Coll 28/65 ‘Persia. Perso-Soviet Commercial Relations.’ [‎211v] (423/482)

imports of staple products (cottons, woollens, machinery); and (b) the elimination
of the danger that the Persian Government, when it raised its tariff, might
discriminate in favour of Soviet trade as the result of political or economic
pressure on the part of the Soviet Government. Jellal protested that such
discrimination was inconceivable, but had to admit the application of the^
favourable 1903 tariff to Soviet imports during the eight years the 1920 tariw
had remained in force. To his naive enquiry, whether His Majesty s Government
would not be satisfied with a formal assurance on the part of the Persian Govern
ment that no such tariff discrimination would ever be allowed in future,
Mr. Lingeman guardedly replied that he would go into the whole question of the
revision of the Trade Monopoly Law and looked forward to the possibility of
another friendly discussion with Jellal at some future date. His departure has,
however, made any further discussion impossible.
7. I am sending copies of this despatch to the Department of Overseas Trade
(No. O.T. (B) 47), to the Foreign Secretary to the Government of India, and
to His Majesty’s Ambassador at Bagdad (No. 22).
I have, &c.
R. H. HOARE.
Enclosure 1 in No. 1.
Memorandum on the Amendments brought to the Application of the Trade
Monopoly Law, as affecting the relative Position of Soviet and non-Soviet
Importers, since February 1932.
THE scheme which I submitted to the ex-Minister of Court on the
21st February, 1932, with a view to bring importers of our goods as far as possible
into line with the Soviet trade organisations, is set out at the end of paragraph 1
of the enclosure to Mr. Hoare’s despatch No. 96 of the 24th February. It will
be remembered that I found Teymourtache in an execrable mood and that he
would hear nothing of the Legation’s proposals ; but in subsequent conversations
he gave signs of taking various of its component parts into serious consideration.
2. The aim of this memorandum is to estimate the value of the concessions
that have since been made to our point of view and the harm that Persian
innovations and backslidings have caused our interests, so as to arrive at a
comparison of our present position with what it was just over a year ago.
3. The following questions in particular call for an answer : Have the
Persian Government made any honest attempt to grant us the most-favoured
nation treatment to which we are entitled by treaty, a claim which Teymourtache
seemed inclined to treat with levity in connexion with his precious trade
monopoly? How do we stand vis-a-vis the Soviets at the present moment in
regard to the general subject of import restrictions?
4. The scheme referred to above was made up of six different items, but the
last three are dependent on the third so that the first three only need be considered
here.
Quarterly Quotas.
5. These were introduced as from the beginning of the second economic year
(opening on the 22nd June, 1932), a decree to this effect being passed at the end
of April. In September, however, force was given to a decision of the Council
of Ministers that applications for a twelfth of any given quota for the year
would be considered at any time. This was tantamount to putting the quota
system on an annual basis, and. be it noted, the only promise I was able to extract
from the Minister of Court in February was that if the quotas could not be
quarterly they would remain six-monthly. The change, naturally, tended to
benefit large associations of importers, each individual member of which could
.apply for one-twelfth of the annual quota, and there is little doubt that the idea
was devised by Teymourtache with a view to assist the Iran Trading Corporation,
which he had just founded.
6. Under the regulations which have been published during the last week,
implementing the Trade Monopoly (Amendment) Act of the 10th July, 1932, the