"مذكرة تتعلق بالملاحة في نهري دجلة والفرات". [و‎‎٣‎٩] (٢٨٤/٧٨)

61
Consul-General
Plowden,
June 24, 1883.
To Musurus Pasha,
July 5, 1883.
Parliamentary
question and
answer
(Mr. A. Arnold),
July 12, 1883.
Mr. Wyndham,
No. 193,
Commercial,
July 11, 1883.
Consul-General Plowden, in a memorandum
dated the 2ith J une, argued that the company's
right to run steamers on the Tigris—and on the
Euphrates also—was derived from the arrange
ment of 1846, and that the firmans of 1834 and
1841 were granted to the British Government
and not to any individual or firm, and related
only to the Euphrates. He pointed out the mis
take made in 1864 in allowing to pass unrefuted
the fundamental argument of the Porte that the
company's rights were based on these firmans,
and suggested that the opportunity had arrived
to restate the case and place those rights on their
proper basis.
The British case was set forth in a note
addressed to the Turkish Ambassador, on the 5th
July (Appendix XV[II), wherein British rights
of navigation on the Tigris and Euphrates were
based on the arrangement of 1846, recorded in
the vizierial letter of the 2nd April of that year,
and confirmed by the vizierial letter of the
15th January, 1861,
Shortly after the note of the 5th July was
communicated to Musurus Pasha, the Under-
Secretary of State for Eoreign Affairs stated in
the House of Commons that Her Majesty's
Government had protested to the Turkish Am
bassador in London, and through Her Majesty's
charge d'affaires at Constantinople, against the
action of the Vali of Bagdad in forcibly stopping
the traffic of the company's steamers on the
Tigris, and had reserved all rights against the
Porte for the consequences. " The right to navi
gate the Tigris," he remarked, " was not granted
by any firman, but has been exercised under an
arrangement obtained by Sir Stratford Canning
in 1846, and confirmed by vizierial letters ad
dressed to the Vali of Bagdad in 1846, 1861, and
1862."
Mr. Wyndham, reporting the representations
made by him against the Turkish proceedings
respecting the company's steamers, stated that he
had drawn the special attention of the Porte to
the arrangement of 1846, and had furnished
them with copies of the vizierial letters of the
2nd April, 1846, and the 15th January, 1861,
and had pointed out (through the embassy drago
man) that, according to the terms of those
vizierial letters, there was no limitation as to the
number or size of the vessels or boats under the
British flag which had received permission to
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