"It is also understood that the said petroleum company shall be under permanent British control." Should a private company be constituted, "the native Government or other native interests shall be allowed, if they so desire, to participate up to a maximum of 20 per cent. of the share capital of the said company, the French contributing one-half of the first 10 per cent. of such native participation." With this system, as M. Delaisi has observed, France would subscribe a third of the capital, upon which condition she would have a right to a quarter of the oil produced.
If Britain consented to give France this share of the Mesopotamian oil, when, according to the document which Sir Edward Grey had got M. Paul Cambon to sign on May 15, 1915, she was under no obligation to give anything at all—the more so because France had given up Mosul without previously laying down any conditions about the oil[51]—it was because the present carried with it as a counterpart privileges and exemptions granted by France to the Anglo-Persian, which will have access, if it so desires, to the Mediterranean by pipe-lines across Syria. It will even be able to build railways, refineries, and reservoirs there, and France is pledged to guarantee the security of its installations in her zone without levying any tolls. No export or transit dues are to be levied upon the oil which it sends through French ports.
Finally, while the British Government only opens its "Crown Colonies" to French penetration, and in these restricts the favour to the "territories of the Crown,"[52] with the further condition that the concessions in question are not already the subject of negotiations initiated by private interests, the French Government threw open the whole of its great colonial empire, and undertook to facilitate the acquisition of concessions by "any Franco-British group or groups of good standing." It simply called attention to the fact that Parliament had resolved that, in companies formed for the exploitation of colonial deposits, French interests should be represented in the proportion of 67 per cent. But the French Parliament was under an illusion: in order to have control of a business, it is not sufficient to hold one-half or three-quarters of the shares. Every one knows that, in France, shareholders rarely attend the general meetings which appoint the directors. Still less will they undertake the journey to London, where the head office will almost always be located. They do not even go to The Hague; this explains why they have no influence in the Royal Dutch, although they hold more than half its capital. The last increase of capital of the Royal Dutch was voted by forty-four persons, representing 218 votes. People did not allow their private arrangements to be disturbed by an event which might have notable results upon the world-future of this trust: not one share in 1,110 was represented.
However, Britain did not wait till the San Remo Agreement was signed before grasping the oil-fields of the French colonial empire: she gained possession of them while the War was being fought!
FOOTNOTES:
[45] These facts are still too recent and too controversial for me to be able to make any more detailed reference to them.
[46] Agreement signed in London, October 27, 1920. Cp. chap. xi, A State-subsidized Company (the Anglo-Persian).
[47] Policy of the "Auxiliary Greek Empire."
[48] Revue Universelle, October 15, 1920, Le Page, L'Impérialisme du Pétrole.
[49] The Standard Oil obtained the grant of seven concessions there, to the south of the Dead Sea, which the British are preventing it from exploiting.