THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 1948.
~ WHO'S NEXT TO BE LIBERATED FROM FREEDOM ;COMRADE?“
Сорь
All COMM
THE MINISTER IN
TH
OUR MIDST
By “Candidus”?-
REPULSE BAY HOTEL
THE presence In Hongkong of a Minister of EASTER ATTRACTIONS!
State for Colonial is, as far as can gather, without precedent, It augurs well, Whether or not a high-ranking offlela! from the Colonial Office over sot foot in the Colony during its first seventy-five years, I cannot any, but I cannot remember a visit from the heirarchy of the Colonial Omce during my quarter of a con- tury's residence here. It is no fault of Hong- kong's if, hitherto, the Secretary of State for the Colonies has always appeared as a sort of legendary figure-too narrow-minded, too dia- interested, too frustrated by the red tape of British governmental procedure, to get down to exploring the fundamental requirements of Colonial administration, in the light of the peculiar and particular problems of each colony,
Those of us who have passed backwards and forwards between this "far-flung" little colony and the ruling heart of the Empire have, from time to time, received the cold douche of pained surprise to discover that Government officials, or the men in the street for that matter, seem to posscas but little knowledge of Hongkong- and yet, Hongkong fills a particularly important role. I am not speaking from the mercenary
Saturday, 27th March SPECIAL DINNER DANCE
Sunday,
28th March.
-
Monday, 29th March
9. p.m. to 1 a.m.
Special Lunch & Cold Buffet
12 noon to 3 p.m.
TEN DANCE
4 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Spacial Lunch & Cold Buffot
12 noon to 3 p.m.
TEA DANCE
4 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Reservations at the Reception Office
aspect of trade, although it will be admitted that The Hongkong & Shanghai Hotels, Ltd.
THIS POOR LITTLE RICH COUNTRY
RAN is the world's poor little rich country. During a two- week plane. train and taxi tour from the Persian Gulf, in the south, to the Russian border. I found the people gracious and hospitable, with a rich heritage, potential prosperity, and yet living in mediaeval poverty.,
Tran's wealth is largely in its oll supplies. Geologists estimate
that
are
Its mountainous desert terrain the second biggest pools in the world. But a more seven tenths of one per- cent have now been tapped.
There is nothing potential, how- ever, about Iran's
poverty. It is
real. It is acute and li is widespread.
TABRIZ
· ASTARA Urmia PERSIA-
TEHERAN
TO PERSIAN
FULF
A two-week plane, train and taxi tour through Iran-from the Persian Gulf to the Russian border- with Robert C. Miller, United Press Staff Correspondent
exit.
this small island has a special significance and importance in this respect. As a shop window for commerce-and tho com- merce of all-nations at that- its importance is obvious. At the moment, however, I am Only a veteran of the Persian thinking of it as a shop window Guff Command can appreciate that for the display of culture. scien- gol mine after a five-mile taxi tific achievement; the further- ride in mollen 110 degree, tem-ance of art, and, above all, an perature-so hot the trip was made example of good government, with car windows rolled up to shut law, order and individual fres but the hent. It took the usual cum dom, without distinction as to shaw plus considerable detective work to find the visa signer's house, Crossing the Shall-ul-Arab requir- ed perfect timing the river was jammed with freighters, junks, lug-
fate.
of any one of which would have
race or creed.
visitors [rom
other countries are always loud
kers, and stern-wheelers, the wake DISTINGUISHED swamped the glorified canoe cau- ; in their praise of British achieve- tiously making its way to the far shore.
ment, as symbolised so convincingly In our hearts, we by Hongkong. know that the rising of a great city on what was a century ago but a the integrity and industry of British barren, treeless isle, has been due to
Teheran becomes a distinct possibl- lity instead of a distant mirage once you board the Teheran express at Ahwaz, Twenty-three hours travel through 177 tunnels, many of which go into the mountains north
were merchants-and in later years, alo and come out bending south, required to get me to Teheran. The by the presence of foreign traders line is one of the greatest examples who have embraced the opportunity of railway engineering ever attempt of becoming citizens under one fing.
the Iranians Many of the Iranians in the north, Fom the company's docks gasoline, ed, and was built by
their kerosene, fuel and lubricating oils
without a
a cent of foreign capital. It Indeed, Hongkong presents an object Shoes are unavaliable to the however, have lost much of
the unity of nations, majority of the people, and elothes fear of the Russians after having are pumped into tankers for shlp- tops a 7,000 foot summit at Firuzkun lesson are patched until the patches patch lived under the Red-sponsored "de- ment to the United Kingdom and the and drops into Teheran at the rate mingling in a spirit of communal
of 270 feet per mile. Life is moerntle" regime for a year. From Middle East.
friendship Ing the patches wear out.
and healthy competition lived under the most primitive cong the Soviets attempted to set up
December 1945 to
'Sooled, red-eyed and thoroughly December 1946,
Dividends paid to stockholders appreciative of American air condl with each other. What more can we ditions both in the rural and urban
Azerbaijan have never fallen below five percent tioning, the expedition hit Teheran, ask? "Independent" arens. Not one large city hos il
still 500 miles from the border. admittedly annually and average between, There was system, province. completely closed sewerage and even In Teheron, the capital, ruthless liquidation of any opposition and 20 percent, plus substantial cash
the to the Democrats, but the open quiters dispose of most of capital's waste.
an
state in
15
the Azerbaijanian discovered that
de bonuses. average
Of the three reûneries in Iran--all
On To Tabriz
Lord Listowel will doubtless take the opportunity of appraising Hong- kong for Its true worth to the Em- THERE is,iri-weekly train servicepire in particular and the world in
to the frontier, and besides we just hand investigation of local problems, missed a train. Occasionally Iranian
as revealed within a few days, is Airways filles a plane north to Tabriz, but only if the company pilot and worth years of so-called administra- lost their Inclination along the line haps he will understand that it is the crew feel so inclined. Somebody tion thousands of miles away. Per-
and the "scheduled" Right was con-
i no fault of Hongkong's if the Colonial celled after 12 unhappy passengers
Charcoal furnishes what heat the new government was an eflictent, ag Awned by Anglo-Iranian-Abadau's north, but it only goes half way general. May he realise that first-
gressive organisation which carried is the largest, and is capable of out reforms that had been long refining more than 40,000 tons of promised but undelivered by
the crude oil per day, Iranian government.
The present concession enjoyed by the British expires in 1993, and it gives an 80 cents (U.S.) a ton on all ail reined and sold plus a healthy slice of
excess proāts.
people get during the severe win ters, and even an early vintage motor 101r car la generally unknown luxury.
Agriculture, upon which eight out of ten Iranians depend for their exis- tence, is still in the oxen and bent- stlek-plough era. A few of
the cities have electricity. telephones, taxis and some paved streets.
lation only one during the entire trip.
but
Kover-cleaning
IVING standards were raised
Azerbaijan In 20
are
a off.
The high medical require-
Whispered Threats
Again threatening to revise the exist-
foreign companies in Mexico, but as
of Reza Shah Paholvi, whose 20-year oil lubricates the Empire's life the threats are still in the whispered
J
D
we have always felt
The
It only ran once a week. Need I Secretary of State as a nebulous, add that "It just left yesterday."
disinterested, cramping figurehead who knows as little about us, as we know about him.
"Ah Key"
LINCOLN
Ford MERCURY
NOW AVAILABLE
MERCURY TOWN
SEDANS
$13,000.00
FORD V-8 SUPERS
IMMEDIATE
DELIVERY
$11,600.00
INSTALMENTS
ACCEPTED
HARPER & SHEA, LTD.
SHELL HOUSE, H.K.
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FIT
KELLY
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Only Promises
anong the musses, and even the The company's greatest problem you would probably have a tough most vehement anti-Communists has been the shortage of labour, and spent the morning awaiting the take-Office has seemed to cast a shadow-- search fing a
a shadow of indifference and igno- thousand steel agreed that Pislavari's Democrats ne- it has developed Abadan Into ploughs amongst the 10,000,000 popu- complished more in a year than the model company town which
Four of the most courageous and once-when offers tractor-Iranian-government-knd-donų- for the Perdans unheard of benefits-and-determined passengers hired a taxi entitled-to-look-for-n-bright--ray-of-
security if they are willing to work for the 400 mile junket to Tabriz Today the border province is safe here, where the temperatures bubble Out of sheer desperation, I joined guidance and understanding.
spectre of somewhat sinister minis- Haves And Havo-Notsy back in the government corral, up to around 110 and 120 during the them.
The next 10 hours were and the area is being purged of pro- summer.
spent ters is, not
We of our creating. Communist elements, Police TRAN is divided into the haves and military forces
and menta rule out most of the appil- jammed three in the front seat of an would rather think of ministering
car. The maintaining cants, but there is an ever increasing ancient moter
rallway the have-nots; there is practically "peace and quiet" in the area, no middle class. Unfortunately many the situation
and percentage of Iranians who are be problem confronted the expedition ministers in the truest sense of the term. We do not like the legend of the haves are government officials control.
is completely under ing employed as technicians and in again of Tabriz. Yes, there was
train to the border town of Julfa, bul||which conjures up the vision of a whose Buicks and gardened homes
skilled and semi-skilled jobs. came out of public funds, for politics. The old inefficiency of the govern- -If you are successful--is a most tent has returned too, Teheran is prosperous career, and graft and cor- again promising the Azerbaijanians
Thus bus service was problemati- ruption are acknowledged facta.
better roads, more, schools, improved IKE the Arabinn-American oil cal. There used to be a service, but Practically every iranian transac- living conditions and new social re-
company. In Saudi Arabia, Anglo since the border activity, nobody tlon, from beating a traffic fine to forms. So far they have only been Iranian is pretty much at the mercy seemed anxious to travel north, $0 Lord Listowel will doubtless ob- letting of contracts, is oiled with promises, and the people ure begin of the Iranian government, which is it had been temporarily suspended.
serve the same challenge to the bribes. The
A fellow American, Brock Havron freedom of men in the chaotic Far hasing to wonder. promised a general
One look at Abadan, with its or- ing contract and incrcaso the of Chatanooga, Tennessee, produced and "elimination of corruption
by derly rows of storage tanks, its forest
East as is seen in Europe today, He royalties and taxes. Fifteen years sunny ray of hope. He had to go to making graft impossible within six of smoking chimneya and huge gaso- ago the government decided to nul- Julfa, and said we might ride along will notice that Hongkong cares not
months." The citizens wonder.. no cracking units sprouting out of lify the British company's contract in his new saloon.
for politics in any party sense, pre- Heaviest millstone around the the desert on the most because of Anglo-Iranian's alleged So in a blaze of sloty and riding vided that the political creed chosen
- country's neck is which stand why
refusal to pay
Tho
seats, the United Press ar- exceeds 95 percent. The
Britain will always education important word in the Persian lan- dictatorial Shat forced the company rived at the Russian border. It was by the people system; like most other cultural acti- guloge.
to accept a new contract, giving the a sort of consolation prize, for the Jealously
cherish and guard the vities, is in the dark ages. Schools On this island adjoining the Per-
stake government a greater share of the Iranian army captain at the border freedom of the humblest subject. are orchid rare, and the teachers slan Gult is Britain's biggest
strong protests, garrison explained sympathetically We like to feel that just as God exist on starvation wages.
In Middle East-the gigantic Anglo- profits. Despite Iras made its greatest advance Iranian refinery, 5214 percent owned company officials fear the plant may that nothing of interest had occur-
guve man eyes and ears, so he gave during the benevolent dictatorship by the British Government-whose face a fate similar to that befalling red around Julfa recently.
him a voice-and we want the as- surance and promise that Hongkong shall stand for ever as an example, tight refining oil and watching do- THE ghosts that haunt the river until our neighbouring nations shall town of Khoramshahr wear bless the day when they appreciate the Iran-Russian border.
khaki and the patch of the Pérsian the true worth of freedom of voice lace out of its lethargle state. He ROM this plant, one of the world's Introduced western civilisation
The Russian-Iranian border is not Gulf Command.
and action for all then. caine practically every exactly inaccessible, but don't ever 20th century methods which accom- drop of aviation gas for British try to make it in a hurry
Americans funnelled supplies to Russia through Khoramshahr's plished near miracles. Since the and American planes in the Middle To get there from India. It Shah's forced exile in 1941, Iran has East during the war. It is also the seven men dying a BOAC Sunder- summer heat even ronsts the files to took muddy-watered delta port, where the lost much of its gains, and failed to keystone of Iran's economy, as its land to complete the first lap to Iraq, death. During the war years some continue its climb upward.
taxes and roynities furnish
the One heavily overloaded gondola and 30,000 Americans, most of them covernment with from 10 to 20 per three puddlers got me from Iraq to negroes, lived here and worked here. cent of its total revenue, besides em- Iran, two Bapping-fendered taxis Many of them died here, too, while vious. The main plea is to ensure playing some 30,000 workers.
linked up the gondola with the supplying the Red armies hundred that the British Government ́shall, IL is the country's number one
Teheran express and another weak, of miles to the north. Abadan also Iran's biggest tired hack finally made it from problem child. The Iranians lact
make itself fully conversant with the headache. ns. the Russians, claiming Teheran to Tabriz. Friendship pro led, dusty ronds,
Today Khoramshahr, with its rut-
Its the centidence to attempt develop that Iran must remain impartial in duced a new car at Tabriz. to finish in-the-wall shops, adobe houses and Hongkong an even brighter star to.
beggars, its hole-
which will make forign exploitation. The only nation granting foreigners the right to ex- the 2,500 mile trek. to the border. Interested in the northern areas is leges in northern Iran along the guards and a dozen roustabouts, all the diesel freighters are still churnment is favoured-f China has any teeming river traine, has just about guide those who are stumbling into ploit its oll, demand similar privi- Twelve porters, eight baggage forgotten the Americans. Some of disaster and chaos 1f an experi- Russia. The British are contented Soviet border. with their holdings in southern and
eager to fleece the "American" con- ing up the sand along Iran's "high- western, Iran, and American capital Nothing in American oil centres is tributed to the success of the opera ways," but except for the trucks, real objection to having a friendly will never risk an investment so more, modern than the Abadan ro tions in return.
tion, and demanded heavy contribu- worn out GI clothing that is cherish British example of sanity in ad- cloro to the hem
HE CHARGED TOO LITTLE of the iron cur finery, and its effelency of operationi
ed by the natives and a peculiar new ministration on her doorstep-rather tain.
Russin is Iran's public enemy num in the world.
equals or betters most of the others
word "an key" which has been add than deprive the world of such a ed to the Perslan Inngunge, there's
Argentino pollee recently had to The highest profit found so far was ber one. Whether fancled or real,
nothing in town to indicate that it shining example I would not object slow up their campaign against made. by a man in Cordoba, who most Iranians live in fear of a Ned The plant was begun in 1912 and TRAN, which used to be Persia in the was once run over with Americans. to seeing the Colony administered shops which charged too much to måde a profit of 14,500 percent on Army invasion, and what little is the oldest in Iran. It now covers history book, is far north of the Dates and oll
dominate and Brain
protected by what
sales of confiruction steel. in effect look for a shopkooper accused of energy the country possesses is ab- thousands of acres, and is pumps regular travel routes, and after you Khoramshahr economy.
But complaints from a shoo whole- sorbed in the cat and mouse, game of have a capacity greater thon the city disembark at Sinbad; the sailor's old Outside the town, the vast installa- would be a United Nations Govern-charging too lit keeping it free from Soviet domina- of
aler brought up the other case. He London. Crudo oll Bows by home town of Basra, in Iraq, you are tions that composed the Persian Gulfment. As I have said before, the
Enforcement of price control laws ald a man starting a new shoo tion Government. omelats maintain gravity from wells 145 miles away in on your own for the next thousand Command are warped board ghost Colony's population in the commer- that Russia is determined to include the interior. Many have production milles.
Is left to the police: From 10 to 30 bought US$100,000 worth of 'boots their country, in the USSI as the records of from 5,000 to 14,000 bar-
merchants are Aned every day and and shoes from him on credit. When camps that are slowly being digested cini sento is essentially composed of Getting out of fraq "requires Soviets want an outlet to the Porslan rels per day, compared to the Ameri- oxit visa valid only with the scrawl- has crased dozens of other proceding along with
an by the weather and the desert that all nations and all, creeds, who get
their shops closed two, to five days. he tried to collect, he found the man a healthy and sincere
Mostly it is for such things as "selling had sold them for less than cost and Gulf plus the oil and mineral re can daily average of three to five ing of the Iraq! official appointed to civilisations.
regard for each other-the world's | non-alcoholle drinks with a profit of had disappeared with the money →→ sign exit visas. No signature, no
(Contlaued on Paga, 11)
one example of unity and accord, | 050 percent,” to quote ono Sentence.! Associated Press,
reign picked the
bootstraps, and,
country up by Its fine.
well-aimed kicks in the seats
by vigorous and
Biggest Headache
their ragged pants, forced the popu-
Problem Child
and
ment themselves, yet they fear
sources.
largest,
barrels.
stage, the British are merely sitting
velopments, particularly those along TH
t
Wo Hit Teheran
.
Do not propose to trot out the many problems and needs of this
outpost. They must be all too ab- GILMAN & COMPANY LTD.
various
factors
MOTOR DEPARTMENT TELEPHONES: 56789 & 58800..