Page:Turkey, the great powers, and the Bagdad Railway.djvu/275

 Conversations were resumed in July, 1911, when the Turkish minister in London solicited of the Foreign Office a further statement of the conditions upon which British objections to the Bagdad Railway might be waived. He was informed that English acquiescence might be forthcoming if the Bagdad-Basra section of the railway were constructed by a company in which British, French, German, Russian, and Turkish capital should share equally; if adequate guarantees were obtained regarding the protection of British imperial interests in southern Mesopotamia and Persia; if English capital were granted important navigation rights on the Shatt-el-Arab, including complete exemption of British ships and British goods from Ottoman tolls; if safeguards were provided against discriminatory and differential tariffs on the Bagdad system.

These proposals met with only partial acceptance by the Ottoman Government. Turkey was willing to internationalize the southernmost sections of the Bagdad Railway, but under no circumstances would she permit Russian participation in an enterprise which was so vital to the defence of the Sultan's Empire. Turkey was prepared to discuss with England measures for the protection of legitimate British interests in the Middle East, provided there be no further infringement on the sovereign rights of the Sultan in southern Mesopotamia. Turkey agreed that the principle of the economic open door should be scrupulously observed throughout the Ottoman Empire; therefore she could not agree to discriminatory treatment in favor of British commerce on the Shatt-el-Arab, the Tigris, and the Euphrates. Upon these conditions the Ottoman minister at London was authorized to continue negotiations in the most friendly spirit.[21]

The Agadir crisis, which threatened war between England and Germany, and the Tripolitan War, which diverted