5. In order further to protect British interests the German Government assumed responsibility for the election to the Board of Directors of the Bagdad Railway Company of “two English members acceptable to His Britannic Majesty’s Government.” 6. Both Powers pledged themselves unreservedly to observe the principle of the economic open door in the operation of railway, ports, irrigation, and navigation enterprises in Turkey-in-Asia. 7. Great Britain recognized German interests in the irrigation of the Cilician plain, and Germany recognized British interests in the irrigation of the lower Mesopotamian valley. 8. Both signatory Powers took cognizance of and agreed to observe the Anglo-Turkish agreement of July, 1913, conferring important navigation rights in Mesopotamia upon British subjects; the agreements between Lord Inchcape and the Bagdad Railway Company, regarding navigation and port and terminal facilities on the Tigris and Euphrates; the agreement between the Smyrna-Aidin Railway and the Bagdad Railway regarding important extensions to the former line. 9. Great Britain and Germany agreed to “use their good offices with the Imperial Ottoman Government to the end that the Shatt-el-Arab shall be brought into a satisfactory navigable condition and permanently maintained in such condition, so that ocean-going ships may always be assured of free and easy access to the port of Basra, and, further, that the shipping on the Shatt-el-Arab shall always be open to ocean-going ships under the same conditions to ships of all nations, regardless of the nationality of the ships or their cargo.” 10. It was agreed, finally, that any differences of opinion resulting from the convention or its appended documents should be subject to arbitration. If the signatory Powers were unable to agree upon an arbitrator or a special court of arbitration, the case was to be submitted to the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague. From both the German and the British points of view the foregoing convention was an admirable solution of the Turkish problem. Had the agreement been reached ten years earlier, it might have avoided estrangement between the two nations. Had it come at almost any other time than on the eve of the Great War, it would have been a powerful stimulus to an Anglo-German _rapprochement_.