agreed that two British citizens should be elected to the Board of Directors of the Bagdad Railway Company.
4. Exclusive rights of navigation by steamers and barges on the Tigris, Euphrates, and Shatt-el-Arab were granted to the Ottoman River Navigation Company, to be formed by Baron Inchcape, chairman of the Peninsular and Oriental and the British India Steam Navigation Companies. The Navigation Company, in which Turkish capital was to be offered a fifty per cent participation, was to have wide powers for the improvement and regulation of all navigable streams in Mesopotamia, in co-operation with a commission to be appointed by the Ottoman Government. Lord Inchcape's concession was for a period of sixty years, with optional renewals for ten-year periods.
5. It was agreed, however, that the Bagdad Railway and Inchcape concessions were without prejudice to the rights of the Lynch Brothers, which were specifically reaffirmed. The Lynch Brothers, in fact, were granted the privilege of adding another steamer to their equipment, with the single restriction that it fly the Turkish flag.
6. The British Government agreed that no navigation rights of its nationals would be construed as permitting interference with the development of Mesopotamia by irrigation, and the Ottoman Government guaranteed that no irrigation works would be permitted to divert navigable streams from their course.
7. In return for these, and other, assurances and concessions, Great Britain consented to support an increase of 4% in the customs duties of the Ottoman Empire.
The terms of this settlement were hailed by the English
press as an admirable solution of the Mesopotamian
imbroglio. The Times of May 17, 1913, for example,
said: "Great Britain will have no further reason for looking
askance at a project which should do much for the
development of Asiatic Turkey. Our interests will be
safeguarded; we have always said that a terminus at Basra
offered no menace to specific British interests in the Persian
Gulf; and the German promoters will be free to
complete their great project with the benevolent acquiescence
of Great Britain. There will be no official participation
in the construction of the line, but there will also
be nothing to deter British capital from being associated
