ملف رقم ١٤٢١ لسنة ١٩٠٨، جزء ٣، "بلاد فارس: النفط؛ مفاوضات بين شيخ المحمرة وشركة النفط الأنجلو-فارسية" [ظ‎‎٢‎٨‎٣] (٣٣٨/١٣٢)

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The proposal to interest the sheikh financially in the prosperity of the concern,
were oil to be tapped and worked, by giving him 3 per cent, of the ordinary shares of
any company formed to work oil in the territory under his control is not accepted by
the directors, it not being intended to form a special company. I gather that your
directors would be equally averse to any other scheme whereby the sheikh would ^
receive a payment of any kind calculated on the profits to be derived from the oil-wells
at Ahwaz, as they decline to recognise that he has any rights in the minerals in or
below the lands.
4. The sheikh owns these lands in virtue of firmans granted by Muzaffar-ud-Din
Shah in the month of Shawal 1320 (January 1903). One firman, which relates to the
Kanin lands (which in common parlance include Ahwaz), grants the said lands to him
and to his tribes in perpetuity; it prohibits him and his tribes from transferring or
selling the lands to foreigners, and “ permits and empowers them to exercise in the
said lands the possessory rights of ownership of every kind.”
A further firman of the same date grants to the sheikh personally, among other
lands, “ the districts to the east of the Karun ” (no mention being made of the tribes of
the sheikh) on the same conditions as the lands above referred to.
5. These firmans were obtained as a quid pro quo in exchange for the surrender of
valuable privileges enjoyed by the sheikh previous to 1903. They grant to him in the
most definite way the complete ownership of the land, and he may fairly point out, if
his claim to mineral rights be contested, that he paid a heavy price for the firman, and
that his rights must be respected. I may remark that when the agreement was being
discussed in June and July 1909 the sheikh was not aware of the precise wording of
his firman, and beyond a general recollection that it gave him complete rights over the
lands, could give us no information as to its scope. It was only early in this year that
the original firmans were brought out by the sheikh and scrutinised by him with
the assistance of Haji Rais, true copies being taken for the use of His Majesty’s
Government.
6 . On the other hand, your directors may with equal truth say that they have paid
a heavy price for their concession, and expect to be put in possession of their rights,
and to be compensated if they have to purchase from others the mineral and other
rights for which they paid the Persian Government in 1901.
7. The date of Mr. D’Arcy’s concession is 1901, two years previous to that of the
sheikh’s firman, and it may therefore reasonably be urged that the Persian Govern
ment had no right or power to give to the sheikh exclusive and complete rights of
ownership over the said lands. But the sheikh may reply that the Persian Government
had no right in the first place to give the company mineral rights in his lands, which
were never in the gift of the Persian Government, and this contention would gain force
from the fact that it is admitted in the first firman that the Karun lands have been in
the possession of the forefathers of the present sheikh and his tribes.
8 . The position is a difficult one, and in approaching it I would remind you that
my object in advocating an arrangement whereby the sheikh would be financially
interested in the prosperity of the oil-wells at Ahwaz, if worked, was to secure the
co-operation of the local authorities with the company in the future as well as for the
present.
The Government of this country shows no tendency to centralise itself at Tehran
or to become stronger relatively to the local authorities, and it is, in my opinion,
important that the company should not have to rely on pressure from Tehran for the
accomplishment of its aims.
That it has been able to push forward its works in Arabistan unhampered by the
slightest local opposition, untroubled with theft or robbery, and in friendly co-operation
with the local authorities, is due to the fact that we have hitherto made our arrange
ments with the sheikh locally in an amicable manner, and not threatened him with the
wrath of the central Government at Tehran, to which he is less inclined to defer than
formerly, in view of the present state of affairs there.
9. I think that it is possible that an arrangement may be come to whereby the
sheikh should receive from the company an annual rental per acre for the ground taken
up for the purposes of boring and exploitation. This rental would no doubt be in
excess of the value of the land for agricultural purposes, but in this way the question
of mineral rights might be avoided.
Whether it will be possible to induce the sheikh to forgo his rents during the
period of prospecting remains to be seen. I will do my best in the matter.
10 . I have, I trust, shown that the claims of the sheikh are in no way factitious,
but worthy of careful consideration, in view of his exceptional position in Arabistan,