'F 80 File 82/34 I APOC Concession' [‎122r] (228/436)

THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S GOYMNMENT
Hi
PERSIA s / ■ ' ' December 28, 1932.
S ection 1.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[E 6842/3880/34] (IIEOMMl
Mr. Hoare to Sir John Simon.—{Received December 28.)
(No. 525.)
Tehran, December 9, 1932.
AS I have reported by telegram I communicated to the Ministry for Foreign
Affairs yesterday morning the note contained in your telegram No. 135 of the
7th December informing the Persian Government that His Majesty's Government
insisted on the withdrawal of the cancellation of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company
concession as a preliminary condition of further negotiations. (A copy of the
note is enclosed for convenience of reference.)
2. My intention when I decided not to deliver the note myself was to
emphasise the fact that there was no room for any further argument. However,
it transpired that the Minister for Foreign Affairs, who, with the rest of the
Cabinet, had accompanied the Shah to the Turkoman races, had been held up
by a heavy fall of snow during the last two days. The acting oriental secretary,
Mr. Trott, handed the note to Mirza Ghaffar Khan Jelal, the head of the English
section of the Ministry, who promised to let me know as soon as the note was
in his chief's hands. He telephoned in the evening that he had delivered it at
about 5 o'clock
3. The British Official Wireless reporting the statement made in the House
of Commons by Mr. Eden on the 5th December was not published until the
evening of the 7th December, the editor of the Messager explaining when
questioned that, having referred to the police for guidance, he was instructed
not to publish it, pending, it must be presumed, a reference to higher authority
which was not immediately available. Since then it has been reproduced in the
Persian press on the majority of which it has had a sobering effect, the general
tone being that as His Majesty's Government obviously, though wrongly, thought
that they were upholding a legitimate British right, it was only natural and
hardly alarming that they should take the view formulated in Mr. Eden's
statement. With regard to the general public, I am told, though I cannot vouch
for the statement, that there is already a sense of apprehension and a fear of
untoward consequences.
4. In diplomatic and European circles generally there is naturally an eager
hope that the Persian Government have at long last definitely and hopelessly over
reached themselves and are about to be brought to book. As an instance of the
general feeling I will record that the Belgian Minister, M. Paternotte de la
Vaillee, who only presented his letters of credence on the 27th November came
to tell me that in conjunction with the Belgian experts he had been discussing
with the Persian Government the electrical concession which was regarded as
M. Cuvelier's "leaving present." The Persian Government were showing a most
accommodating spirit and had, in fact, yielded on practically every point raised
by the Belgians. He felt, however, and the representatives of the Belgian company
agreed with him, that in view of the action taken by the Persian Government in
respect of the D'Arcy Concession, it would be folly for a foreign company to
invest money in Persia. He would, in all probability, advise his Government in
this sense and urge, in the interests of occidental solidarity, that the Persian
Government be plainly informed of the reasons for the withdrawal of the Belgian
company from the field. He enquired whether much a course, if approved by his
Government, would be welcomed by us, and I told him that in my opinion it would
be a most suitable one.
5. Though I do so with some diffidence, I think it may possibly be of future,
though clearly not of immediate, use to summarise forthwith the considerations
which inclined me to show the Persian Government a way of escape from the
painful necessity of choosing between an ignominious retreat, the certainty of an
equally damaging judgment by the Permanent Court of International Justice at
The Hague and an actual conflict.
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