File 3877/1912 Pt 3 ‘Turkey in Asia: oil concessions’ [‎237r] (239/372)

Sir Edward Grey to Sir L. Mallet (Constantinople).
(No. 254.) R. Foreign Office, June 6, 1914, 3’15 p.m.
HAKK1 PASHA An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. has given me unfavourable replies about (i) the additional
clause concerning irrigation works which might affect navigation on Shatt-el-Arab,
(ii) short feeder railways, (iii) Arabian lines south of latitude 31, and (iv) he has no
satisfactory information about Mesopotamian oil question, though I have impressed
upon him my earnest wish to conclude all negotiations by 1st July at the latest.
As to (i) the Ottoman Government appear to admit that navigation shall not be
interfered with on Shatt-el-Arab by irrigation works, and I have been given no
reason to explain their reluctance to embody this admission in an agreement in the
wording 1 have proposed to which I attach importance. The clause I have suggested
can do no possible harm to Ottoman interests, as the Commission itself is to be an
Ottoman institution.
As to (ii) and (iii) I am a little surprised that His Majesty’s Government should
meet with a refusal in regard to such a moderate request, when Turkey has given
such extensive concessions for railways to French and German groups. The complaint
has frequently been made by Turkey that Pritish capital avoids that country as a field
of investment; the present attitude of the Turkish Government, in refusing even an
option for short feeders to an Ottoman company in which British subjects are
interested, is perhaps the true answer to the above complaint. Our wish is to
facilitate the economic development of Turkey, and to avoid the total exclusion of
British enterprise from the regions where concessions have not yet been gi\en to
others. .
Hakki Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. says that our requests are regarded at Constantinople as fresh
conditions of our assent to the customs increase and monopolies^, this is a mis
apprehension. Point (iv) has been a condition from the first, l oint (i) we regaid
as essential to the harmonious and successful working of the Commission, and we have
proposed it in the interests of Turkey as much as in those of international commerce.
Point (ii) will be very important to the Navigation Company when irrigation is
developed and the local traffic may become some substitute for the diversion of through
traffic to the Bagdad Railway. I cannot understand why the Ottoman Government
objects to giving the option desired. Point (iii), what we desire is a piefeientia option
for British enterprise, as against foreign, on equal terms.