Iran Trading Corporation be granted the exclusive right to
purchase in Persia for export: furs (including lambskins), dried
fruits, gum, silk, sheep casings, and perhaps cigarette tobacco (the
latter to be traded against machinery required by the Persian Tobacco
Monopoly).
(c) That the Iran Trading Corporation also be granted the monopoly of the
import of motor vehicles and tyres.