File 2764/1904 Pt 2 'Baghdad Railway: General negotiations 1908-10.' [‎110r] (228/799)

[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty’s Government ]
BAGDAD RAILWAY.
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SECRET.
( 3743 )
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[January 28. J
No. 1.
Memorandum respecting the Bagdad Railway, 1909.
Contents.
Situation in spring-, ] 909 ..
Proposed Tigris Valley Railway ..
Proposed Bagdad-Mediterranean Railway ** ”
Mesopotamian Railways Committee Report ..
Separation of question of Railway Concessions from that of
increase
Turkish customs increase ..
)) r ' iHcocks’ Railway and Lynch Navigation Concession
Or. L winner s invitation of British participation
Negotiations with Germany, 1909 ..
v „ Russia, 1909 .. ..
i> „ France, 1909
customs
Section 1,
V
Page
1
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2
3
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5
6
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10
To Rifaat Pash;
November 13,
1908.
„ ^ s P r i n g of 1909 the Bagdad Bailway question was briefly in the
toll owing state:— J
t Company had secured by their Conyention of
June 1908 with the Turkish Government a lien on the surplus of the ceded
revenues to furnish the kilometric guarantees by which the railway was to
be continued beyond Boulgourlou. It did not appear likely that any
suiplus would be available in the near future unless the ceded revenues
were augmented by an increase of the Turkish customs, nor was it probable
Turkish Government would be induced without the greatest
climciilty to pledge other revenues for the benefit of the railway.
T 11 ® Turkish Ambassador in London had in November 1908 intimated
to His Majesty s Government the Porte’s desire to raise the Turkish customs
duties from 11 per cent, to 15 per cent., and he had been informed that the
assent ot His Majesty’s Government to that course would only he given if
t ley received an undertaking that the proceeds of the increase were not
devoted to any existing enterprise. This undertaking, Bifaat Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. said,
Ins Government was prepared to give.
The questions of the customs increase and of the Bagdad Bailway had
become indissolubly bound up together owing to the lien on the surplus
of the ceded revenues secured by the Bagdad Bailway Company. When,
therefore, it became evident that the Turkish Government would shortly
apply officially for the consent of His Majesty’s Government to the increase
of the duties from 11 per cent, to 15 per cent., and as there appeared to be
no intention on the part of Germany to invite British participation in any
form in the railway, it became a question whether it would not be necessary
to use the customs increase as a lever with which, if possible, to bring about
a solution of the Bagdad Bailway question satisfactory to His Majesty’s
Government. The first idea was tiiat failing the attainment of a satisfactory
solution, such as participation in the Bagdad Bail way Concession by securing Tigris Valley
m Biitish hands the construction and management of the Gulf section of Railway,
the railway, His^ Majesty’s Government should only accept the proposed
customs increase if they should receive a Concession for a railway from the
1 eisian Gulf to Bussorah and Bagdad along the valley of the Tigris, with the
option to prolong it along the valley of the Euphrates to Tripoli or some
other port on the Mediterranean ; the construction of such a line to be
carried out without any Turkish kilometric guarantee. This condition was
[2577 ee—I] B