[19] _Specifications_, Articles 24–25. It might be added that the Company loyally observed this restriction; C. W. Whittall & Co., largest British merchants in Turkey so testified. _Anatolia_, p. 103; von Gwinner, _loc. cit._, p. 1090. Sir Edward Grey said no complaints of discrimination against British goods had come to the attention of the Foreign Office. _Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons,_ 5 Series, Volume 53 (1913), pp. 392–393. [20] _Diplomatic and Consular Reports_, No. 3140, p. 30. [21] Consider the dedication of Lord Curzon’s _Persia and the Persian Question_: “To the officials, military and civil, in India, whose hands uphold the noblest fabric yet reared by the genius of a conquering nation, I dedicate this work, the unworthy tribute of the pen to a cause, which by justice or the sword, it is their high mission to defend, but whose ultimate safeguard is the spirit of the British people.” [22] Woolf, _op. cit._, p. 24. [23] Regarding the Anglo-Russian rivalry in the Middle East, _cf._ Rose, _op. cit._, Part II, Chapters I-IV; Curzon, _Persia and the Persian Question_, Volume II, Chapter XXX. [24] See a statement by Lord Lansdowne, in the House of Lords, _Parliamentary Debates_, fourth series, Volume 121 (1903), p. 1347, and a statement by Lord Curzon, _ibid._, fifth series, Volume 7 (1911), pp. 583–587; also Curzon, _Persia and the Persian Question_, Volume II, Chapter XXVII. The strategic importance of the Persian Gulf to the British Empire was realized by foreign observers, as well as by English statesmen. Writing in 1902, Admiral A. T. Mahan, an American, said, “The control of the Persian Gulf by a foreign state of considerable naval potentiality, a ‘fleet in being’ there based upon a strong military port, would reproduce the relations of Cadiz, Gibraltar, and Malta to the Mediterranean. It would flank all the routes to the farther East, to India, and to Australia, the last two actually internal to the Empire, regarded as a political system; and although at present Great Britain unquestionably could check such a fleet, so placed, by a division of her own, it might well require a detachment large enough to affect seriously the general strength of her naval position.” A. T. Mahan, _Retrospect and Prospect_ (New York, 1902), pp. 224–225. Lord Curzon is said to have remarked that he “would not hesitate to indict as a traitor to his country any British minister who would consent to a foreign Power establishing a station on the Persian Gulf.” A. J. Dunn, _British Interests in the Persian Gulf_ (London, 1907), p. 7. See also _The Persian Gulf_ (No. 76 of the Foreign Office Handbooks); _Handbook of Arabia_, Volume I (Admiralty Intelligence Division, London, 1916); Lovat Fraser, _India under Curzon and After_ (London, 1911).