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File 3531/1905 Pt 2 ‘Mesopotamia:- Navigation of Tigris + Euphrates; Euphrates + Tigris Steam Navigation Co; Hamidieh Co.’ [‎15r] (29/630)

The record is made up of 1 item (315 folios). It was created in 1905-1911. It was written in English and French. The original is part of the British Library: India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .

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1 1. -Qis Document is t i ie Property of H is Britannic Majesty s G-o^ernment.]
I AM directed by Secretary Sir E. Grey to acknowledge the receipt of your letter
of the 23rd ultimo relative to the temporary permission accorded to the Euphrates and
Tigris Steam Navigation Company by the Turkish Government to tow a second barge
to clear off the accumulation of merchandise, and to the reluctance of the Vali of
Bussorah to carry out the instructions of the Turkish Ministry of Public Works with
respect to the permission granted to the company to run their reserve steamer.
1 am to inform you, in reply, that a copy of your letter has been forwarded to His
Majesty’s Ambassador at Constantinople, who has been instructed to remind the
Sublime Porte of the steps already taken by His Majesty’s Embassy to obtain from the
Turkish Government a renewal of the permit granted in the month of May last for
your company’s steamers to tow a second barge on account of the fresh accumulation
of cargo at Bussorah, and to press for a favourable reply.
As regards the question of the reserve steamer, it has been suggested to Sir G.
Lowther that he should enquire of Mr. Whittall whether it is true that the Minister of
Public Works sent the telegraphic instructions to the Vali of Bagdad mentioned in
your letter, and whether he (Mr. Whittall) considers it advisable that his Excellency
should take any action in the matter at this stage.
■' ASIATIC TURKEY AND ARABIA.
[September 2.]
CONFIDENTIAL.
Section 1.
[33284]
No. 1.
Sir,
Foreign Office to the Euphrates and Tigris Steam ^Navigation Company.
3, Salters’ Hall Court, Cannon Street, London,
September 2, 1911.
I am, &c.
LOUIS MALLET.
[2180 b—1]

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Part 2 of the volume is comprised of copies of correspondence and other papers relating to the proposed merger of the Turkish-Government-operated Hamidieh Steamship Company and the British company, the Euphrates and Tigris Steam Navigation Company (also referred to as the Lynch Company, ETSNC). The item’s principal correspondents are: representatives of the Euphrates and Tigris Steam Navigation Company (hereafter ETSNC, chiefly the Company Secretary, H W Maclean), the Director of the ETSNC (Henry Finnis Blosse Lynch); the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Sir Edward Grey); the Private Secretary to Sir Edward Grey (Louis Du Pan Mallet); the British Ambassador at Constantinople [Istanbul] (Sir Gerard Augustus Lowther); the Political Resident A senior ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul General) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Residency. for Turkish Arabia A term used by the British officials to describe the territory roughly corresponding to, but not coextensive with, modern-day Iraq under the control of the Ottoman Empire. (Captain John Gordon Lorimer).

The majority of the correspondence is dated 1909 to 1910, and focuses on the controversial nature of the proposed merger of the two steamship operators, which bore more of the character of a takeover by the British concern of its Turkish counterpart. While many Turkish commentators understood the prospect of a likely British monopoly of navigation rights on the Tigris and Euphrates in Irak [Iraq], the British Government feared having their commercial activities in Iraq diminished, possibly to the advantage of competing German commercial interests. The controversy, which acquired the sobriquet the ‘Affaire Lynch’ in the British press, precipitated a local popular uprising in Iraq, and in part led to the resignation of the Grand Vizier Hüseyin Hilmi Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. , who had supported the merger, in December 1909. The correspondence is thus split between the contractual negotiations over the navigation concession, and the political consequences of its controversy, including cuttings of articles published in the press in Britain ( The Times , The Morning Post ) and copies of articles published in Ottoman Turkey ( Tanin , Truth ).

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1 item (315 folios)
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English and French in Latin script
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File 3531/1905 Pt 2 ‘Mesopotamia:- Navigation of Tigris + Euphrates; Euphrates + Tigris Steam Navigation Co; Hamidieh Co.’ [‎15r] (29/630), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/10/88/2, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100031751616.0x000027> [accessed 29 March 2024]

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