884.8461 Tsana Dam/378
The President of the J. G. White Engineering Corporation (Gano Dunn) to the Chief of the Division of Near Eastern Affairs (Murray)
Dear Mr. Murray: I want to acknowledge and thank you for your letter of January 21st, containing paraphrase of telegram from Mr. Jardine in Cairo to Mr. Southard.
[Page 872]About the same time we received similar information from Mr. Lardner in Cairo.
According to our understanding the British Government never attempted to have the Egyptian Government pay the whole cost of the Tsana construction but only to pay such share of the cost as was represented by the ratio in which the water benefits would be divided between Egypt and the Sudan.
A situation which the Egyptians may be losing sight of is the long standing disinclination of the Emperor to permit the Lake Tsana waters to be used at all. If thru other channels he should get his road from Addis Ababa to the Lake, both the Egyptians and the British might have to wait another long period of years before the Emperor and his officers might be willing to encounter the anti-British and anti-foreign prejudice against operations at the Lake.
The survey contained in our report was a reconnaissance survey and of course not adequate for construction, and the move to start final surveys would undoubtedly have as its result a holding of the status quo in respect to the Emperor’s present willingness until the project as a whole could be put thru.
Again we greatly appreciate your good offices.
Sincerely yours,