Coll 28/67 ‘Persia. Annual Reports, 1932–’ [75r] (149/644)
The record is made up of 1 file (320 folios). It was created in 6 Dec 1933-27 Mar 1947. It was written in English and French. The original is part of the British Library: 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. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .
Transcription
This transcription is created automatically. It may contain errors.
49
[10152] E
by His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom when the concession was
cancelled had some justification. His Majesty’s Minister further considered that
if a memorandum setting forth the legal basis of the company’s case were
communicated to the Shah, this would, by bringing him to a full sense of realities,
increase the chances of a satisfactory issue to the negotiations. The Foreign Office
preferred, however, to leave it to the generosity of the terms which the company
were known to be prepared to offer to achieve the same result.
311. Sir John Cadman, together with.Mr. Fraser, the vice-chairman, and
Dr. Young, the company’s principal medical officer, who possessed an intimate
acquaintance with the company’s political affairs, arrived in Tehran on the
3rd April, various assistants and experts, including Dr. Idelson, having arrived
a few days earlier. A number of foreign jurists and other experts engaged by
the Persian Government also reached Tehran at this time, but they took no part
in the subsequent negotiations.
312. Sir John Cadman had an audience of the Shah on the 11th April,
but otherwise kept in the background during the early stages, the negotiations
being conducted by Mr. Fraser with the assistance of Mr. Jacks, the resident
director. The Persian negotiators were Mirza Seyyid Hassan Khan Taqizadeh,
the Minister of Finance, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Davar and Ala.
Serious negotiations began on the 13th April, when sixteen of the clauses of the
Persian draft proposals were communicated to the company’s representatives.
Mr. Fraser declined to discuss these proposals until the whole of the Persian
desiderata were before him, and on the 17th April the remaining clauses were
produced. On the following day Mr. Fraser subjected all these proposals to a
devastating criticism, and on the 21st April he sent to the Minister of Finance a
draft counter-agreement which he invited the Persian Government to accept.
The Persian representatives declared this draft to be quite unacceptable, and it
was decided on the 23rd April to tell the press that the negotiations had failed,
a farewell audience being at the same time arranged for Sir John Cadman for
the following morning.
313. At this audience Sir John Cadman convinced the Shah that no oil
company could possibly exploit the oil-fields on the basis of the Persian proposals.
The Shah for his part treated the impending departure of the company’s repre
sentatives as a joke, and undertook, at Sir John Cadman’s suggestion, to attend
in person a meeting between the British and Persian negotiators.
314. When this meeting took place on the afternoon of the following day
(the 25th April) the Shah consigned the Persian proposals to the waste-paper
basket, lectured his bewildered Ministers on the need for statesmanship and broad
views in the conduct of the negotiations, and accepted the company’s draft on
all essential points.
315. The detailed drafting of the agreement took five more days, during
which Sir John Cadman had a final audience of the Shah, who was leaving
Tehran. The agreement was eventually signed at 2-20 a.m. on the 30th April.
316. The new agreement did away with the 16 per cent, royalty on profits,
and substituted a royalty on production of 4s. per ton, with an annual minimum
of £750,000. The Persian Government also became entitled to 20 per cent, of
the profits remaining after a dividend of 5 per cent, had been paid upon the
ordinary shares. Internal taxation was commuted for thirty years by additional
royalties on production, with a minimum of £225,000 for the first fifteen years
and £300,000 for the second fifteen. In addition, the company undertook to pay
£1 million in settlement of all outstanding claims and to pay the royalties for
1931 and 1932 and internal taxation since the 30th March, 1930, on the basis of
the new agreement. The company also undertook to exploit the part of the Naft
Khaneh oil-field lying in Persia, to sell petrol within the country at minimum
world prices and to reduce by progressive stages its non-Persian employees. The
concession area was to be limited to 100,000 square miles in one or more areas to
be selected by the company before the 31st December, 1938. The agreement was
to be valid for sixty years, i.e., a prolongation of the D’Arcy Concession of
thirty years.
About this item
- Content
Annual reports for Persia [Iran] produced by staff at the British Legation in Tehran. The reports were sent to the Foreign Office by HM’s Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary A diplomatic representative who ranks below an ambassador. The term can be shortened to 'envoy'. at Tehran (from 1943, Ambassador to Iran). The reports cover the following years: 1932 (ff 2-50); 1933 (ff 51-98); 1934 (ff 99-128); 1935 (ff 129-165); 1936 (ff 166-195); 1937 (ff 196-227); 1938 (ff 228-249); 1939 (ff 250-251); 1940 (ff 252-257); 1941 (ff 258-266); 1942 (ff 267-277); 1943 (ff 278-289); 1944 (ff 290-306); 1945 (ff 307-317); 1946 (ff 318-320).
The reports for 1932 to 1938 are comprehensive in nature (each containing their own table of contents), and cover: an introductory statement on affairs in Persia, with a focus on the Shah’s programme of modernisation across the country; an overview of foreign relations between Persia and other nations, including with the United Kingdom, British India, and Iraq; Persia’s involvement in international conventions and agreements, for example the League of Nations and the Slave Traffic Convention; British interests in or associated with Persia, including Bahrain and Bahrainis resident in Persia, the Residency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, established in the provinces and regions considered part of, or under the influence of, British India. at Bushire, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, Imperial Bank of Persia, and the Imperial and International Communications Company; political affairs in Persia, including court and officials, majlis, tribes and security; economic affairs in Persia (government finances and budgets, trade, industry, agriculture, opium production); communications (aviation, railways, roads); consular matters; military matters (army, navy, air force).
Reports from 1939 to 1946 are briefer in nature, Reports from 1941 onwards focusing on the Anglo-Soviet occupation of Persia, and the role of United States advisors in the Persian Government’s administration.
The file includes a divider, which gives a list of correspondence references contained in the file by year. This is placed at the back of the correspondence.
- Extent and format
- 1 file (320 folios)
- Arrangement
The file’s reports are arranged in chronological order from the front to the rear of the file. Each report for the years 1932-1938 begins with a table of contents referring to that report’s own printed pagination sequence.
- Physical characteristics
Foliation: the foliation sequence (used for referencing) commences at the front cover with 1, and terminates at the inside back cover with 321; these numbers are written in pencil, are circled, and are located in the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. side of each folio.
The file contains one foliation anomaly, f 308A
Pagination: Each of the reports included in the file has its own printed pagination system, commencing at 1 on the first page of the report.
- Written in
- English and French in Latin script View the complete information for this record
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- Reference
- IOR/L/PS/12/3472A
- Title
- Coll 28/67 ‘Persia. Annual Reports, 1932–’
- Pages
- front, front-i, 2r:91r, 92r:308v, 308ar:308av, 309r:320v, back-i, back
- Author
- East India Company, the Board of Control, the India Office, or other British Government Department
- Usage terms
- Open Government Licence