Coll 28/67 ‘Persia. Annual Reports, 1932–’ [‎270v] (540/644)

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40. Successive changes in government made the observance and enforcement
of any settled food policy an impossibility, and little progress was made in this
direction until the arrival of Mr. Sheridan, the American adviser to the Ministry
of Food, at the end of September. Faced with an almost impossible task, and
handicapped by an erratic and obstinate Minister, and his own ignorance of the
country and having no senior member of his staff with any knowledge whatsoever
of the problem with which he had to deal, Mr. Sheridan set to work undaunted,
hut with perhaps more energy than discretion. He more than doubled the offic#r
price offered for wheat without taking any steps to provide the funds or f .e
administrative machinery for payment of the new price; transferred and
dismissed officials right and left, only to find that the new men on whom he relied
were little improvement on the old. and embarked on all sorts of experiments,
few of which were carried through. The result was continued chaos and, though
by feverish efforts at the last minute, the capital was kept supplied with bread,
Mr. Sheridan never succeeded in securing more than three or four days' reserve
in the silo.
41. Extensive demands made on the Persian Government by the Russians
for food-stuffs, including 5,000 tons of wheat, 15,000 tons of barley and 30,000 tons
of rice, did not help matters, and in the late autumn the prospect became so bad
* that His Majesty’s Government and the United States Government together had
to promise to import into Persia, as soon as possible, 25,000 tons of wheat to
replace what the Russians were purchasing. The greatest difficulty was caused
by the fact that the Russians were apparently not prepared to aliow wheat to
be sent to the capital from Azerbaijan and Khorassan, which were the obvious
sources of supply, though the Soviet Ambassador in London stated that his
Government had given permission for 35,000 tons of wheat to be sent. This made
it difficult or impossible to plan Tehran’s wheat supply in advance, and furnished
the Persian authorities with an admirable excuse for their inactivity elsewhere.
42. Anxiety over the food situation was the predominant feeling in Tehran
throughout the autumn, and the problem of the supply of cereals became an
important factor in the negotiations regarding the supply of rials and other
questions affecting Allied interests. The discussions on cereals culminated in the
Food Agreement, signed in Tehran by His Majesty’s Minister, the United States
Minister and the Persian Minister for Foreign Affairs on the 4th December,
1942. By this agreement the United Kingdom and the United States Government
undertook to ensure, within the full limit of their powers, that supplies of cereals
were brought to Persia to make up any unavoidable deficiency up to the harvest
of 1943, provided that the Persian Government carried out all the measures
recommended by the American food adviser, Mr. Sheridan, including measures
to prevent hoarding and the introduction of rationing, as well as the
recommendations of the Road Transport Committee. It was at the same time
provided that the Persian Government were responsible for the internal
distribution of cereals and for ensuring that a deficiency in one area was met by
a surplus from another. The United States and the British Governments
undertook, so far as possible, to ensure that the means of transport at the disposal
of the Persian Government were sufficient, if put to the best possible use, for the
proper distribution of these cereals.
43. The Soviet Government were invited to participate in the Food
Agreement, but replied that, in view of their own food difficulties, they did not
propose to do so.
44. Lnfortunately, delivery of even the first consignment of the promised
25,000 tons of wheat had to wait in shipments from North American ports and.
when the bread supply of Tehran failed completely in the first week of December,
the situation was only saved by advancing flour from British army stocks.
Altogether 1,500 tons of flour were made available to the Persian Government in
this way and further supplies of cereals were forthcoming in the form of 3,500
tons of Iraqi barley.
45. In order to increase the production of wheat and barley in Khuzistan,
one of the main deficit areas, and to ensure a measure of long-term improvement
in the general food situation, negotiations were set on foot in the course of the
summer to acquire for His Majesty’s Government or for a British organisation
under Allied auspices the lease of certain Persian State farms at Hamidieh and
Ahudasht, to the north-west of Ahwaz, which, although fertile, were then
exploited to little or no purpose by an organisation known as the Khuzistan
Agricultural Society. These negotiations failed, but the Persian Government
did consent to the society being managed by a British director. The services of
Lieut.-Colonel E. W. C. Noel were obtained from India; he was given a free