Business: Afghan Oil

The oil in which the late King Nadir Khan of Afghanistan boiled an opposing general and all his staff (TIME, Sept. 2, 1929) was castor oil, a primitive product of the country. Mineral oil is too rare in Afghanistan to be used as an ointment of royal justice. Last week in Berlin, how ever, handsome Foreign Minister Faiz Mohammed Khan signed an agreement which may eventually make pastoral, wild Afghanistan one of the major oil producing regions of the East. To Inland Exploration Co., controlled by Seaboard Oil of Delaware, Faiz granted exploration...