"سكة حديد بغداد" [و‎‎٢‎٠] (١٢٩/٣٩)

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, • 10. We are, therefore, confronted with a project which, if carried out
under German auspices, will undoubtedly inflict grave injury upon our com
merce, and must ultimately destroy our political influence in Southern Persia,
and in the deltas of the Tigris and the Euphrates. We have the strongest
grounds for preventing the control of a railway from Baghdad to the Gulf from
falling wholly under the control of a Power which regards its own interests
exclusively, and which well understands the manipulation of railway rates.
17. The main obstacle to the completion of the railway is financial.
Already, as pointed out in paragraph 1, diliiculties have arisen in regard to the
kilometric guarantee for the two sections beyond Eregli. If these difficulties
are now overcome, others of a similar nature will probably arise later, since the
country to be traversed is for a long distance unproductive and inhabited
by unruly tribes who would require to be controlled. The prolongation of the
line through this country could be justified on economic grounds only, if the
section from Baghdad to the Gulf is certain to be completed. It is from the
profits which this section may be expected to secure that the loss on the non
paying portions of the line must, in great measure, be recouped.
18. It would be unwise to minimise the financial difficulties with which
the German Company is confronted, or to assume that the line cannot be
completed without British assistance. There seems, however, to be a prob
ability that we shall again be approached with a view to securing our co
operation, and it appears essential, therefore, that we should consider the
conditions on which such co-operation might be practicable.
19. A railway connecting two seas must usually be an advantage to this
country, whatever may be its status and ownership. In the present case,
however, British interests require—
(a) that freight rates discriminating against British goods shall be im
possible ; and
(b) that our political influence in Southern Persia and the delta of the
Tigris and Euphrates shall not suffer at the hands of a foreign Railway Com
pany controlling communication between the Gulf and Baghdad, and conse
quently able to undertake the irrigation works, by the agency of which a great
development of the region of the lower Tigris and the Euphrates can be brought
about.
20. Under Article 9 of the Convention, it is provided that the Railway
Company is to have a monopoly of the provision of the materials required for
the line, and is to be granted the privilege of transporting its agents and
workmen on the waterways of the Shatt-el-Arab, the Tigris, and the Euphrates.
This privilege is to last ‘‘only during the period of construction ”, and is to be
“ under the surveillance of the Minister of Marine It is, however, extremely
doubtful whether the use of steamers, river wharves, buildings, improvements
in navigation, &c., made at considerable expense for the purposes of railway
construction, would suddenly lapse when the line was completed.
21. The Sultan is already taking part in water transport on the Tigris,
and his steamers, the management of which has greatly improved, compete with
the limited means permitted to the British firm of Lynch Brothers. The
probability is, therefore, that water transportation, with any devlopments
arising in the process of railway construction, may tend to pass largely to the
control of the Sultan, wdiose private purse would benefit. If this view r is
correct, an attempt to develop navigation in British hands as a scheme com
peting with a German railway would probably fail.
22. The conditions of co-operation which would best satisfy British
interests appear to be—
(a) The construction of the Baghdad-Persian Gulf section of the line,
together with the contemplated branch from Baghdad to the Persian frontier,
by British capital under British direction.
(b) The retention of this section under British management.
(c) Pooling the general traffic under a working arrangement, giving Great
Britain adequate representation on the directorate.