'File 82/34 II (F 94) APOC Concession' [‎51r] (116/362)

gross receipts before the net profits can be arrived at. That, however,
is a situation which might easily arise in a complicated business.
There is not the slightest ground for claiming to cancel the Concession
on that account, and, indeed, it is obvious that questions of this sort,
if not disposed of by agreement, are questions which could be
determined under the arbitration clause.
I am very unwilling, and it is not necessary at this stage, to detain
the Council with further details of the earlier years, but I should like
to interpose three comments, made in the most friendly fashion, on
statements which I find in the Persian memorandum.
If the Council will turn to paragraph 5 (a) of that memorandum
they will find it there stated that the company, over a number of
years, failed to pay a fixed annual sum of 2,000 tomans 10,000 Persian dinars, or a gold coin of that value. due to the
Persian Government under an article of the Concession, and that in
1909 the arrears amounted to 16,000 tomans 10,000 Persian dinars, or a gold coin of that value. . It is further stated
that the company refused to make any payment and declined
arbitration. In any event, that is very ancient history, which must
be the explanation of its inaccuracy. The real facts are that the
matter was amicably settled by a payment by the company on the
9th January, 1911, of £2,000 sterling in respect of the Persian
Government's claim to date, and 2,000 tomans 10,000 Persian dinars, or a gold coin of that value. have been paid by
the company in respect of every year since that date. Since it is
difficult to extract the smallest item of humour from a case of this
sort, let me add that in the year 1913, owing to an error, the sum
was actually paid twice over!
I take as the second example of what I regard as a rather unhappy
collection of innuendoes, what I read in paragraph 27 (c). It is an
allegation that the company has failed to observe a stipulation in
the Concession concerning the employment of workmen who are
Persian subjects. I think the company has some right to feel a little
aggrieved that such a suggestion should be made against it; it is not
a ground on which anybody has ever sought to cancel a concession,
and has nothing to do with the case. The actual facts are these :
The skilled labour employed by the company in Persia includes
118 categories of employees, managers, engineers, &c. When the
company began operations few artisans in any of these categories
were available among the Persian population, and during the Great
War rapid development led to the importing from India of skilled
labour not available in Persia. Since then, the number of non-
Persian employees has been consistently diminished, and 90 per cent,
of the company's non-European employees in Persia are now Persian
subjects. In order to fit Persian subjects for employment, the
company has spent over £100,000 sterling on education in recent
years. Apart from artisan-training centres, it has built schools in the
Persian Provinces of Khuzistan, where none existed, and for six years
it has provided free university education in England for two Persian
students annually. Further, the Persian Government has benefited
directly and indirectly by the expenditure in Persia of not less than
£22 million by the company. On medical services alone in Southern
Persia the company has spent over £550,000 sterling since 1924, and
tens of thousands of non-employees receive free medical treatment
every year.
I should regret if any prejudice were introduced into this case on
either side, because it is not at all necessary. The matter is, I think,
a fundamentally simple one to decide, but I am entitled to say on
behalf of my fellow-countrymen that the reproach that they have not
in this matter shown a sufficient regard for the very proper needs of
the population of Persia in the neighbourhood concerned has not the
smallest scrap of foundation.
I will take one other example and then pass to the main issue.
In paragraphs 5 (a) and (b) it is stated that in 1909 and 1917 the
company refused to refer disputes to arbitration. In the first place,
I would invite this tribunal to consider the relevance of that observa
tion. We are considering a cancellation suddenly perpetrated in
November 1932, and I would ask exactly what help is to be got from
speaking of events that occurred in 1909 and 1917 in justification of the
cancellation. I do not understand.
The facts are that the dispute under discussion, in 1909, was
amicably settled in 1911 by a capital payment. As to the dispute in
1917, in August 1918 the counsellor of the Persian Legation in London