Coll 6/8(1) 'Printed Series: 1929 to 1938.' [‎161v] (327/1062)

44
Tbn «aud misht give the concession to E.G.S. in ignorance
t whom L was hostile. Be that as it may, E.G.S.
It the emission, and on the 6th May 1923 IbnSaud granted an oil «,nce S si<m
fine uding the Qatit and Jubail areas) to the Eastern and General Syndicate.
Maior Holmes gave an undertaking not o sell part ol the concession to the
a POP and ffis Maiestv’s Government thought ot trying to induce Ibn Sand
to cancel this restriS.but the proposal was abandoned in May 1924. Thus
the A.P.O.C. were left out in the cold.
tup final terms of the concession to E.G.S. are not known, but there are
indiluons It i“ ollowed the draft which had been submitted to Sir P. Cox..
That draft, and probably the actual concession, included mter aha, provision
for the following
(a) Lapse of the concession if E.G.S. should fail to start operations in a
specified manner within nine months.
(h) Government right to cancel the concession after any continuous
V cessation of operations for more than twenty months.
(c) Payment of £3,000 a year for “special protection ” in half-yearly
payments to begin sixty days after date.
{d) Payment of £6,000 under pain of nullity of the concession, sixty
days after date.
(e) Arbitration in the event of any dispute.
It is not clear what, if anything, E.G.S. did to implement the undertaking
do start operations. It is known that on the 26th April, two geologists of
theirs left Koweit to make a preliminary survey in “ Ne^d, Koweit heutral Zone
and Hasa,” but it is not known to what this led. Anyhow, Major Holmes was
in difficulties with Ibn Sand in October 1925, because, according to Bushire
telegram to the Colonial Office of the 31st October, (a) Ibn Sand had refused to
alter a clerical error of date, and (b) E.G.S. would advance no more money.
There was also apparently difficulty in obtaining financial support m London
owing to the non-existence of British diplomatic representation at Nejd. It
was probably at this time or a little later that E.G.S ; and Major Holmes,
estranged Ibn Sand by refusing a payment which he claimed.
There is no evidence that Ihn Sand formally cancelled the concession at this
juncture. When, however, E.G.S. entered into an agreement with the Gull
Company on the 30th November, 1927, in regard to this, the Neutral Zone
-Concession and the hoped-for concession in Koweit, they admitted that both the
former were “ at least subject to forfeiture and cancellation, if not actually
null and void.”
The negotiations which led to the grant of a concession in Hasa to the
Standard Oil of California are understood to have been conducted by tnai
company directly, and not through the intervention of the E.G.S.
(6) Koweit Neutral Zone.—On the 17th May, 1924, an oil concession is
alleged to have been granted jointly by Ihn Sand and the Sheikh of Koweit o
the E.G.S. The E.G.S., by an agreement of the 30th November, 19m, trans
ferred any rights which it might possess or acquire or which could l:)e r ®‘
instated in Hasa or the Neutral Zone as well as in Koweit to the Eastern Gu
Oil Company. The history of the concession is somewhat obscure. A recen
Colonial Office memorandum concludes from a review of the known facts t e
“ impression . . : that Iban Sand did actually grant the concession
on his own without the consent of the Sheikh of Koweit.” As against tins,
E.G.S. definitely claimed to have got the concession from both, and it seem
hardly likely that they would have committed themselves to this statement i
it were untrue, in their definite legal agreement with the Gulf Company ot tne
30th November, 1927, as they certainly did. In any r case, however, the g r . 0111 l 3
for considering this concession to have lapsed are even stronger than in t e
case of the Hasa Concession. E.G.S. not only admitted in the agreement ^
Gulf that it was like the other “ at least subject to forefeiture,” ^ , bu -,
stated in a letter to the Colonial Office of the 19th December, 1928 that it na
“ never been made operative.”
The Sheikh of Koweit’s account of this concession is given in a re J® n j
despatch from the Political Agent A mid-ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Agency. dated the 6th Julv, 1933, which states t a
the Political Resident A senior ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul General) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Residency. had an interview with the Sheikh and discussed t

Coll 6/8(1) 'Printed Series: 1929 to 1938.' [‎161v] (327/1062)

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Coll 6/8(1) 'Printed Series: 1929 to 1938.' [‎161v] (327/1062)

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