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File 1283/1913 Pt 5 'MESOPOTAMIA TRADE Issue of new Trade Report' [‎109r] (213/270)

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The record is made up of 135 folios. It was created in 24 Nov 1919-27 Oct 1920. It was written in English. 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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39
'ensue, especially in regard to management, if a lighterage company were
constituted mainly in response to pressure exerted by Government and not as a
measure demanded by the interests of all companies concerned. Moreover, the
intervention of a third party, in the shape of a lightering and landing
company, between the steamship company and the consignee might lead to
complications. The shipping company is the best custodian of the cargo until
its delivery to the consignee. In all probablity, it will be best that the British
India Company should continue to provide their own lighterage plant which
they will doubtless make available, when convenient, to other British com
panies on payment, unless and until such companies decide to combine in
providing their own lighterage arrangements. The important thing is that
British shipping should have the use of an organised fleet of lighters and,
where necessary, of a launch tug, and that foreign shipping should so far as
possible be denied this advantage.
82. The special features of British trade at the ports of Bushire, Lingah
and Bandar Abbas have been described
Vide Appendix No. v. se p arate n0 t es to which reference is
invited.
British commercial interests at the remaining port of Mohammerah are to
a great extent dependent on the political situation.
83. Arabistan is a fertile country producing a considerable variety ^ of
crops, wdieat and barley being most general in their distribution. The foreign Arabistan.
trade is carried on almost exclusively through the port of Mohammerah. The
trade has grown rapidly, the imports having increased from £168,200 in
1902-03 to £812,100 in 1913-14, and the exports similarly from £81,000 to
£307,000. The United Kingdom and India possessed 75 per cent, of the
imports and 33 per cent, of the exports in the year 1913-14. Boreign interests
in Arabistan were for a long time almost entirely British and were principally
represented by the Euphrates and Tigris Steam Navigation Company, the Aims
of Messrs. Lynch Brothers, Strick, Scott and Company, agents for the Anglo-
Persian Oil Company and the Persian Bailway Syndicate, and Gray Mackenzie
and Company. The Navigation Company ran a steamer service on the Korun
between Mohammerah and Ahwaz and also maintained on behalf of the
Persian Government a steamer plying on the Upper Karun from Ahwaz to
the neighbourhood of Shustar. Messrs. Lynch constructed the Ahwaz-Ispahan
road as agents for the Bakhtiari Khans, and the Persian Bailway Syndicate
held a concession for a road from Ahwaz via Bizful, Khorremabad and
Burujird to Kum with a branch from Burujird to Ispahan. The Anglo-
Persian Oil Company, of which the commercial importance is well known,
obtained, in 1909, a concession for the lease of land and other facilities
required in connection with the transaction of their business and the Imperial
Bank of Persia opened a branch in 1910.
84. The Germans realised at an early stage of their adventure in the Gulf German
that the peculiar political and commercial conditions obtaining in Arabistan p^Ap^dix
afforded a favourable opening for attack upon British interests. In 1907 thejxo. xvii.
firm of Wonckhaus leased from the Sheikh for a period of eight years a plot of
ground for use as a store and wharf at Mohammerah, where they opened a ^,
grain purchasing agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. . In 1913 they placed a steamer with barges on the
Karun and commenced a regular service. , They hired a warehouse and whar
at Ahwaz and clearly intended to build up a large business on the Karun as ^ //
theT had done in Basrah. There seemed to be very little doubt that the hrm
meant to open agencies at Shustar and Bizful, and rumour had it that they
contemplated competing with Messrs. Lynch as transport agents on the
Ahwaz-Ispahan road. The German Minister at Tehran intimated to the
Persian Government that his Government reserved to themselves the right ot
participating in the navigation in the Upper Karun in the event of the Persian
Government according such rights to other nations. German imports at
Mohammerah rose from £3,5000 in 1906-07 to £79,800 in 1913-14 and their
exports from nil to a maximum of £22,000 in 1911-12.
German success in Mohammerah, as in other places, has been explained
on various grounds, viz., their subsidised shipping, their superior business
acumen, their systematic evasion of customs dues, the supineness ot British

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Part 5 of the volume (folios 3-137) consists almost entirely of two extensive and successive government reports about trade conditions in Mesopotamia, following the end of the First World War (1914-1918) and the development of British commercial interests in the region. The later report, printed at the Government Press, Baghdad in 1920, is entitled Report on the conditions for trade in in Mesopotamia prepared in Office of the Civil Commissioner in Baghdad . It includes a communication map which outlines the region’s road and railway network. The earlier report, printed by the Government of India at Calcutta in 1919, is entitled The Prospects of British Trade in Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. .

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135 folios
Written in
English in Latin script
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File 1283/1913 Pt 5 'MESOPOTAMIA TRADE Issue of new Trade Report' [‎109r] (213/270), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/10/368/2, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100048209174.0x000017> [accessed 28 March 2024]

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