§ 41. Mr. RHYS DAVIES (for Colonel WEDGWOOD)asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what steps he is taking in regard to the projected railway to connect the two ends of the Bagdad-Alexandretta Railway, in view of its damaging effect on the Haifa pipeline and the prospects of a future Haifa-Bagdad Railway?
§ Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLEI presume that the right hon. Gentleman has in mind a recent Press report to the effect that the British Oil Development Company are proposing to build a railway in Iraq to link up the area of their concession with the existing railway from Aleppo. If so, he will no doubt have observed that the secretary of the company subsequently declared—in a statement which appeared in the "Times" of 20th June—the information given in the Press message to be premature and inaccurate. I am not in a position to supplement or comment upon the information which has appeared in the Press.