PERSIA. Although six days were required in negotiations, I found the Persian Government very much better disposed towards the project than had been anticipated. The Persian Foreign Office had evidently studied the regulations of the I.C.A.N. very carefully, and throughout the discussions which took place, the Persian representatives evinced a keen desire to abide by them closely. At first they seemed somewhat suspicious as to possible underlying schemes of monopoly and absorption on our part, and throughout showed anxiety that we should not in any way lean on either the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, or the Indo-European Telegraph Company for our ground organisation. They were genuinely anxious to provide all proper facilities on the ground, but admitted that neither could they afford to meet their full obligations under the I.C.A.N., nor had they the necessary experience to administer the route when established. Their policy was therefore to persuade us to organise a route at our expense, which would be Persian property and available for use by all members of the I.C.A.N. The contract with the Junkers Company had not been finally approved when I was at Teheran. The German Minister assured me that no monopoly was intended, and the spirit displayed by the Persian Ministers certainly leads me to think that they would not grant a monopoly to any foreign organisation. Both Sir Percy Loraine and the German Minister informed me that there was no intention that the operating company should become Persian. The company will therefore remain German, and the fact that a German company is carrying out internal services within Persia will raise an interesting question for consideration by the I.C.A.N. I thought it best not to raise this point.
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