Page 549 - PERSIAN 5 1905_1911

POLITICAL RE8IDENCY FOR 1910. 68

charges made against Ahmed Khan (British Indian subject) of inciting
Bakhtiaris at the Oil Field to shoot Mr. Williams, then Assistant Fields
Manager, and Dr. Turnbull. The finding of the enquiry was “ not guilty.”
The terms of the guarding Agreement, concluded in 1909, by the Anglo-
Persian Oil Company’s own representative, have proved unsatisfactory, of
which fact the Managing Agents informed His Majesty’s Consul, towards the
end of the year under report, and intimated that they wished a revision of the
terms of the said Agreement.
The attitude of the Bakhtiari Khans as a whole remains friendly towards
the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, but not so that of the Lurs in the vicinity of
the Oil Company’s works in the Bakhtiari country. The land belonging to
these Lurs is occupied by the Company’s works, but the owners receive little
or no redress for their land so rendered useless to them, and are not likely to
either, even when the land compensation is paid to the Bakhtiari Khans;
with the only natural result that they are inimical towards the Company,
which to the Lur is the visible means of his trouble. The main fault then
will of course lie at the door of the Bakhtiari Khans should they not compen­
sate their ryots, but a certain amount, in His Majesty’s Consul’s opinion,
lies at the Company’s door, or rather at the door of the Company’s Agents on
the spot. For this reason, in cases where standing crops have been damaged,
arbitrary and roughshod methods have been put in force with the owners with '
regard to compensation for same, leaving them discontented, and with a sense
of injustice and wrong done to them, when, with the exercise of a little tact
and diplomacy, no more need have been paid in compensation and the owner
sent away satisfied.
A further point which has a bearing on the Lurs’ attitude towards the
Anglo-Persian Oil Company, is that they (the Lurs), subsequent on the
Nationalist movement in Persia, are out of hand, and have not their former
fear of their Chiefs, and their power to control them.
Political.—During the year under report relations between His Majes­
ty’s Consulate and that of the Nether­
Foreign Interests and Activities.
lands and the Russian Consular Agency
have been most friendly.
Up to the close of the j’ear no further local developments had taken place
with regard to the Dutch option for irrigation works from the Karun.
Commercial.—The firm of ter Meulen, Gratama and Company, (Holland-
Persia Trading Company) are still the only local rivals of Messrs. Lynch
Brothers. They have undertaken a small amount of the carrying trade be­
tween Ahwaz and Ispahan, chiefly that of tobacco for the Ottoman Regie
Company (downward loads), but it is an open secret that they find it difficult
to make both ends meet, last year’s business being scarcely bettered by tEat

The question of water-rights, which arose in the end of 1909, subsequent
r-iht-i-Kuh. on tbe oomPletiou by the Wali of the
“ Nizamabad Canal, which takes off from
the Ab-i-Gunjian Chamra at Dumb Qatamun, thus lessening the water which
reaches Mandali, remained acute with the Turks during the spring of 1910,
but gradually subsided leaving tbe Wali the master of the situation.
Throughout the year Amanullah Khan, Fatb-us-Sultaneh, the eldest son
of the Wali, has alternately been in open rebellion against, and at peace with,
his father. Having been in rebellion early in tbe year, he made hispeace on
being given a certain tract of land to administer. Finding this move success­
ful, in the summer Amanullah Khan again rebelled, his brother, Ghulam Shah
♦uha£; Sirdar Ashraf, making common cause with him; they demanded that
the Wall should divide the Pusht-i-Kuh territories into three parts one each
for the recalcitrant sons and one for himself. These demands the Wali refused
to accede to and prepared to mobilize his forces to coerce his recalcitrant sons,
whereupon Amanullah Khan fled and took refuge with the Biinawand tribe
and entered into another agreement with Daud Khan, Kalhor, who at that
time was in rebellion against the Persian Government.