File 3142/1903 'Hedjaz Railway' [‎31v] (69/488)

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it should have been modified by the Board of. Health and the modifications approved by
the Porte. It only remains therefore for the Board to draw up a new “ Beglement, and
this should be based upon the purely sanitary clauses of the Paris Sanitary Convention
of 1903, and submitted to the Porte for its acceptance. „
With regard to the fourth point, I have merely expressed a general “ voeu that
Turkey may be brought into line with the other Powers by accepting that Convention.
In recent meetings of Delegates, as also in the conversation with the above-nameu
members of the Young Turk party, the opinion was very generally expressed that it
was highly desirable that a new International Sanitary Conference be held in
Constantinople in order to draw up a new Convention acceptable to Turkey. I have
been careful to make it clearly understood, when this proposal has been brought
forward, that I was quite unable to state whether His Majesty’s Government would
regard such a proposal with favour ; that, when the holding of such a Conference was
suggested to deal with the question of the sanitary defence of the Hedjaz Bail way, they
did not regard the proposal with favour ; and that, in any case, I felt sure they would
not consent to the reopening of important questions already decided, or to the putting
into the melting-pot the Paris Convention of 1903—an instrument which represents an
agreement come to after very great difficulty, and as the result of mutual concessions
on all sides. I have also added that, in my opinion, even if the holding of such a
Conference in Constantinople w T ere agreed to, it would be useless to hold it for some
considerable time—until the new Government in Turkey has taken on a more definite
form than at present, and until its attitude towards international questions in general
and international sanitary questions in particular is more clearly defined. In the
meantime there would be a vast amount of preliminary work to be done, and there are
innumerable reforms which the Board of Health and Mixed Commission can themselves
introduce in the sanitary service here without further delay.
I shall probably have occasion to recur to this question in a later despatch ; but I
venture now to express strong doubt as to whether the holding, in Constantinople or
elsewhere, of a Conference in which all the Powers of the world were represented,
would be the best means of arriving at the desired end, that is to say, the production
of a Convention that Turkey would unreservedly accept. A very large portion of the
existing Conventions deal—more particularly in connection with the Moslem pilgrimage
—with measures to be applied on Turkish soil and by r i urkish officials ; and I gather
that Turkey rather resents the idea of all the Powers of the world—five-sixths of whom
have no interest in the pilgrimage—dictating to her the measures to be applied in this
connection. She does not, I gather, object to the Board of Health imposing such
measures, as she is strongly represented on it, and as the foreign members exist there
by virtue of the fact that their Governments contribute (through their respective
navigations, pilgrims. &c.) to the expenses involved. The suggestion has been made—
not yet as a definite proposal, but rather as the result of discussions in recent meetings
of the foreign Delegates on the Board—that a Conference might usefully be held to
deal solely with the question of the sanitary control of the pilgrimage, and composed
solely of* Bepresentatives of the Powers directly interested in the pilgrimage. Those
Powers may be quickly named ; they are : Great Britain (and India), Turkey (and
Egypt), Persia, Holland, Bussia, and France. There is certainly need for revising the
existing Begulations in connection with the pilgrimage (in connection, for instance, with
the control of pilgrims from the north, and with the sanitary defence of the Hedjaz
Bail way, &c.), neither of which is dealt with by existing Conventions. Should this
suggestion ever take the form of a definite proposal, it would presumably involve the
removal of the clauses dealing with the pilgrimage from the existing Paris Convention,
and their incorporation (with the required modifications) in a new Convention signed
solely bv the above-named Powers. There would seem, at first sight, to be not a little
to be said in favour of such a course.
Another point which has prevented Turkey from accepting the Paris Convention
is the proposal to modify the composition of the Constantinople Board of Health. It
must be doubted whether she will ever consent to the reduction of the number of
Turkish members of the Board from eight to four. In the unlikely event of her ever doing
so, she would probably demand that powers which contribute practically nothing to the
Board’s funds, such as Spain, Sweden, Belgium, the United States, should cease to be
represented on the Board.
A third point which appears to have interfered with Turkey’s acceptance of the
Paris Convention is that contained in Article 174 of the Convention, under which a
Consular Commission would be created in Constantinople to deal with the application
of fines for infringement of the Sanitary Begulations. It seems likely that Turkey will