‘A collection of treaties, engagements and sanads relating to India and neighbouring countries’ [‎24] (41/578)

♦24
PERSIA —Foreign Concessions.
completed and opened to traffic. It was only after the War that the
question of a trunk line was seriously taken in hand. In 1925 the Majlis
authorised the Government to levy a so-called monopoly surcharge on
sugar and tea imports, the proceeds of which, amounting to approximately
six million tomans 10,000 Persian dinars, or a gold coin of that value. (<£1,200,000) a year, have since been paid into a rail
way fund. American railway experts were subsequently engaged, and
in 1927 the Majlis passed a Bill for the construction of a railroad from
Khor Musa or Mohammerah in the South to Bandar-i-Gaz in the jNorth
by way of Hamadan and Tehran. It was at first intended that the
Government should build this line on its own account; but contracts for
the total survey and the construction of important sections of the rail
road at either end were subsequently awarded to an American-German
syndicate. Difficulties between the syndicate and the Persian Govern
ment led in May 1930 to the cancellation of these contracts, but a fresh
contract v T as granted later in the year for the completion of the IS'orthern
Section of the line by the German group interested in the earlier contract.
In 1890 the concession for a carriage road from Tehran to the south
of Persia was purchased by the Imperial Bank of Persia: and in 1898
the Bank secured the concession for a road from Kum to Isfahan on the
Same terms. The entire concession, which includes the construction and
Avorking of the road from Tehran to Kum and Isfahan, and from the for
mer to Ahwaz via Sultanabad, Dizful and Shuster, the extension of the
latter from Ahwaz to Mohammerah, and the branch road from Burujird
to Isfahan, was eventually transferred by the Bank to the Persian Trans
port Company. In 1890 Lazar Poliakoff of Moscow obtained a concession
for the establishment of a “ Transport and Insurance Company.” This
Company acquired in 1892 the concession for the Knzeli-Kazvin road, and
in 1894 that for the road from Kazvin to Hamadan. In 1897 the Companv
purchased the Kazvin-Tehran road, which the Persian Government had
constructed in 1880, and acquired a concession for the construction of a
quay, piers, etc., at Enzeli. In 1902 the Russians acquired a concession
for a road running from Julfa on the Russian frontier to Tabriz and link
ing with Kazvin. In connection with this road the Russian Bank
acquired a concession for working naphtha and coal situated on each side
of the road to a distance of 40 miles. In 1903 a concession for a road
from Astara to Ardabil was granted, but the Company wmnt bankrupt
and the road Avas taken over by the Persian GoA T ernment. A Company
has since been formed to work this concession; but so far it has limited
its activities to the Capital.
In 1890 the Persian Government created a tobacco monopoly, the
concession for Avffiich Avas granted to a British Company, the Imperial
Tobacco Corporation. The monopoly and the concession were both
cancelled in 1892, and compensation was paid to the Corporation.