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limitations under which they can hold real property in this country. Your Excellency
further invites me to call upon British subjects to confine themselves to the defined rights
and limits which have been assigned to them, and adds that the Persian Government will
be entitled to treat any irregularity which may have been committed in this respect, with­
out its special sanction, a9 contrary to treaty rights.
Your Excellency will permit me to point out that for many years past foreign subjects
have acquired and held landed property in many provinces of Persia, but notably in that
of Azerbaijan. Now in the 12th Article of the Treaty of Paris of 1857, it is staled 0 that
the British Government requires, and the Persian Government engages that the same
privileges and immunities shall in Persia be conferred upon, and shall be enjoyed by, the
British Government, its servants and its subjects, and that the same respect and consi­
deration shall be shown for them and shall be enjoyed by them as arc conferred upon and
enjoyed by and shown to the most favored Foreign Government, its servants and its
subject," and in Article 9 it is stated that “ the treatment of their (the high contracting
parties) respective subjects and their trade shall also in every respect be placed on the
footing of the treatment of the subjects and commerce of the most favored nation."
From these two articles it is sufficiently clear that if the subjects of any foreign power
have been allowed without interference or objections on the part of the Persian Govern­
ment to acquire landed properly in Persia, a similar privilege cannot be withheld from
British subjects.
With regard to that part of Your Excellency’s note in which you mention the "special
sanction " without which the acquisition of landed property by foreigners is illegal, I
would beg to point out that the position taken up is untenable. Whatever the treaty
rights of foreigners arc, they arc sacred, and the Persian Government cannot, at will, sanc­
tion an infringement of them.
Taking'my stand therefore on the treaty rights of Her Majesty’s subjects, I cannot
accept the conclusions drawn in Your Excellency’s note now under reply.
I avail, &c , &c.

No. 150, dated Tehran, 24th(August 1882.
From—Ronald F. Thomson, Esq., Her Majesty’s Minister at Tehran,
To—Earl Granville, K.G., Secretary of Slate for Foreign Affairs.
With reference to the memorandum enclosed in Your Lordship's despatch No. 50 of
the 10th May last, on the subject of the tenure of real property by foreigners in Persia,
I have the honor to state that the treaty or agreement therein mentioned, to which the
Persian Government have on various occasions appealed when endeavouring to limit the
rights of the Europeans in this country in respect to the acquisition of house and landed
property, was transmitted in translation to the Foreign Office by Sir Justin Sheil in his
despatch No. 99 of the 1st of December 1843.
Although not drawn up in the form of a treaty, this document contains 18 Articles or
Regulations which were negotiated between the Persian Minister of that day and Count
Medem, then Russian Representative at this Court, with the object of defining the measures
to be adopted for the prevention of fraudulent bankruptcies in cases in which Russian sub­
jects were concerned. These were embodied in a firman which was then issued by the
late Mahommed Shah, and Sir Justin Sheil reported his despatch No. 68 of the 22nd of
• See AitchUon'j Treaties, Volume X, Persia, June (8441 that at his demand firmans,* similar
No. XII, page 61. to that granted to the Russian Minister, had
been issued on behalf of British subjects.
In Article 5 of this agreement it is stipulated as follows :—“ Whoever wishes to mort­
gage or sell real property must give over the title deeds to the buyer, and if he does not
redeem his property at the appointed time he will forfeit it. The Divan Khaneh also,
previous to authenticating a document of sale or purchase of this nature, must ascertain
that the title deeds have been given over to the purchaser, and that the property has not
previously been mortgaged or sold to some other person."
The concluding paragraph of the supplementary article of this agreement explains
that villages are comprised in the real property to which the above article refers, and the
right to hold property of this nature having thus been conceded to foreigners, under a
Royal firman issued by the late Shah, the Persian Government can no longer be justified
in attempting to limit that tenure to the acquisition, by purchase, of dwelling houses and
warehouses, as stipulated in the 5th Article of the Treaty of Commerce of Turkomanchai.
This concession completely disposes of the statement made by the Minister for
Foaign Affairs in his letter to me of the 15th of March last, that the Persian Government
had never authorized the acquisition by foreigners of property of the nature of
villages or estates. There still remains, however, the question of the three conditions upon
which it is alleged that the right of foreigners to acquire landed property depends. In the
supplementary clause of the above agreement of 1843, *s stated that three parties have a
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