'File 73/7 I (D 19) Status of Kuwait & Baghdad Railway, and Anglo-Turkish negotiations 1911' [‎151v] (336/631)

t Iwl been arrived at between tbe
in Constautinople. ^f^dMs^the S^^jgillcL
been ^extended'as tar as Atiun Karahissar on the Gemau^oute), t ^ ^
had niade up their mind to have a share m the Koxneh ^ was to keep .or
part in the Turoo -German n ff ' ; e ' nt ' 0 f the capital in tbe new
P .. . ... ultimately'W AmWdor. _M. Constans, had «
in Jfans. un inv . v Bagdad Uailwav wuuin --.7 -
declared, however, that FreDcl. ^ ^ allowed to take part
possible if two conditions were tnltiilul. (1) • , ' t tion the working, and the
fn the enterprise, (2) the French must « tll e ^ lu f Ct th( . fav oured foreign
direction of the enterprise "a part strictly equal to that
nation.
P articipation of French finance.
There is of course no
French participati^:! ^ountedto 80^.
although the Council of Administration contained 11 OeniM . . ^ • - company
4 Turks, 2 Swiss, I Austrian, and 1 Italian. This is not all. I he bagdad con,pan)
the Deutsche Bauk, with all his power. However, , „ . . , u .
somewhat unfortunate inclination towards compromise, the brench Foreign Otiice
maintained M. Delcasse's decision with great firmness. The opportunity ior nig
came in December, 1909. A few months before a syndicate had been formed m blasus
with the object of constructing the section of the Bagdad line which extends from
Bulgurlu to El Hehf; it had been promoted by the Ottoman Bank in oidei t'< !
effect to its participation in the railway, and included four French members. Questioned
in the French Chamber on the 27th December,, M. Pichon emphatically denied that the
French Government had withdrawn its opposition to the scheme. To the two conditions
mentioned by his predecessor, M. Delcasse, he now added a third one : England ought
to be allowed to participate in the enterprise as well as Russia and France. On our
side, he said, " we have always held the view that, if a call were to be made upon our
financial credit, we ought, as far as possible, to act in the sense of the inter-
nationalisation of the line, and this view T we continue to hold. After repeating that
he made M. Delcasse's declarations his own, the Minister for Foreign Affairs added :
"We continue to watch the negotiations which are being conducted on this subject.
The House may rest assured that I have not failed to confer with the British
Government, as well as with the Russian Government, on this question, and I have not
failed to discuss it with the Germans when they mentioned the matter to me. In a
word, we have not ceased to look for the possible settlement of this important question
in an equitable co-operation on the part of the various States concerned in the enterprise
on the basis of a share for ourselves equal to that of the most favoured anion- the
states." Lastly, M. Pichon declared on the 16th January, 191L, that even after the
Potsdam negotiations he did not intend to depart W the policy already defined
Tbs means that the Bagdad Railway Company-unless M. Cruppi should take a
dtfeient line—is still to be excluded from the Paris Bourse until further notice
Has that negative policy come to stay ? Will M. Delcasse's declarations hold eood
?. which might put an end to the
^T*u d ?f^ ck .l.,? ad France , 0nl 7 It her own interests "there' is not much
msisted in
' is indeed
Sffisr - tea
doubt that she would soon come back to her oolicv of tl a ,/TV 18 not muo1
looking Simply for a proper compensation in some other part of^rrkey "l
S, ^ -.PoKtical reins tlSch ove
was iScST- 1 V ^ ^ ^rprise
m Turkey amounted in 1902 to about 80.000,