مجموعة ٢٩/ ٧٣ "الأهواز: منح تعويض لشيخ المحمرة عن الأموال التي قدمها لإنشاء مبنى قنصلي في الأهواز" [و‎‎١‎٤‎٦] (٣٣١/٢٩٣)

7. In reply to this iu might be objected that
the venture was unprofitable only because the Sheikh’s
title to the land became so suspect after his departure to
Tehran that the Government of India were unable to proceed
with the wo>rk themselves, either by borrowing the necessary
money elsewhere, or by constructing the houses at their own
expense (repaying the Sheikh as a preliminary) and paying
no rent except a ground-rent. The Sheikh would probably
respond by pointing out that his title was only open to
doubt because of political events beyond the control not
only of himself, but of His Majesty’s Government and the
Government of India. He might add that it was never
conclusively proved that the Persian Government would not
enter in an arrangement to recognise any lease granted by
the Sheikh without prejudice to a subsequent decision as to
whose the site might be.
8. The further complication of the claim of
naji Muin is quite irrelevant. It may be that the Sheikh
had really forgotten that the site belonged to the Haji, or
that he remembered right enough and was merely using (and
but for the events of 1925 would have gone on using) his
local influence to purloin the site, or that when he called
the land his, he meant his and his partner’s (the Haji).
Whichever alternative is correct, iz does not affect the
fact that, when convinced of the validity of the Haji's
claim, the Sheikh offered to meet this claim by giving the
Haji an equivalent site elsewhere and that the Haji, for his
part,, was willing to continue the original arrangement,
either with or without the Sheikh. This claim has, therefore,
at no time formed an obstacle to the continued construction
/of