Page 99 - Historical Summaries (Persian Gulf - Vol II) 1907-1953

86
for the purpose of co-ordinating relations between the company on the one hand
and the Kuwait authorities and the Political Agency on the other and for advising
the General Manager about such relations, since when the relations between the
company and the Agency are reported to have greatly improved.(”4) The personal
relations between the company’s management and the Agency have nearly always
been satisfactory, and, generally speaking, it has been only their method of
conducting business with the Kuwait authorities which has led to disagreement.
The Political Agreements of 1952 (paragraph 99 above) give the company somewhat
more latitude in this matter than the previous one.
102. The company’s relations with the Ruler and his people have varied but
although disputes have arisen with the Ruler such as that over the three islands
(paragraph 111 below) no serious breach has occurred and the company have
usually done their best to co-operate with the Kuwait Government. It is not their
policy at present to set up a Public Relations Office in Kuwait probably because they
wish to avoid entanglement in local politics.(224) They have agreed to the Kuwait
authorities taking over responsibility for their security arrangements (paragraph 29
above), and they pay for the education of a number of Kuwaitis in the United
Kingdom. They are fully alive to their responsibilities towards their local labour
and are in the process of providing them with masonry accommodation to take
the places of the huts and tents in which they have been living. They maintain
an excellent Trade Training Centre at Magwa for illiterate and unskilled local
labour, with staff and equipment for educating over two hundred persons.(22‘)
There have been strikes of Indian and Pakistanis but no serious strike of local labour
has been reported. The question for the payment of compensation for industrial
accidents has been the subject of correspondence and in 1949 the company agreed
to accept the Shara Court’s schedule subject to the provisions of the Order in
Council.(J2T) Efforts to persuade the Ruler to enact legislation on modern lines on
this subject have failed (paragraph 36 above).
(ii) Sulphur
103. In October 1940 the Ruler granted the Eastern Gulf Oil Company an
option for a sulphur concession, which was on the same lines as the Kuwait Oil
Company’s oil concession the royalty being fixed at R. 1 as. 4 per ton.(22‘) The
company expressed their readiness to enter into a Political Agreement with His
Majesty’s Government. Such an agreement was drafted on the lines of the Kuwait
Oil Company’s Political Agreement but there is no evidence that it was ever
executed. The Eastern Gulf Oil Company took up their option at the end of 1941
and drilled some wells but no sulphur was produced and the concession was
relinquished in 1949.

{b) Neutral Zone
104. Between 1933 and 1936 various companies were competing for a
concession for the Saudi share of the Neutral Zone, for which the Standard Oil
Company had been given an option, and there was much departmental discussion
regarding the advice to be given to the Ruler regarding the grant of a concession
for his share of the Zone.(22*) In .1934 he promised to inform the Political Agent of
any overtures made to him for such a concession and in 1935 he stated that he
had no intention of granting a concession for his share of the Zone for so long as
Ibn Saud lived.(”°) He felt sure that the best policy for Kuwait was to “ sterilise
the zone. In 1936 he declined to enter into negotiations with Petroleum
Concessions Limited for an option for the Zone, but promised to inform the
company before anybody else if he changed his mind.(“‘) In spite of this His
Majesty’s Government continued to explore ways and means of arranging for the
grant of concessions for both shares in the Neutral Zone to one company mainly
with the object of helping Ibn Saud in his financial difficulties. In 1938 the Gulf Oil

(*”) P.R. to F.O. 15323/15/53 of May 15. 1953 (EA 1538/7 of 1953).
(*”) P.R. to F.O. 1532/3/4/53 of March 7. 1953 (EA 1538/4 of 1953).
(»•) B.M.E.O. to F.O. Despatch 20 of July 22. 1953 (EA 2185/2 of 1953).
(»») Tel. from Kuwait to P.R. 294 of December 28. 1949 (E 15327/1531/9 of 1949).
(»•) I.O. to F.O. P.Z. 4562/40 of September 9. 1940 (E 2605/398/91 of 1940).
(**•) (E 3058/4/25 of 1934.)
(»•) I.O. to F.O. U.n. of April 11. 1935 (E 2404/173/25 of 1935).
(»«) I.O. to F.O. P.Z. 3669/36 of May 27. 1936 (E 3040/260/91 of 1936).