File 4030/1913 Pt 1 'Baghdad Railway: Negotiations; Navigation of the Tigris and Euphrates' [‎237r] (277/280)

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[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty’s Government.]
"S
ASIATIC TURKEY AND ARABIA.
[September 3.]
CONFIDENTIAL.
Section 4.
[40688]
No. 1.
Board of Trade to Foreign Office—(Received September 3.)
^Confidential) Board of Trade, September 2, 1913,
I AM directed by the Board of Trade to acknowledge the receipt of your letters
of the 16th and 23rd August relative to a request from the Euphrates and ligris
Steam Navigation Company that an exception from the monopoly to be conferred upon
the new Ottoman Navigation Company should be made m favour of the downward
carriage of general cargo by the steamers of the Railway Transport Company.
In replv, I am to suggest that no definite reply should be returned to the request
until further progress has been made with the settlement of the relations between the
Euphrates and Tigris Steam Navigation Company and Lord Inchcape s new company.
The company might, however, be asked to state whether they had applied to the
Turkish Government for permission for the Railway Transport steamers to be
freighted with general cargo on their downward voyages, and, if so with what result.
In the meantime, the Board would suggest that a copy of the letter from the
Euphrates and Tigris Steam Navigation Company might be sent confidentially to
Lord Inchcape, with the observations that no reply has yet been returned to it, Lit
that Sir E. Grey considers that there is some force m the request, and that it will be
somewhat difficult to refuse it altogether, unless, of course, a satisfactory working
agreement be arrived at between the new company and the Euphrates and fig is
Steam Navigation Company, which will make it unnecessary to deal with the question
now raised It might be added that, as Sir E. Grey is extremely reluctant to give c y
fadlitie' to a company largely representative of German interests to engage in the
^ fvorlA nn the Tigris he is the more desirous that a speedy settlement
fho^d i pfss bT bT hid" the new company and the Euphrates and
Tigris’Steam Navigation Company of a nature which would enable him to return a
n ^1i:ToirfhHlhhre U io a hd 1 r t fo 0 r n Sir E. Grey’s confidential information, that,
I he JJOc f proposals for a settlement between the two companies
whatever be the P r e ®hC hlv aie ofoiinion that no countenance should be given to
now under consideration they ^ gteam Navigation Company, at all
ivhrwRhouChy strict limitations as regards period, number of vessels, and rates
of freight. j anl) <y c .
GEO. X STANLEY.
Copy to India
23 SEP 1913