File 3846/1910 'Mesopotamia: Baghdad affairs. Miscellaneous.' [‎232r] (472/536)

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[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty’s Government.!
ASIATIC TURKEY AND ARABIA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[August 19.]
Section 1.
[30195]
No. 1 .
Messrs. Lynch Brothers to Foreign Office.—(Received August 19.)
Sir,
3, Salter's Hall Court, Cannon Street, London,
August 18, 1910.
WITH reference to our letter of the 13th instant, we have the honour to enclose
herewith copy of a letter from our agent in Bagdad to His Majesty’s consul-general in
Bagdad, dated the 18th July last, on the subject of the action of the municipal
authorities in regard to our premises there.
We have, &c.
LYNCH BROTHERS.
Enclosure in No. 1.
Mr. Parry to Cansul-General Lorimer.
Sir, Bagdad, July 18, 1910.
WE have the honour to inform you that a notice has been presented to us to-day
by the municipal authorities, stating that the wall and shops abutting on the main road
and running from our offices to the south boundary of our property are to be demolished
on the plea that they are in a dangerous condition.
2. We maintain the walls are not in a dangerous condition. The low building is
not over 12 feet high, and of sound construction.
3. On the notice being presented to us, we interviewed the chief municipal officer,
and he informed us that he had received his orders from the vilayat, and that he would
not be able to abstain from carrying them out at once.
4. The notice has only been shown to us and not served in the ordinary manner.
5. It would appear that the allegation of the walls being in a dangerous condition
has been made with the object of destroying them in order to widen the road without
paying compensation.
6 . The dangers of accepting a notice of this sort without vigorous protest are
manifest for the following reasons :—
(a.) We have no proof that the destruction of the shops and walls cannot be used
in connection with the large and permanent building on our premises.
(b.) We have no objection to giving a portion of our frontage for the purpose of
widening the road, provided, of course, that we are justly recompensed foi the loss we
have to suffer, but we strongly object to the arbitrary manner in which the work is to
Ido carried out
(c.) As the permanent building on our property extends for some distance along
the road, we consider it is due to us to know the intention of the authorities with regard
to the whole road-widening scheme, at any rate, as far as regaids the poition m which
we are interested. Moreover, we expect to have a leasonable period of notice to enable
us to make the necessary arrangements to provide other quarters for the tenants who
occupy the shops and for the construction of other offices if the whole of the buildings
are to be cut through. .
7. We solicit your assistance to support us in resisting this arbitrary order, not
with a spirit of obstruction, but m the hope that some consideiation will be taken of the
difficulties we have to contend, and as a protest against the attempt to use the pietext
that the walls are dangerous with other objects.