"مذكرة تتعلق بالملاحة في نهري دجلة والفرات". [و‎‎٣‎٦] (٢٨٤/٧٢)

55
Lord Dufferin,
No. 68,
Commercial,
July 25, 1881.
Consul-General
Plowden,
Nos. 3 and i,
Commercial,
May 20 and 31,
1881.
arrangement as regards merchant vessels, the
present question referred only to barques" or
" barges " which had always been allowed to ply
under foreign flags, and whose right to do so was
expressly admitted in the arrangement. Mr.
Goschen was instructed to represent that the
Porte had left out of consideration altogether the
facts stated in this and the preceding paragraph,
and to press them to direct the local authorities
to desist from further interference with the com
pany's barges.
Representations in the sense of the instructions
given to Mr. Goschen were made to Said Pasha,
the Ottoman Prime Minister, by Lord Dufferin
(newly appointed Ambassador at Constantinople),
who took the opportunity to represent the desira
bility of opening the navigation of the Tigris and
Euphrates without restriction to British ships.
His representations on both questions were, he
said, not unfavourably received.
Meanwhile, a claim for demurrage in respect
of the detention of their barges had been put in
by the Euphrates and Tigris Steam .Navigation
Company on the ground that the prohibition of
their barges by the local authorities was an illegal
act, as under the arrangement of 1846, naviga
tion of the Euphrates and Tigris by barges and
boats owned by British subjects had been
authorised by the Porte, and the authority could
not be revoked except by notice given by the
British and Ottoman Governments. In the
course of correspondence on the subject between
Consul-General Plowden and the Vali of Bagdad,
the latter maintained that, according to the
" firman granting privilege of navigation to
the company, right to employ two steamers only
was accorded, and the towing of barges by these
steamers or <c employment of something else"
was beyond the permission and privilege. Mr.
Plowden, when reporting on the subject to
Mr. Goschen, remarked that the main question
raised was the construction and operation of the
agreement of 1846 read with article 23 of the
Capitulations and with the Commercial Treaty of
1861, and that upon the determination of this
question depended the right of British merchants
in general, and of Messrs. Lynch in particular to
navigate the rivers of Mesopotamia.
* Mr Plowden asked the vali for a copy of this firman, but
it was not produced^