PERSIAN ROMANCE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19374, 24 December 1932, Page 17

PERSIAN ROMANCE

BRITAIN NEGLECTED FRIENDLY SHEIK. LONDON, December 15. But for the mistaken policy of the British Government toward her former octogenarian ally, Sir Khazal Khan, the trouble over the Persian oil leases would never have arisen, says the Mohammedan correspondent of the “Daily Mail.” Once, when young. Sir Khazal, a paramount chief, discovered his Vizier to be too much interested in a girl whom he loved, and he summoned the Vizier to his presence. He praised his services and promised him “a jewelled casket containing what he desired most.” Next day Sir Khazal Khan sent to the Vizier a casket containing the girl’s head. The Sheik possessed the power of life or death over much of the territory where the Anglo-Persian Company operated. He was intensely proBritish. and granted the leases on favourable terms and protected British interests and employees, to whom he granted subsidies. During the war he assisted operations in Mesopotamia and ensured the safety of the pipe lines in South Persia. But Britain, after the War, supported the present Shah, who, objecting to the Sheik’s local omnipotence. determined to destroy him, and Britain, although she had given the Sheik a knighthood, failed to support him.

The Sheik fled, and eventually was decoyed to Teheran by offers of friendship, and became, virtually, a prisoner The Shah was thus enabled to consolidate his power and pinprick Britain, this culminating in the cancelling of the concession.