"الملف 73/7 V (D 38) وضع الكويت، والمعاهدة الأنجلو-تركية" [و‎‎٢‎٧] (٢١٦/٦٦)

165
Sir E. Grey now lias the honour to transmit a further draft, which is somewhat
amended both in form and in substance.
The changes of form are primarily due to exigencies of procedure, and are
designed to meet the fact that certain stipulations must necessarily, in the first
instance, be agreed between the Ottoman Government and the Baghdad Railway
Company or the proposed River Navigation Company, as the case may be.
The changes of substance are largely attributable to the desire of His Majesty's
Government to recall the German Government as nearly as possible to the original
proposals which they put forward, as a basis of negotiation, on the 7th May,
1913, and from which each successive counter-draft seems to have constituted a
further departure. So wide indeed has been the departure that even such import
ant conditions as those contained in section 2 (h) and the first and third sentences
of section 3 of the memorandum of that date,—which went far to constitute the
credit side of the transaction from the British standpoint,—have now, by the
wording of the German counter-draft of the 3rd November, 1913, (article 2, clause
(c), last paragraph, article 4, clauses (b) and (c), and article 5, clause (b) ), been
substantially whittled away.
His Majesty's Government reccgnise that the proposals made on the 7th May,
1913, were to some extent tentative and non-committal, and they have accordingly
not been unwilling, as the German Government are aware, to concede certain
important points in the course of negotiation in the interests of a general settle
ment ; but they are persuaded that they cannot go further in this direction with
out so weakening the conditions secured in British interests as to expose the whole
Convention to unanswerable criticism and therefore to insuperable objection.
This will be the more apparent when attention is drawn to the following consi
derations, a course which His Majesty's Government adopt in no controversial
spirit.
The principal desiderata of His Majesty's Government have from the first
been, and, as indicated in the present British counter-draft, still are, confined to
two points :—
(a) That there should be no change detrimental to British interests in what
His Majesty's Government regard as the political status qo at the head of the
Persian Gulf.
(6) That there should be no sort of discrimination against British trade on the
Baghdad Railway.
These points are largely covered by section 2 of the memorandum of the 7th
May 1913, and by the proposal, confidentially explained to Herr von Kiihlmann
on the same date, for the institution of a Riverain Commission on the Shatt-el-
Arab.
On the other hand, the desiderata of the German Government, as conceded in
the present counter-draft, ere relatively not inconsiderable
id) His Majesty's Government ag^'ee to an increase in the Turkish customs
duties to be borne largely by British trade which represents some 30 per cent,
of the total foreign imports into Turkey ; this increase is virtually a sine qua non
to the successful completion of the Baghdad Railway.
(b) His Majesty's Government undertake not to oppose the construction and
management of the proposed railway right down to Basra, the only natural
commercial terminus of such a line, by the Baghdad Railway Company. They
thereby abandon all claim to British control mthe Baghdad-Basra section : it will
be recollected that the satisfaction of this claim was at one time a principal
condition of British assent to the customs increase.
(c) His Majesty's Government agree that, in the important provinces of
Baghdad and Mosul, where British trade has long been predominant, they will
support no railway undertakings either in direct competition with the Baghdad
Railway Company's lines or with that Company's existing rights.
(d) His Majesty's Government agree not to oppose the acquisition by German
interests of 40 per cent, of the share capital allotted to Turkey in the proposed
Ottoman River Navigation Company.
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